Today’s California Sunday Magazine, part of the LA Times, has a fine article about Ted Chiang — “The Perfectionist: Ted Chiang’s science fiction wins piles of awards. When he publishes, which is hardly ever”.

“Sometimes, people who read my work tell me, ‘I like it, but it’s not really science fiction, is it?’” he says. “And I always feel like, no, actually, my work is exactly science fiction.” After Star Wars forever made the genre synonymous with what Chiang calls “adventure stories dressed up with lasers,” people forgot that science fiction includes the word “science” for a reason: It is supposed to be largely about exploring the boundaries of knowledge, he says. “All the things I do in my work?—?engaging in thought experiments, investigating philosophical questions?—?those are all things that science fiction does.”