Fun fact: it got made into the film Arrival.
It’s amazing that he wrote these stories over decades, publishing them one at a time in sci-fi periodicals as an “amateur”. All the while he had a day job as a Technical Writer.
Many writer wrote short stories in periodicals while working on another job before they made it big.
Stephen King published many short stories while working in a laundromat and later as a teacher early in his career.
On that note, I completely recommend the second compilation of other short stories, Exhalation.
Yes, I read it as part of a collection of his short stories. I enjoyed the philosophical conundrums in all of them.
That collection is great.
“Liking What You See: A Documentary” really stuck with me. I think about it a lot when I see what people have done to themselves due to Hollywood, marketing, beauty industry, instagram, TikTok, etc.
Apparently AMC has rights to make a series about that one. I haven’t heard anything about it for years.
Understand or Tower of Babylon were probably my favorites, after Story of Your Life. I loved the cat and mouse game towards the end of Understand, the shirt was such a brilliant concept. Limitless could have been so much better of a movie.