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Comment by vessenes | Hacker News Reader

I feel like the only person in scifi who doesn't LOVE Ted Chiang. Don't get me wrong -- I like his writing a lot. But, I often feel like it's a little 'light' -- not sure how to describe this exactly.

I guess I'm saying he's not Philip K Dick or Stanislaw Lem, or even William Gibson, but he's awarded/discussed as much.

I will, of course, buy his next book, short or long-form. But I'd love it if he went a little higher/deeper conceptually. I think he has it in him.

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I just want to counter balanced this by sharing love ted chiang but cannot happily get through any p k dick and little Gibson either. I find Chiangs work hits me deeper on a conceptual level and perhaps it's that exact lightness of tone. I find Dick and Gibson too affected with gravitas and a vision of stylistic coolness that I do not share for me to enjoy them. But that is all purely subjective preference, they're both objectively fine writers

I wouldn't say PKD is gravitas. He is often funny and has a workingman prose. Gibson, yes. Though, I find his later works, like Peripheral, less stylized and serious.

For me Ted Chiang short stories are like a little trip in a story form. He's not the most rounded storyteller in atmosphere or dialogue and rich characters, but the central idea he's interested in exploring in each story often blows my mind, and that seems like his end goal, like breaking open the boxes we're stuck inside a little bit. He seems satisfied if he's able to reach that destination concisely.

Oh wow! I'm late to the Ted Chiang game, having only read his books last year, but I've read a lot of PDK, a fair amount of Gibson, and a little bit of Lem. I think Chiang's less eager to end on a grim note than they are. And maybe that's what you're feeling. But I think the topics he deals with can be incredibly big, and incredibly dark. For instance, The Lifecycle of Software Objects was so realistic, and so dismally cynical about the software industry in particular, that it made me feel palpable fear and pre-emptive shame for the future.

I re-read Lifecycle based on your comment, and.. I think I have more precise critiques now; one is just that his writing is targeted a fairly simple reading level, and it bothers me.

The second is that I think most of Lifecycle has been said before, and possibly better, and sometimes has been said for decades. I don’t mind a short story with a single new idea, but Lifecycle is verging on novella, and I think it didn’t need to be nearly so long, or put another way, the length wasn’t used to get the depth in to the story I’d like to see for the page count.

The main Lifecycle story points: can software be human/a person? If so, does it need to be raised/cared for? What will the people who do that think about it? Is that a dead end in AGI? If software agents get autonomy, will some of them willingly be sex robots? Is that really that different than humans grinding in software jobs?

I mean, okay, those are all super reasonable things to write about, and not uninteresting, but PKD famously hit up these questions of personhood in the 60s, as did Lem - PKD with weirdo psychoanalysis dystopia settings, Lem with lighthearted stories about competing constructors.

I guess I didn’t find it that dismally cynical about software either, but I may be jaded ;)

I get you. A lot of short stories feel a bit... empty? to me. Like there's an effort to be profound but they don't get there.

Agree. Many feel like “I had an idea, I daydreamed a bit, then I wrote down my daydream”, leaving me with a shrug.

Yes. I re-read some Chiang after this thread popped up, and I would say his writing style is aimed at like a sixth grade level. I’m sure Mr. Chiang can write to many audiences, but I think this contributes to this feeling of lightness/emptiness — simple writing, and I’d say sometimes simplified concepts. And, in the story I re-read, I’d say some of it was overexplained. It may explain his broad popularity though; I’m just not sure I’m his audience.

I just read two stories by him because of the hype in this thread, and I can firmly say... I don't get it. Doesn't mean it's not great literature, but it's not for me. I wonder how much of me not enjoying it is because of the "Seinfeld is unfunny" concept though.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...

To me reading his work feels often more like going through a news report than enjoying a short story.

I used to read all the collections of "The Years Best Science Fiction" by Gardner Dozois

I stopped reading them after a while, because it felt like eating a box of assorted donuts. Very creative/stimulating but too many idea changes, too short and too quick.

I really find novels more compelling compared to short stories. They seem to have more depth, explore more adjacent things, allow for character development, take the time.

In fact, nowadays from time to time I go too much the other way. I quit at book 7 of the 20 book series because there're not enough new ideas/momentum.

Oh man, I miss Gardner. He had great taste. I own almost all of those Anthologies, and agree that they were best read slowly.

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