Ted Chiang

What I like most about Arrival (which, believe it or not, I still haven’t managed to see) is that it’s stimulating interest in Ted Chiang’s work. People who haven’t read him are in for a real treat. (The book you want is Stories of Your Life and Others.) Now Chiang has gotten that rare thing for a science fiction writer: a profile in The New Yorker, in which his legendary reticence — he’s laconic to the point of monosyllaby — is on full display. (I’ve met him: he’s like that in real life.)