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The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted ChiangMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
A novelette set in ancient Baghdad and Cairo, as a merchant tells us – and the Caliph – nested tales of time travel.
Okay, the reason I love Ted Chiang is that he consistently has gotten me simultaneously in the geeky intellectual sweet spot of shinykeen science, and the unreasoned emotional response. And here he did neither, particularly.
It's a pretty story, with a perfect tempo and all the charm and style you'd expect from framing time travel in a 1001 Nights homage, with extra ancient Islam for flavor. Except that's as far as it went for me – style. The stories were entertaining, but I was never emotionally engaged. And the intellectual pay-off actually rang to me like his excellent Story of Your Life, in a slightly different key.
Not bad, you understand. Definitely not that. Just disappointing when you expect so much more from someone.
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