Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Exhalation by Ted Chiang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Some startlingly original ideas like the title story:

Everyday we consume two lungs heavy with air; everyday we remove the empty ones from our chest and replace them with full ones.

and

I have journeyed all the way to the edge of the world, and seen the solid chromium wall that extends from the ground up into the infinite sky

I found this the best story in the SF sub-genre of steam punk – in this case, argon punk.
The story about the automatic nanny could qualify as steam punk. There are hints of flat-earther philosophy, alternate realities, sentient robots (more accurately, software packages), time-travel, young-earth creationism etc. The stories are all dark and the narrative style, unfortunately, is rather dull and dry, hence the three star rating.

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