# Short story: Tower of Babel **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 23, 2011, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-story-tower-of-babel/597395 "2011-09-23T23:24:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2011, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-story-tower-of-babel/597395/1 "2011-09-23T23:24:52Z")
I’m putting this here because it does have a factual answer, and I’m asking two questions. (1) I read, not too long ago, a short story set on the Tower of Babel. Unlike the story in the Bible, this one got built and went past the moon. People hiked up it and lived on it for lifetimes. Usually I remember where I read stuff, but I can’t track this down. Possibly read it on the Internet. (2) Googling for this has proven frustrating. Google “short story” and “tower of babel” and I get things that are not relevant, like “Tower of Babel biblical story.” “Fiction” plus “Tower of babel” gets me things like “Is the Tower of Babel fiction?” and “Tower of Babel: Fact or Fiction?” Duh. How would I google for it? I’m also looking for a short story called “Skin’s Art” that appeared in Playboy magazine at some point, probably in the 1980s. As in, who wrote it, has he ever written a novel, is it in a short story collection? No luck googling that one either, or at the library’s new database (which sucks). ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2011, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-story-tower-of-babel/597395/2 "2011-09-23T23:41:04Z")
Ted Chiang wrote it. It’s collected in “Stories of Your Life and others” - a great collection > **[Tower of Babylon (story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babylon_%28story%29)** > > "Tower of Babylon" is a science fantasy novelette by American writer Ted Chiang, published in 1990. The story revisits the tower of Babel myth as a construction megaproject, in a setting where the principles of pre-scientific cosmology (flat Earth, geocentrism and the Firmament) are literally true. It is Chiang's first published work. > The story won the 1991 Nebula Award for Best Novelette, and was reprinted in Chiang's 2002 anthology, Stories of Your Life and Others. > The story takes place in an... ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-story-tower-of-babel/597395/3 "2011-09-24T00:07:18Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > I’m putting this here because it does have a factual answer, and I’m asking two questions. > > (1) I read, not too long ago, a short story set on the Tower of Babel. Unlike the story in the Bible, this one got built and went past the moon. People hiked up it and lived on it for lifetimes. > > Usually I remember where I read stuff, but I can’t track this down. Possibly read it on the Internet. > > (2) Googling for this has proven frustrating. Google “short story” and “tower of babel” and I get things that are not relevant, like “Tower of Babel biblical story.” “Fiction” plus “Tower of babel” gets me things like “Is the Tower of Babel fiction?” and “Tower of Babel: Fact or Fiction?” Duh. > > How would I google for it? > > I’m also looking for a short story called “Skin’s Art” that appeared in Playboy magazine at some point, probably in the 1980s. As in, who wrote it, has he ever written a novel, is it in a short story collection? No luck googling that one either, or at the library’s new database (which sucks). “Skin’s Art” appears to be by Michael Rogers, and appeared in “Playboy” in 1973. I found it by using “Google Books” to search for “Skin’s Art”. The story appears to be collected in “Do Not Worry About the Bear” [Do not worry about the bear: Stories: Rogers, Michael: 9780394501918: Amazon.com: Books](http://www.amazon.com/Do-not-worry-about-bear/dp/0394501918) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-story-tower-of-babel/597395/4 "2011-09-24T01:38:49Z")
“Tower of Babel” first appeared in Omni Magazine, and was reprinted in various “Year’s Best” anthologies and the Nebula Award Anthology in 1991. It is one of Ted Chiang’s worst stories – which makes it better than 99% of all the other stories written in the past 20 years. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-story-tower-of-babel/597395/5 "2011-09-24T11:41:06Z")
MOved from GQ to Cafe Society, since it deals with an “Arts” question. **samclem** , MOderator ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-story-tower-of-babel/597395/6 "2011-09-24T12:15:51Z")
Ted Chiang is known for writing very few but very consistently good stories. He’s only published twelve stories since 1990 (when “Tower of Babel”, his first story, appeared). Four of them won Nebula Awards and a fifth was nominated for a Nebula Award. Four of them won Hugo Awards. Three of them won Locus Awards. There was also one Sidewise Award, one BSFA Award, and one Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-story-tower-of-babel/597395/7 "2011-09-24T21:48:01Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Ted Chiang is known for writing very few but very consistently good stories. He’s only published twelve stories since 1990 (when “Tower of Babel”, his first story, appeared). Four of them won Nebula Awards and a fifth was nominated for a Nebula Award. Four of them won Hugo Awards. Three of them won Locus Awards. There was also one Sidewise Award, one BSFA Award, and one Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. And one of them he withdrew from the Hugo competition because he was disappointed in the story, though I thought it was still very good. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-story-tower-of-babel/597395/8 "2011-09-24T23:31:13Z")
Thanks, guys! Particularly **Andy L** for being first and for giving me some good search hints. I knew someone here would know. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-story-tower-of-babel/597395/9 "2011-09-24T23:36:35Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > Thanks, guys! Particularly **Andy L** for being first and for giving me some good search hints. I knew someone here would know. You’re very welcome. Google books helped me identify a story for myself a few weeks ago - it’s a very helpful resource.