Ted Chiang’s second collection (2019): nine stories of idea-first science fiction. In the title story, a mechanical being performs surgery on its own brain and discovers entropy, and the end of its universe, on the operating table. Also inside: time travel through an Arabian-tale door, parallel selves you can call and interrogate about the choices you didn’t make, and AIs that have to be raised for decades like children.
Chiang publishes a story only when it has earned its existence, so a whole book of them is an event.