This book was my first return to fiction in a long time, and I owe it to how much I enjoyed the movie "Arrival" (based on one of the stories in this book) and my desire to read its source material. Unsurprisingly, it seemed like many of the stories in this collection could be made into movies and have the same type of tone as "Arrival." I really enjoyed how clearly these stories came from the mind of a mathematician/physicist, and how much that background played into his stories about religion, philosophy, culture, etc. I can't wait to read more from Chiang, and more than anything I feel like I'm back in the mode of fiction after how much this collection invigorated me. I would highly recommend these stories to anyone interested in sci-fi.