loll don't take my word on it I'm hoity toitier than a lot of folks and everyone values different things in their reading. if you're in the market for some easy to read fantasy entertainment you'll probably get along with his books well enough and he's competent enough. just not my market

Ted Chiang - Stories of Your Life

It's far from my most hated book, but I viscerally remember the moment I wanted to fling it across the room - I was already hating the story "Seventy-Two Letters," a bad Victorian steampunk pastiche with cartoonishly English names and dialogue, and Chiang wrote that a character "raised his eyebrows." (The horror!)

I had been previously traumatized by a friend's recommendation of Brandon Sanderson's The Final Empire, in which Mr. Sando raises a character's (primarily Kelsier's) eyebrows literally every ten pages because he is either unable to write engaging dialogue and character interactions, or because he must write so quickly to meet his readers' insatiable appetites that he cannot slow down to do so. The intrusion of Sandersonian prose in a collection that was supposed to represent the artistic potential in contemporary SFF enraged me, and though I suppressed the urge to fling the book (it was borrowed from an alleged friend), I put it down in disbelief and, later that night after finishing the collection, composed a tweet thread recounting my harrowing experience.

anyway I'm done taking book reccs from my friends or primarily sff readers cause it ain't working out. peace be upon y'all