The nine stories offered to us in Exhalation by Ted Chiang, perhaps the greatest living science fiction writer, do not unfold in any distant galaxy, hundreds of years from now. In fact, his world is barely different from ours. With an ostensibly relaxed philosophical disposition and leveraging technologies a step or two more advanced than our own, the multi-award-winning Chiang explores in remarkable depth familiar questions that have preoccupied humanity for centuries: Can we really travel through time? Do humans truly have free will? How do memory and recollection affect who we are? What creatures are considered living? Or even, what would happen if we could observe alternative versions of our lives?

Chiang's literary genius understands better than anyone the impact of science and technology on human nature and reflects on it in a way that leaves no one unmoved. Effortlessly transcending the boundaries between literary genres, Exhalation challenges, questions, and inspires, while simultaneously offering a genuine reading pleasure.