Secondly, if your interpretation were his intended one, he could have done any number of things to suggest it!
He did do any number of things to suggest it!
Nor do any of his out-of-universe quotes indicate he misunderstands. For example, just recently the topic of time travel came up on Hsu’s podcast and Chiang says
...the first Terminator film does posit a fixed timeline. And you know, this is something I’m interested in, and yeah, there’s a sense in which “What’s Expected Of Us” falls into this category, also the story “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” falls into this category, and there’s even a sense in which for my first collection, “Story of Your Life”, falls in this category.
Actually being able to see the future, in terms of information flowing backwards, in a self-consistent timeline is what is “What’s Expected Of Us” considers; and “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” uses physical movement backwards. What then, makes “Story of Your Life” not in the same category as either of those (especially the former) and in fact, doing something so different that it has to be qualified as the very vague ‘even a sense in which’? (Because in “Story”, the ‘time travel’ is pseudo time travel, involving neither information nor matter moving backwards in time, and is purely a psychological perspective.)
If your interpretation were Chiang’s, he would have to be intentionally misdirecting the audience to a degree you only see from authors like Nabokov, and not leaving any clue except for flawed science, which is common enough for dramatic license in science fiction that it really can’t count as a clue. I doubt Chiang is doing that.
I don’t mind comparing Chiang with a writer like Nabokov. Nabokov is like Chiang in some ways—for example, they are both very interested in science (eg Nabokov’s contributions to lepidopterology).
It’s just a more boring story the way you see it!
I strongly disagree. Making Louise some sort of ‘Cassandra’ with handwavy woo quantum SF is thoroughly boring. The psychological version is much more interesting and far more worthy of ‘speculative fiction’ and Chiang’s style of worldbuilding.
He did do any number of things to suggest it!
Nor do any of his out-of-universe quotes indicate he misunderstands. For example, just recently the topic of time travel came up on Hsu’s podcast and Chiang says
Actually being able to see the future, in terms of information flowing backwards, in a self-consistent timeline is what is “What’s Expected Of Us” considers; and “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” uses physical movement backwards. What then, makes “Story of Your Life” not in the same category as either of those (especially the former) and in fact, doing something so different that it has to be qualified as the very vague ‘even a sense in which’? (Because in “Story”, the ‘time travel’ is pseudo time travel, involving neither information nor matter moving backwards in time, and is purely a psychological perspective.)
I don’t mind comparing Chiang with a writer like Nabokov. Nabokov is like Chiang in some ways—for example, they are both very interested in science (eg Nabokov’s contributions to lepidopterology).
I strongly disagree. Making Louise some sort of ‘Cassandra’ with handwavy woo quantum SF is thoroughly boring. The psychological version is much more interesting and far more worthy of ‘speculative fiction’ and Chiang’s style of worldbuilding.