I'm enjoying reading through Stories of Your Life and Others, but I'm feeling like I'm being a lot harder on these storeys than most. The feeling I for from Tower of Babylon was, 'well that was kinda neat and impressive'. I admire the creativity and respect the writing, it's just not moving or blowing me as much as other reviews and scores would have me believe. I think scoring art out of five is rather silly, but that's how these sites work. Nevertheless three is by far the biggest number or the widest range of all the possible scores, and this is a high three for sure, but not a four. I'm not getting into decimals.

Tower of Babylon is an exercise in taking the concept of the Tower of Babel seriously and actually working out the logistics. It describes an arduous journey of a miner brining materials to the top describing everything they see on their way and discussing how it all works.

It's a seriously impressive endeavour and it is executed well. I just don't find myself invested as I want to be or as much as I am in theory. It's a bit like visiting the Epcot Center at Disney. It hits different compared everything else around it, but it's impressive.

There is some rather interesting physics/ metaphysics that come into play, but, beyond an original take on a classic premise explanation, I was a bit underwhelmed as I really thought there was going to be more of an expansion or more to the twist at the end.

I feel like such a curmudgeon. I am enjoying these stories. I just haven't lost my socks yet. ( )

Ted Chiang retells the classic story in his own way. The story tells us about the time immemorial wish of man to seek something beyond what he can observe. This reinterpretation of biblical myth tell us how human collective effort and dedication can peirce the heaven. ( )

Clever story about the builders of the Tower of Babel reaching their goal. ( )