This book of short stories contains one which was made into a film titled Arrival which came out in 2017, and was then re-released with that same title. That story is just one of eight in this very strong collection. "Tower of Babylon" is narrated by a stone cutter, Hillalum, hired by the creators of the famous tower. They have nearly reached the vault of heaven, which seems to be made of a smooth white marble. It takes Hillalum and his fellow workers a full month to climb to the tower's summit before they can set out on the daunting task of breaching heaven. "Understand" and "Divide by Zero" both contain super-smart individuals ultimately undone by their own intelligence. The standout piece is "Story of Your Life", in which a professor of linguistics is hired by the US government to learn the language of an alien race, which has set up a series of mysterious mirror-like communication devices all over the world. As she learns both their written and oral languages she begins to gain strange insights into how these new being think outside of linear time. "Seventy-Two Letters" is set in an alternate Victorian England in which Jewish mysticism has influenced the development of a new branch of science with staggering practical and theoretical applications. "Hell is an Absence of God" introduces a world in which angelic visitations are extremely common, and effect humans similarly to localized natural disasters. Then there are two shorter more meta pieces, one written as a introduction to a scientific journal and one as a transcription of a documentary both in future worlds in which new scientific advancements have drastically changed human life. A very enjoyable book.