Help figure out name/author of story?

valerie_parker

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Good day everyone!

I am trying to recall the name of a science fiction short story which I had read some years ago. I know that I read it on one of the online scifi/fantasy magazines, but I do not remember which one. All I can remember of the story is that it dealt with various forms of technology over the ages. I don't remember if it was a linear story or not, but I doubt it. In the story, the development of written language was treated as technology, same as the development of computers. There may have been something about a memory device in there as well, but I can't be certain.

I know it's not much to go one, but if anyone can help, I would appreciate it very much.

Thank you!
 

feyngirl

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That kind of sounds like "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang. It's got one story strand that deals with the consequences of writing being introduced to a society and another about a memory implant that gives you perfect recall of events.
 

feyngirl

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:hooray: It's a great story, really stuck in my head at the time. Glad I could help! (And makes me feel better about my tendency to forget everything that isn't story plots.)

In fact my memory for names is so bad I couldn't remember who wrote it, but I could remember they'd also written a story which had been turned into a film starring Amy Adams. So my search went:
Amy Adam's imdb page (to get that the film was Arrival)
Arrival wikipedia (to get that Ted Chiang had written the short story)
And then I went through a list of his stories to work out which one it was.

Not sure why I could remember that chain and not his name but brains are weird...
 
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