Technically a novella, ‘Story of Your Life’ may be better known as the film, Arrival,which was directed by Denis Villeneuve. Nominated for a number of Academy Awards, I’m not surprised by the success of its translation to the screen because first contact films always have a certain allure to them. We cannot help but be curious as to what aliens might look like if and when we ever get to meet them. But the novella is so much more than just a story about first contact. It is about motherhood and language and time, and the curiously static, though transformational, quality of free will.
First published in Starlight 2, 1998. Collected in Stories of Your Life and Others, Tor Books 2002
A Personal Anthology 