A story by this author describes “a legion of Bartleby the Scriveners” who no longer act spontaneously because of a device called the “Predictor” that always flashes a light a second [emphasize] before you press a button. The narrator of a story by this author is shocked to find himself in Shinar after tunneling through what he thought was the vault of heaven. A story by this author includes diagrams of an air-water boundary to illustrate the principle of least time. Hillalum travels with a caravan up the title structure and learns that the universe is shaped like a seal cylinder in this author’s “The Tower of Babylon.” This author explored the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis in a story in which Louise Banks works with the aliens Flapper and Raspberry to learn the language Heptapod B. For 10 points, name this Chinese-American science fiction author of “Story of Your Life.” ■END■
ANSWER: Ted Chiang [or Chiang Feng-nan; or Jiāng Fēngnán] (The first story is “What’s Expected of Us.”)
<American Literature>
= Average correct buzz position