[5] Reviewing the book at the SF Site, Greg L. Johnson said that this collection shows why Chiang's stories continue to win awards.

Johnson wrote that "it will not take readers new to these stories very long to appreciate their quality and beauty".

[6] He added that science fiction relies on short fiction writers to "examine new ideas and push the boundaries of the field", and Chiang has demonstrated he is "more than up to that task".

[6] English fantasy author China Miéville wrote in a review in The Guardian that Chiang's stories in this collection "unfold with a logic that is ineluctable and compassionate".

Miéville further said that despite the extensive use of mathematics, physics and language in the stories, they are infused with a "profound humanism" that makes "the most abstruse philosophical conjectures ... resonant and emotional".