Order of Book Series
0

Ted Chiang Books in Order

Ted Chiang has written 8 books, published between 1990 and 2015. The first book is Tower of Babylon (1990) and the newest is The Great Silence (2015). Publication order is the reading order below.

Books
8
Published
1990–2015
Confirmed
8 of 8 titles
Pages on record
1,270 in 5 of 8 books
Reading time
21–32 hours

Reading time is an estimate, not a recorded figure: 1,270 pages at 300 words a page, read at 200–300 words a minute, covering the 5 of 8 titles with a page count on record.

See all 8 books in order Printable Ted Chiang checklist
Photo of Ted Chiang, author of the Ted Chiang Short Stories/Novellas series

Ted Chiang is an American science fiction writer working mostly at short lengths. Four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, six Locus awards and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer sit against the work. The catalogue holds 8 titles, from Tower of Babylon (1990) through Hell Is the Absence of God (1998), The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate (2007) and The Lifecycle of Software Objects (2010) to The Great Silence (2015); the collections Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) and Exhalation: Stories (2019) gather the stories. Story of Your Life supplied the basis for the film Arrival (2016). Chiang writes nonfiction for The New Yorker on computing and artificial intelligence.

How many Ted Chiang books are there?

Ted Chiang has 8 books, released between 1990 and 2015.

Ted Chiang Books in Publication Order

The table lists all 8 Ted Chiang books in the order they were published, with the release year, the page count where one is on record, and how many independent book listings confirm each title. Catalogue data as of September 2026.

  1. Cover of Hell Is the Absence of God by Ted Chiang, book 3 of the Ted Chiang Short Stories/Novellas series (1998)
  2. Cover of Seventy-Two Letters (in Vanishing Acts) by Ted Chiang, book 4 of the Ted Chiang Short Stories/Novellas series (2000)
  3. Cover of What's Expected of Us by Ted Chiang, book 6 of the Ted Chiang Short Stories/Novellas series (2005)
  4. Cover of The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang, book 7 of the Ted Chiang Short Stories/Novellas series (2007)
  5. Cover of The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang, book 8 of the Ted Chiang Short Stories/Novellas series (2010)
  1. 1
    Tower of BabylonTed Chiang Short Stories/Novellas #11990 · confirmed 3/4
    1990–
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK
  2. 2
    Understand (in Asimov's)Ted Chiang Short Stories/Novellas #21991 · confirmed 3/4
    1991–
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK
  3. 3
    Hell Is the Absence of GodTed Chiang Short Stories/Novellas #31998 · 285 pages · confirmed 3/4
    1998285
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK
  4. 4
    Seventy-Two Letters (in Vanishing Acts)Ted Chiang Short Stories/Novellas #42000 · 384 pages · confirmed 3/4
    2000384
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK
  5. 5
    What's Expected of UsTed Chiang Short Stories/Novellas #62005 · 368 pages · confirmed 3/4
    2005368
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK
  6. 6
    The Merchant and the Alchemist's GateTed Chiang Short Stories/Novellas #72007 · 83 pages · confirmed 3/4
    200783
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK
  7. 7
    The Lifecycle of Software ObjectsTed Chiang Short Stories/Novellas #82010 · 150 pages · confirmed 3/4
    2010150
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK
  8. 8
    The Great SilenceTed Chiang Short Stories/Novellas #102015 · confirmed 3/4
    2015–
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK

Ted Chiang books grouped by series

Each title below is a row in the publication-order table above. None of these groups has a reading-order page of its own on this site.

Ted Chiang Short Stories/Novellas

8 books

8 titles published under this heading without a numbered place in a series.

Do you have to read Ted Chiang books in order?

No. No source lists any of the 8 Ted Chiang books here as part of a series. The numbered table above gives them by publication date.

Where to start with Ted Chiang

Start with Tower of Babylon (1990), the earliest published title.

What is the newest Ted Chiang book?

The Great Silence (2015) is the newest Ted Chiang book released so far.

Is there a new Ted Chiang book coming?

No next Ted Chiang book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.

Awards Ted Chiang has won

Wikidata records 20 awards and 32 nominations for Ted Chiang. The most recent 12 are listed here. Each row states whether the title won or was shortlisted, and the year the award was given.

Ted Chiang at a glance

No recent titles
The newest Ted Chiang title on record dates from 2015, 11 years ago. No later title is catalogued.
Release pace
Ted Chiang books have appeared about one every 4 years on average.
Length
1,270 pages across the 5 of 8 books with a recorded length, a median of 285 pages each.
Busiest decade
Most Ted Chiang books, 3 of 8, were published in the 2000s.

What the Ted Chiang books are about

5 of the 8 Ted Chiang books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: science fiction is tagged on 2 of 5. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.