So good. A story about technolgy and its various uses; about memory and misleading yourself; and about relationships and family. I liked the parallel stories, each showing how technology changes a person and a people, one in the past with a technology we consider commonplace and good, and one in the story's present with a technology the author at first considers bad. The story is also very much about emotional truth, something I'm very much interested in. I recommend this novelette to anyone interested in new technologies, language, and memory. Just so, so good. Likely my #1 for the Hugos.
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Almost more an essay than a story; this is Chiang's thoughtful response to those who bemoan the advent of new technologies, saying that the advent of the Internet and data storage means that we don't rely on our memories the way we used to.
Chiang posits a near-future analog of our scenario: a new technology called Remem which 'hyperlinks' recordings from our 'lifelogs' whenever we query it, or whenever an appropriate moment arises. The tech may mean that, with constant access to the 'truth' of our past, we can no longer adjust our memory of that past to fit in with our self-created life narratives. This is contrasted with a situation in which a tribal society with a tradition of oral history encounters and must come to grips with the new-to-them technology of writing.
Beautiful, and thought-provoking - as I've come to expect from Chiang.
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