<story><title>Ted Chiang has won the PEN/Faulkner Foundation&apos;s short story prize</title><url>https://lithub.com/ted-chiang-has-won-the-pen-faulkner-foundations-short-story-prize/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vessenes</author><text>I feel like the only person in scifi who doesn&amp;#x27;t LOVE Ted Chiang. Don&amp;#x27;t get me wrong -- I &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; his writing a lot. But, I often feel like it&amp;#x27;s a little &amp;#x27;light&amp;#x27; -- not sure how to describe this exactly.&lt;p&gt;I guess I&amp;#x27;m saying he&amp;#x27;s not Philip K Dick or Stanislaw Lem, or even William Gibson, but he&amp;#x27;s awarded&amp;#x2F;discussed as much.&lt;p&gt;I will, of course, buy his next book, short or long-form. But I&amp;#x27;d love it if he went a little higher&amp;#x2F;deeper conceptually. I think he has it in him.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ttjjtt</author><text>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&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;re both objectively fine writers</text></comment>
<story><title>Ted Chiang has won the PEN/Faulkner Foundation&apos;s short story prize</title><url>https://lithub.com/ted-chiang-has-won-the-pen-faulkner-foundations-short-story-prize/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vessenes</author><text>I feel like the only person in scifi who doesn&amp;#x27;t LOVE Ted Chiang. Don&amp;#x27;t get me wrong -- I &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; his writing a lot. But, I often feel like it&amp;#x27;s a little &amp;#x27;light&amp;#x27; -- not sure how to describe this exactly.&lt;p&gt;I guess I&amp;#x27;m saying he&amp;#x27;s not Philip K Dick or Stanislaw Lem, or even William Gibson, but he&amp;#x27;s awarded&amp;#x2F;discussed as much.&lt;p&gt;I will, of course, buy his next book, short or long-form. But I&amp;#x27;d love it if he went a little higher&amp;#x2F;deeper conceptually. I think he has it in him.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>karaterobot</author><text>Oh wow! I&amp;#x27;m late to the Ted Chiang game, having only read his books last year, but I&amp;#x27;ve read a lot of PDK, a fair amount of Gibson, and a little bit of Lem. I think Chiang&amp;#x27;s less eager to end on a grim note than they are. And maybe that&amp;#x27;s what you&amp;#x27;re feeling. But I think the topics he deals with can be incredibly big, and incredibly dark. For instance, &lt;i&gt;The Lifecycle of Software Objects&lt;/i&gt; 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.</text></comment>