3 ms·

If you didn't care for Cryptonomicon, you're probably right to stop. I've read four of his novels and that's the only one that didn't fit the pattern of [promis

by ashark 10y ago

If you didn't care for Cryptonomicon, you're probably right to stop. I've read four of his novels and that's the only one that didn't fit the pattern of [promising first 1/3], [2/3 section is bad but I'm holding on that it'll go somewhere], [3/3 goes off the rails entirely, no payoff for suffering through the middle third]. Cryptonomicon was consistently OK, at least. The Diamond Age was the most frustrating of them, because it starts off so good, but by the end it's a total mess. There's a whole scene in the last third that exists just to have one character tell you what another's motivation has been since a few chapters in, since it's entirely obscure to the reader. Not in a big reveal kind of way, but in a "uh oh, I let some friends read a draft and they are really confused by this major character, better fix it, but, like, without working very hard" way. I mean, at least he bothers to tell us, but wow. Like you, I enjoyed Neuromancer quite a bit (and I read it after Stephenson—only last year, in fact). The other two in that trilogy are somewhere on my mental to-read list.

overcast 10y ago
Your pattern is commonly stated when describing Stephenson novels. I don't even know what to think of Snow Crash. It reminded me of someone just jotting down everything in their head while sitting at a coffee shop, and then sending it to the printing press. Thanks for the future warning.
- ashark 10y ago
  Admittedly, Snow Crash follows it the most weakly of the other three I've read. Anathem and The Diamond Age fit the pattern perfectly.
VLM 10y ago
The focus being on character development and conversation and scenes shows you might be a fan of soft sci fi. Thats OK. Different strokes, different folks, etc. The only real problem Diamond Age has from a hard sci fi perspective, is its 20 years old and everyone knows about additive manufacturing and 3-d printing and slicing objects to be printed and feedstock issues and compiling and analog analogies to digital logic gates and compilers and natural language processing and the dangers of closed source, the idea of more or less tablet computing and wikipedia rolled into one. Its all really boring today of course, other than he got quite a few details wrong and its fun to spot them. Twenty years ago, of course, its ideas were absolutely mindblowing. I really enjoyed exploring and daydreaming about the new engineering and new computer science and new concepts in Diamond Age. Sure there was some fluffy interpersonal story to fill it out, but I mostly ignored it for the fascinating hard sci fi concepts. In the late 90s it was a truly awesome hard sci fi novel. Not a very good soft sci fi novel, but whatever. Someone should suggest a modern hard sci fi novel... published in the last year or two.
- ashark 10y ago
  Oh, the ideas are good, certainly. I'd have rather they'd been delivered in a much better novel half as long, though—which is, I suspect, as long a story as Stephenson could have managed from that promising beginning without wrecking it. It would have been less irritating if none of the story had been good, really, but that first section is great. I don't think it's very good hard SF, either. It does so much that its explorations of the social implications of the advances—which are the whole point of fleshing out an entire novel from the "gee, wouldn't it be cool if we could X?" concepts that the book is full of, rather than writing the short essay or even (these days) tweet that would suffice to explain them as well as the book does—are underdeveloped and/or feel false. The density of these drops off quite a bit early in the book, too, leaving little to chew on but the confused characterization and the increasingly unsatisfying story.
Uhhrrr 10y ago
I was on the edge of my seat towards the end of the second third of Seveneves. The last third was mostly world building, though. I liked it, but I can understand why others would check out.
adrienne 10y ago
Stephenson also has this ur-hacker myth thing going on in basically all his books, and he makes shit up about sciences (like linguistics) that he doesn't actually know a goddamn thing about. The idea expressed by a commenter below that he qualifies as "hard" science fiction is, well, absolutely true as far as it goes - but only because nearly all of the writers lauded as writing "hard" science fiction make shit up about sciences (like sociology) that they don't know a goddamn thing about.

by ashark 10y ago

overcast 10y ago

Your pattern is commonly stated when describing Stephenson novels. I don't even know what to think of Snow Crash. It reminded me of someone just jotting down everything in their head while sitting at a coffee shop, and then sending it to the printing press. Thanks for the future warning.

ashark 10y ago
Admittedly, Snow Crash follows it the most weakly of the other three I've read. Anathem and The Diamond Age fit the pattern perfectly.

VLM 10y ago

The focus being on character development and conversation and scenes shows you might be a fan of soft sci fi. Thats OK. Different strokes, different folks, etc. The only real problem Diamond Age has from a hard sci fi perspective, is its 20 years old and everyone knows about additive manufacturing and 3-d printing and slicing objects to be printed and feedstock issues and compiling and analog analogies to digital logic gates and compilers and natural language processing and the dangers of closed source, the idea of more or less tablet computing and wikipedia rolled into one. Its all really boring today of course, other than he got quite a few details wrong and its fun to spot them. Twenty years ago, of course, its ideas were absolutely mindblowing. I really enjoyed exploring and daydreaming about the new engineering and new computer science and new concepts in Diamond Age. Sure there was some fluffy interpersonal story to fill it out, but I mostly ignored it for the fascinating hard sci fi concepts. In the late 90s it was a truly awesome hard sci fi novel. Not a very good soft sci fi novel, but whatever. Someone should suggest a modern hard sci fi novel... published in the last year or two.

ashark 10y ago
Oh, the ideas are good, certainly. I'd have rather they'd been delivered in a much better novel half as long, though—which is, I suspect, as long a story as Stephenson could have managed from that promising beginning without wrecking it. It would have been less irritating if none of the story had been good, really, but that first section is great. I don't think it's very good hard SF, either. It does so much that its explorations of the social implications of the advances—which are the whole point of fleshing out an entire novel from the "gee, wouldn't it be cool if we could X?" concepts that the book is full of, rather than writing the short essay or even (these days) tweet that would suffice to explain them as well as the book does—are underdeveloped and/or feel false. The density of these drops off quite a bit early in the book, too, leaving little to chew on but the confused characterization and the increasingly unsatisfying story.

Uhhrrr 10y ago

I was on the edge of my seat towards the end of the second third of Seveneves. The last third was mostly world building, though. I liked it, but I can understand why others would check out.

adrienne 10y ago

Stephenson also has this ur-hacker myth thing going on in basically all his books, and he makes shit up about sciences (like linguistics) that he doesn't actually know a goddamn thing about. The idea expressed by a commenter below that he qualifies as "hard" science fiction is, well, absolutely true as far as it goes - but only because nearly all of the writers lauded as writing "hard" science fiction make shit up about sciences (like sociology) that they don't know a goddamn thing about.