{"id":4691,"date":"2022-06-29T01:52:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-29T05:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/?p=4691"},"modified":"2021-08-05T18:01:14","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T22:01:14","slug":"audiobook-review-exhalation-by-ted-chiang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/2022\/06\/audiobook-review-exhalation-by-ted-chiang.html","title":{"rendered":"Audiobook Review : Exhalation by Ted Chiang"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/a>\"\"\n\n\n\n
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Title : Exhalation
Author : Frederik Backman
Narrators : Ted Chiang, Eduardo Ballerini, Dominic Hoffman, Amy Landon
Genre : Sci-fi
Publisher : Random House Audio
Listening Length : 11 hours 22 minutes
Rating : 3\/5
Narrator Rating : 3.5\/5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I picked this audiobook of 9 separate tales because they were rooted in sci-fi. And they are, but they also attempt to answer philosophical questions. While I did like some of the stories (the 1st and the 2nd), they are heavy on the science and light on character development and emotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since I was expecting sci-fi, I was not quite prepared for the first story “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” which is situated in Cairo and Baghdad of the medieval times. That one read like a pleasant fable – like one from Aesop – albeit one with a time-travel gate. Still the prose seemed to flow, the events were interesting and the characters engaging. I listened on in delight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second story is “Exhalation” and is about a robot population which notices a dissonant note in their orderly and precise existence and analyze it to come upon a surprising and dispiriting revelation. The third tale “What’s expected of Us” is short, and finished before I had time to grasp it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fourth story “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” was long and about developing and growing virtual, AI-based animals. It tried to use the “animal growing” to make points about bringing up children. This one read like a litany of events. There was no character development so I didn’t really care about the humans in it. The fifth “Dacey’s Patent automatic Nanny” read like a layman-friendly scientific research paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the concepts in these stories are interesting – also why I completed the book instead of giving it up halfway – these would have been better presented as essays. As stories, these, except for the 1st 2, are rather thin on the “story” aspect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Title : ExhalationAuthor : Frederik BackmanNarrators : Ted Chiang, Eduardo Ballerini, Dominic Hoffman, Amy LandonGenre : Sci-fiPublisher : Random House AudioListening Length : 11 hours 22 minutesRating : 3\/5Narrator Rating : 3.5\/5 I picked this audiobook of 9 separate tales because they were rooted in sci-fi. And they are, but they also attempt to answer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[158,72,86,3,64,169,89,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-158","category-3_star_rating","category-audiobook","category-books","category-imaginative","category-philosophical","category-random_house","category-sci-fi"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Title : ExhalationAuthor : Frederik BackmanNarrators : Ted Chiang, Eduardo Ballerini, Dominic Hoffman, Amy LandonGenre : Sci-fiPublisher : Random House AudioListening Length : 11 hours 22 minutesRating : 3\/5Narrator Rating : 3.5\/5 I picked this audiobook of 9 separate tales because they were rooted in sci-fi. And they are, but they also attempt to answer…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4691"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4789,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4691\/revisions\/4789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}