What would it mean to know the future? At one level we already know the most important aspect of the future, in that we know that we are mortal; moreover, we know that as long as we're alive, we will experience both happiness and heartbreak. This awareness of what lies ahead of us is an essential aspect of being human. But how much more would we want to know?

Is there a limit to the amount of detail we could apprehend before it becomes more than we can bear? In this celebrated novella, the basis for the Oscar-nominated motion picture Arrival, a woman finds herself confronting these questions in a way she never could have expected.