Serious question

No. Apart from having a basic bitch understanding of philosophy he utilizes manga tropes out of the ass, in a couple of years he'll be writing Sanderson clones.

>>9523549
>manga tropes

What did he mean by this?

>>9523566
It's just some deluded otaku's opinion. He thinks everything comes from manga.

>>9523521

It's like a better-prose version of Greg Egan. I'm not gonna complain, but the ideas are not original, and the hard-sci aspect that makes Egan fun to read is just nonexistent in Chiang.

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>>9523521
>Borges
>deep and complex

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>>9523636
>Heidegger
>not a mumble rejected by respected philosophy profesors and accepted only as an Internet meme

>>9523636
Give me a more complex short story author.

Please.

I wanna see a movie where two super smart people talk about gestalts and fight each other with their super brain powers.

>>9523685
>short story
>complex

Do you see a pattern there? How can a four-page long story with two or three characters be "complex" in any way?

>>9523692
You're giving away the fact that you haven't read anything by him.

>>9523692
Oh, okay. You're an idiot.

Thanks for clearing that up.

>>9523715
I have read many of his books (including his poetry and "essays"). He produces the illusion of complexity, somewhat like Poe, but what he writes is very simple.

A few themes (always the same), a few characters, a bunch of paradoxes thrown in, a good dose of erudition, the usual memes with tigers or labyrinths, and that's over before we reach page 10.

The illusion is pleasant though, it's well done, I see him as a scholarly prankster.

>>9523748
What is complexity for you? In two books of equal length, say 500 pages, what would make one complex and one not?

>>9523748
>I see him as a scholarly prankster
I haven't been on /lit/ for quite long time but now I suddenly feel at home. Thanks for reminding me who we are here.

>>9523761
>what would make one complex

More things that could be interpreted differently (and Borges is actually straightforward, since he's always explaining everything--it's like he's embedding his own Cliff's notes inside the story). More themes, more characters and more stories intertwined (in a fiction), more nuances, a richer symbolism, more things expressed in fewer words...

>>9523765
Pasolini had the same opinion though.

I'm about 80% through Stories of Your Life and Others and I'm unimpressed. He has some cool ideas but the stories themselves are usually dull and unrewarding. A couple of them are good though. The rest just seems like filler.

>>9523788
I was criticizing your offhandedness, but you explained your opinion well to me
>>9523788
and thus I could agree and maybe change mine one day.

Chiang is computer specialist, Borges is humanist. Does this influence their work and difference between them?

>>9523802
What I like the most with Borges is how he's taking one ingenious or complicated theme to expose it simply and concisely. That's where he is so original: he refuses to be too complex, he keeps it as short, as modest as possible (and it's even more apparent in his later stories) with some material that could have been much more mind-bending, had he wanted it.

I do not know Chiang so I can't comment about him.

>>9523882
So why is he considered a difficult writer, I mean kinda academic level?

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>>9523685
Not that anon, Gene Wolfe is the king of complicated short fiction. He didn't become a meme for nothing.
>The Island of Dr Death and Other Stories
>The Death of Dr Island
>Death of the Island Doctor
>Seven American Nights
>Forlesen
>The Hero As Werwolf
>Redbeard
>Parkroads - a Review
>Bed and Breakfast
>And When They Appear
>Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?
If you can explain exactly what happens in half of these stories or more you are a certified patrician.

>>9524133
Bumping, your honor

>>9524133
>the death of dr island
i still dont get it

>>9524237
Maybe his textes are just a bunch of random improvisations that have no sense what so ever?

>>9524237
That title could mean two things. It could mean that Dr Island dies, or it could mean that there is a death that belongs to Dr Island.

>>9524244
Many have tried to claim that and they all end up looking stupid. This blogger provoked the wrath of a pack of Wolfemen and was harassed until forced to concede that he just didn't get it.

http://www.waggish.org/2007/gene-wolfe-the-book-of-the-new-sun/
http://www.waggish.org/2007/more-on-gene-wolfe/
http://www.waggish.org/2009/gene-wolfe-redux/
http://www.waggish.org/2010/gene-wolfe-challenge-won/

>>9524133
What collection should I start with

>>9524275
The Best of Gene Wolfe is good. It presents the stories in chronological order or at least close to it. It gives a good impression of how his writing developed over time. You get early, middle and late Wolfe and they're all top-tier stories.

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I've made that connection before. Some of the most interesting Borges stories focus around exploring the implications of a central conceit to fascinating ends, which is largely the project of Chiang's stories. Yet even when Chiang is doing very borgesian things (like Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate) he doesn't really approach JLB's erudition.

There's also a tendency in lit and lit crit to fawn over a writer who's half competent and can namedrop a bibliography. That Borges can do this and be a genuinely great writer means he has his own position in the canon. I can't help but think if Chiang had the same inclinations, was a little more opaque in his writing, a little more mystical, he'd be regarded as something like an american Borges.

Bump for new day and new anons

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>>9523521
>mind bending sci-fi
>deep and complex
pic related does it better

That's not gene wolfe OP

>>9524133
I haven't read him. Thanks for the suggestion.

I appreciate Chiang's commitment to the short form. I'm so fed up of long novels that get praised for being "ambitious" and "complex" when in reality they are just fucking long (looking at you Stephenson)

>>9523892
His earlier style is for somewhat experienced readers--large vocabulary, long sentences, erudite references, etc.

But the later style of Borges (when he was blind: Libro de arena, etc.) is really accessible to beginners.

>>9525146
*tips*

How can genre ever be complex? Lmao

>>9523521
>borges
>sci-fi
stop baiting

>>9525872
No one is implying that and it does not result from any post.

>>9526021
If you want to find the new author he must look exactly like his predecessor.

>Is Ted Chiang the new Jorge Luis Borges?

Depends, is his work tied up in legal hell where the translations he himself worked on are out of print because of his shitty widow, leaving us with clumsy inaccurate translations that embellish his work?

>>9525123
I can't find a copy of this anywhere (no seeders on bibliotik, even) and the last time I bought a book recommended like this it was fucking awful, so I'm loathe to spend money on it.

>>9523748
Nabokov said the same thing, he had read probably Labrynth. and complimented him - years later he said that most of his work is just flimsy fantasy.

Borges is mostly known for his opinions on Lit., and for most people reading Lab. and that's it.

>>9526132

His opinions on literature are fantastic though. anyone on this board who hasn't read/listened to Borges lectures on literature are missing out on one of the keenest most voracious fountains of literary expertise from the 20th century.

>>9526022
>No one is implying that and it does not result from any post.
Except from the very OP?

>>9526266
Why are you doing this to us? Go away! Post somewhere else.

>>9526050
it may be on bookzz

most of the stories are very ambiguous and abstract but that's why i liked it.

>>9526991
It's not.

>>9524133
>araminiposters

>>9526997
>>9526991
nm found it on undernet#bookz
!patiencel Robert Shearman - They Do the Same Things Different There (v5.0) (epub).rar

>>9523692
>How can a four-page long story with two or three characters be complex
Spotted the guy that hasn't read Dubliners

>>9527013
>>9526991
Ok it is a lot better than the last thing. Order placed.

have any of you ever even read borges in spanish?