Not enough superlatives for this collection from Ted Chiang - feast for a hungry brain that didn't know it was even hungry. Chiang applies the precise reasoning of the best hard sci fit and the melancholy reflections of the best humanist sci fi to the angst of religion and evolutionary intelligence with rigorous prismatic perspective. While the thought experiment has fallen by the wayside in recent years as a backlash to the speculative literary or the opportunistically filmic, Chiang's resuscitation of private obsessiveness in science fiction is a welcome return to the notion that natural inquiry should by necessity inform our approach to the mysteries in life.

The film, Arrival, is a wonderful adaptation of Story of Your Life - a titular tale of first contact but also a reflection on the ways which communication and knowledge have the power to transform. Overly atmospheric but meditatively beautiful, Arrival leans hard into the personal and elides the science behind the premise. Such slippery dramatic editing tunes the sympathies of a broad audience to the inherent triumph of the heart or the mystical deus ex machina of the plot. However, the central strength of Chiang's story is a rationalist's emotional transcendence - the idea that the details of scientific resolution matter, that the hard work of gaining knowledge in order to truly comprehend and break through, is something that no greater power can gift us.

Lexicon was recommended by a white haired Neal Stephenson fan at an airport bookstore after being queried for a new Science Fiction read. Tightly constructed, Lexicon is actually a thriller bolstered by fast paced action writing tempered with just enough social/media commentary and academic hypertext to feel like more than just popcorn fluff without getting bogged down by theory. Centering around the student of a Hogwarts-esque school (if Hogwarts specialized in a nefarious mind control curriculum for blossoming con artists), the story cross-cuts between a mysterious amnesiac, and an enigmatic bounty hunter. The prose is better than expected and often emotionally resonant in ways that contributes to our understanding of the characters within the framework of an unexpected romance or coming of age. Meanwhile, the premise hovers just in the background - context at large - degrading communication in the the age of mass media and how the widespread dissemination of personal information is used as a performative, manipulative, semiotic attack on self agency. The ties between the two are tenuous, as the heady stuff is to the plot, but overall a fun, cohesive enough, ride