Story of Your Life你一生的故事 英文版.pdf

Story of Your Life TED CHIANG Ted Chiang has only published three SF stories prior to this one and his first, “Tower of Babylon”(1990), won the Nebula Award; another (“Understand”) won the Asimovs Readers Award in 1991, and he won the John W.Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1992. He is a careful and accomplished writer, and his work is distinguished by origina- lity combined with the high quality of his re-imaging of old SF ideas. This is his fourth published story, his first in more than five years (he seems to have a satisfying life in the Seattle area that leaves him little time for SF writing). It is the longest story in this book and may well be the best. The theme of communicating with aliens was prominent in the SF fiction of 1998, but nowhere better done than here. It appeared in Starlight 2. In a year that was not notable for many strong original SF anthologies, this novella helped Starlight 2 (which contained both fantasy and SF stories) stand out. - intro from Years Best SF 4, ed. David G Hartwell Your father is about to ask me the question. This is the most important moment in our lives, and I want to pay atten- tion, note every detail. Your dad and I have just come back from an evening out, dinner and a show; its after midnight. We came out onto the patio to look at the full moon; then I told your dad I wanted to dance, so he humors me and now were slow-dancing, a pair of thirtysomethings swaying back and forth in the moon-light like kids. I dont feel the night chill at all. And then your dad says, “Do you want to make a baby?” Right now your dad and I have been married for about two years, living on Ellis Avenue; when we move out youll still be too young to remember the house, but well show you pictures of it, tell you stories about it. Id love to tell you the story of this evening, the night youre conceived, but the right time to do that would be when youre ready to have children of your own, and well never get tha