Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Thursday, July 23, 2020--San Antonio

Exhalation by Ted Chiang took me longer to complete than most novels because I became bored so often.  Even though it has been highly recognized with very positive reviews, there were times when I almost quit reading it.  It is a selection of science fiction short stories.  When there are characters related to the science fiction concepts, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.  But the author spends so many pages providing a theoretical background for justifying the science fiction concepts that at least 1/3 of this book just seemed like he was trying to prove how wonderful his mind is at coming up with his ideas vs. trying to entertain the reader.  Those boring parts aren't worth more than a rating of 2 out of 5 stars, but because the parts with the characters in them were so interesting and enjoyable, I will rate the book overall as 3 1/2 stars out of 5.