I said at the beginning that I’m not really into sci-fi. I, however, will take a different tack and talk more generally about why I liked the story. Arti handles this challenge by talking more about the adaptation, which was indeed well done. Now, here’s the challenge, as Arti also says in her post: how do we talk about this story without giving some critical things away, because this is one of those stories where much of the meaning is in the telling, even if you don’t know it at the beginning. The world’s governments naturally wish to discover their purpose, and so they send physicists and linguists to try to find out. They do not appear to be aggressive, but why are they here. A bunch of aliens – dubbed “heptapods” by the humans because of their octopus-like tentacles – have landed in various spots around the world, including nine locations in the US. Not ideal and a little distracting at first, but in fact, as I kept reading, I realised that the movie was a “true” adaptation, and I relaxed into the story. So, when I set off reading “Story of your life”, I had the movie freshly in my head. This didn’t happen – obviously – with Arrival, mainly because I hadn’t realised it was an adaptation. I don’t hold fast to this rule, particularly if it’s something I probably wouldn’t have read anyhow, like, say, Girl on a train, but if I have an interest in it, reading-before-seeing is my preference. What a fascinating story it is …īut here’s the thing … I usually prefer to read a book or story before I see its adaptation. Having enjoyed the film, but having questions about its meaning, of course I had to read it. The story, Ted Chiang’s “Story of your life”, won the Nebula Award in 2000. She had also provided a link to the long short story from which the film was adapted. Consequently, when we saw the intriguing, mind-bending sci-fi film Arrival, recently, I had to see whether she’d reviewed it, and she had.

As with books, I don’t read reviews before I see films, so I can never remember whether I’ve seen a review post pass through my inbox.

Whenever I see a film, I go to Arti’s Ripple Effects blog to see whether she’s reviewed it. Illustration for “Story of your Life”, by Hidenori Watanave for Hayakawa’s S-F Magazine.

Heptapods story of your life