I felt the same way, but ultimately decided it's a good attribute for an interviewer to have, even though it didn't work out this time. A good interviewer shou

I felt the same way, but ultimately decided it's a good attribute for an interviewer to have, even though it didn't work out this time. A good interviewer should understand his interviewee's work, have ideas about it, and then use those ideas to probe for deeper insights than surface details like "who influences you as a writer?". But deep probes are a little risky -- you might not find anything in that direction. In this case, more than one of the interviewer's probes was a little off-base, but -- to his credit -- he didn't pursue those questions too far after Chiang's responses came back somewhat tempered. Kudos for trying, and kudos for letting it go. Finally, kudos to Chiang himself for being clear about how he views his work. When faced with an enthusiastic -- but incorrect -- interpretation of one's writing, some authors would just "go with the flow", hesitant to dampen their readers' enthusiasm (misguided as it might be). But Chiang gently shot down a few of the interviewer's ideas, ultimately strengthening the original meaning of his own work.