
Exhalation
Stories
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Narrated by:
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Edoardo Ballerini
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Dominic Hoffman
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Amy Landon
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Ted Chiang
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By:
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Ted Chiang
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • Nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories—two published for the very first time—all from the mind of the incomparable author of Stories of Your Life and Others
Tackling some of humanity’s oldest questions along with new quandaries only he could imagine, these stories will change the way you think, feel, and see the world. They are Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic, revelatory.
Ted Chiang tackles some of humanity’s oldest questions along with new quandaries only he could imagine.
In “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” a portal through time forces a fabric seller in ancient Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and second chances. In “Exhalation,” an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications that are literally universal. In “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom,” the ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radically new examination of the concepts of choice and free will.
©2019 Ted Chiang (P)2019 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Overall
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The future is here...in an adventure of cosmic dimension. In December, 1999, a multinational team journeys out to the stars, to the most awesome encounter in human history. Who - or what - is out there? In Cosmos, Carl Sagan explained the universe. In Contact, he predicts its future - and our own.
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Technical problems with this recording - skips...
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Critic reviews
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORK TIMES • THE WASHINGTON POST • TIME MAGAZINE • NPR • ESQUIRE • VOX • THE A.V. CLUB • THE GUARDIAN • FINANCIAL TIMES • THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
“Lean, relentless, and incandescent.” —Colson Whitehead
“Illuminating, thrilling. . . . Like such eclectic predecessors as Philip K. Dick, James Tiptree, Jr., Jorge Luis Borges, Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, Haruki Murakami, China Miéville, and Kazuo Ishiguro, Chiang has explored conventional tropes of science fiction in highly unconventional ways. . . . Individual sentences possess the windowpane transparency that George Orwell advocated as a prose ideal. . . . It is both a surprise and a relief to encounter fiction that explores counterfactual worlds like these with . . . ardor and earnestness. . . . Human curiosity, for Chiang, is a nearly divine engine of progress.”—Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker
“Delirious and exciting as hell . . . [Chiang’s] stories brim with wonder and horror, spectacle and mundanity, philosophy and religion. Tapping into a range of speculative traditions, from pulp and fantasy to the rigorous scientific accuracy of hard sci-fi and the popcorn thrills of soft sci-fi, his work has a profound richness.” —Stephen Kearse, The Nation

Editor's Pick
From the Author who brought us Arrival
"Ted Chiang’s stories are incomparable. They are mathematical and uniquely scientific, but not hard to understand, and they never fail to deliver on an emotional level. His most famous work—Stories of Your Life and Others (which contains the story that was the basis for the movie Arrival)—made me cry when I first heard it. That's something I can’t say for the movie, even though Denis Villeneuve is my favorite director of all time. In my mind, Chiang is a modern day Italo Calvino: an empath who can simultaneously tap into the perspectives of totally alien or inanimate entities, and deliver absolutely mind-blowing and borderline-mystical plots and concepts. His reputation and writing certainly deserve a top-notch cast of narrators, and Exhalation uses them to full effect. Offering an experience that feels as ancient as it does futuristic—as if life was one big circle."
—Michael D., Audible Editor
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- By: Sequoia Nagamatsu
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Brian Nishii, Keisuke Hoashi, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy.
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Should come with a sadness warning
- By KJH on 03-16-22
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The End of Eternity
- By: Isaac Asimov
- Narrated by: Jon Lindstrom
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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The Eternals, the ruling class of the Future, had the power of life and death not only over every human being but over the very centuries into which they were born. Past, Present, and Future could be created or destroyed at will. You had to be special to become an Eternal. Andrew Harlan was special. Until he committed the one unforgivable sin - falling in love. Eternals weren’t supposed to have feelings. But Andrew could not deny the sensations that were struggling within him. He knew he could not keep this secret forever. And so he began to plan his escape.
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Amazing story. Audio quality could be better.
- By NM on 09-02-20
By: Isaac Asimov
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Exhalación [Exhalation]
- By: Ted Chiang, Rubén Martín Giráldez - translator
- Narrated by: Toni Molias
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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¿Qué pasaría si un inocente juguete dinamitara nuestra noción de libre albedrío? ¿Y si fuera posible ponerse en contacto con versiones de nosotros mismos en otras líneas temporales? Si creáramos mascotas virtuales provistas de una inteligencia artificial que les permitiera aprender como si fueran niños humanos, ¿qué clase de compromiso ético deberíamos asumir con su educación y su futuro? ¿Y qué ocurriría si pudiéramos visionar cualquier episodio de nuestra vida tal como sucedió, sin el matiz afectivo y el sesgo interpretativo de lo que llamamos «recuerdos»?
By: Ted Chiang, and others
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Diaspora
- By: Greg Egan
- Narrated by: Adam Epstein
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Behold the orphan. Born into a world that is not a world. A digital being grown from a mind seed, a genderless cybernetic citizen in a vast network of probes, satellites, and servers knitting the Solar System into one scape, from the outer planets to the fiery surface of the Sun. Since the Introdus in the 21st century, humanity has reconfigured itself drastically. Most chose immortality, joining the polises to become conscious software.
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Fabulous Story, Disappointing Performance
- By Ben on 12-08-13
By: Greg Egan
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The Future of Another Timeline
- By: Annalee Newitz
- Narrated by: Laura Nichol
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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1992: After a confrontation at a riot grrl concert, 17-year-old Beth finds herself in a car with her friend's abusive boyfriend dead in the backseat, agreeing to help her friends hide the body. This murder sets Beth and her friends on a path of escalating violence and vengeance as they realize many other young women in the world need protecting too. 2022: Determined to use time travel to create a safer future, Tess has dedicated her life to visiting key moments in history and fighting for change. But rewriting the timeline isn’t as simple as editing one person or event.
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Not for me
- By mix579 on 11-02-19
By: Annalee Newitz
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Anathem
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, Tavia Gilbert, William Dufris, and others
- Length: 32 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Fraa Erasmus is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the "Saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities, and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs, bloody violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community.
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I love Neal, but Good lord... ugh!
- By SpiderGrrl on 10-08-19
By: Neal Stephenson
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Way Station
- By: Clifford D. Simak
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In this Hugo Award-winning classic, Enoch Wallace is an ageless hermit, striding across his untended farm as he had done for over a century, still carrying the gun with which he had served in the Civil War. But what his neighbors must never know is that, inside his unchanging house, he meets with a host of unimaginable friends from the farthest stars.
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A very special novel that will inspire you.
- By Noe on 08-08-10
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The Arrival
- A Military Sci-Fi Alien Invasion Series
- By: Joshua T. Calvert
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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On New Year's eve 2022, unknown flying objects appear over Europe and ignite an inferno of violence among themselves. Debris from one of the spacecraft falls on Athens, turning the city center into a smoking crater. The destroyed remnant of the former metropolis is declared a restricted zone by NATO forces and sealed off. Amid the few survivors struggling for food, medicine, and clean water, Nikos takes care of his girlfriend, Maria, only to soon find out that to avert a creeping death, there is only one way out of the hell of Athens—the wreckage of the alien ship.
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Started slow. Good finish
- By Tim on 05-06-22
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And Then I Woke Up
- By: Malcolm Devlin
- Narrated by: Graham Mack
- Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In a world reeling from an unusual plague, monsters lurk in the streets while terrified survivors arm themselves and roam the countryside in packs. Or perhaps something very different is happening. When a disease affects how reality is perceived, it's hard to be certain of anything . . . Spence is one of the "cured" living at the Ironside rehabilitation facility. Haunted by guilt, he refuses to face the changed world until a new inmate challenges him to help her find her old crew. But if he can't tell the truth from the lies, how will he know if he has earned the redemption he dreams of?
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twist
- By Michelle on 09-22-23
By: Malcolm Devlin
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The Diamond Age
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Jennifer Wiltsie
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Neal Stephenson, "the hottest science fiction writer in America", takes science fiction to dazzling new levels. The Diamond Age is a stunning tale; set in 21st-century Shanghai, it is the story of what happens what a state-of-the-art interactive device falls into the hands of a street urchin named Nell. Her life, and the entire future of humanity, is about to be decoded and reprogrammed.
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The rock could use a bit more polishing
- By Tango on 05-19-13
By: Neal Stephenson
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Area X
- The Southern Reach Trilogy - Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance
- By: Jeff VanderMeer
- Narrated by: Carolyn McCormick, Bronson Pinchot, Xe Sands
- Length: 26 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Dive into the mysteries of Area X, a remote and lush terrain that has inexplicably sequestered itself from civilization. Twelve expeditions have gone in, and not a single member of any of them has remained unchanged by the experience - for better or worse.
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Book 1: intriguing! Book 2: Zzzz. Book 3: WTF!
- By KR on 02-03-15
By: Jeff VanderMeer
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Friday Black
- By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
- Narrated by: Corey Allen, Carra Patterson
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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A piercingly raw debut story collection from a young writer with an explosive voice; a treacherously surreal and, at times, heartbreakingly satirical look at what it's like to be young and black in America.
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More than violent
- By Jane L Ades on 12-30-18
Spectacular! (seriously)
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Everyone should.... no. NEEDS TO read this!
Though provoking
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Excellent, well thought out storyteller
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deep thoughts, stories that stay with you
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The voices for the robot kids are really terrible. Kept taking me out of the story. Maybe just read this one with your eyes.
great writing, delivery could be better
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A Master in Speculative Fiction
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I enjoyed this book.
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A beautiful blend of storytelling, literature, science fiction, and moral philosophy. Like snippets of Twilight Zone episodes or Black Mirror. Showing us what our world or lives could be like, and what we should strive for; or at least, be wary of jumping to conclusions and the consequences of our actions.
Take a chance
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Still... So many wonderful stories!
Mostly great stories
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Very interesting content, just okay writing...
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