Ted Chiang’s Soulful Science Fiction

Chiang is now forty-nine, with streaks of gray in his ponytail. He
started writing science fiction in high school. Since then, he has
published fourteen short stories and a novella. By this means, he has
become one of the most influential science-fiction writers of his
generation. He has won twenty-seven major sci-fi awards; he might have
won a twenty-eighth if, a few years ago, he hadn’t declined a nomination
because he felt that the nominated story, “Liking What You See: A
Documentary,” was unfinished.