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Anathem is probably Stephenson's best novel, and I say that as a huge fan of Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash. I've actually found his last few novels lacking, st
by wrinkl3 9y ago
Anathem is probably Stephenson's best novel, and I say that as a huge fan of Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash.
I've actually found his last few novels lacking, still struggling to finish The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. and REAMDE. I do wish he'd stop trying to reverse-engineer RPG settings and got back to his post-cyberpunk roots.
- aeorgnoieang 9y ago> The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. Thanks; I'm a little surprised I missed that!
- Florin_Andrei 9y agoREAMDE - don't take it seriously. The author basically just took a vacation and wrote a mindlessly fun action book. If you read it as such, it's pretty good. It's definitely written from a Western perspective, but it does have some pretty astute insights about East European mentalities and culture (I say this as someone straddling the fence between West and East culturally). DODO is not pure Stephenson. The personality of the other writer (Nicole Galland) quite clearly changes the atmosphere. It's the first NS book where characters' emotions are actually given some attention, and the first where female characters are described from a first-person perspective (in a way that's convincing).
- 2sk21 9y agoREAMDE was surprisingly good and I learned a lot about gold farming in the process.
- Cerium 9y agoAs a fun adventure novel I loved REAMDE. It very much improved the experience that I had just spent a week in Xiamen before I started reading it!
- wrinkl3 9y agoFunnily enough, one of my big gripes with REAMDE so far has been that Neal doesn't seem to get the Russian mentality at all. I'm not familiar enough with the Hungarian culture to judge Csongor, tho.
- 2sk21 9y agoAnathem > Cryptonomicon > Snow Crash > all the rest I have read through Anathem at least three times and still enjoy it with each reading.
- greedo 9y agoI love the Baroque Trilogy. It's such a different universe than his other work, and I'm a history buff so it's fascinating to read and try to figure out what is accurate, and what is his imagination.
- marzell 9y agoPlease stop trying to get me to commit to reading this series. My expected lifespan is already too short to complete my queue. Thanks.
- bashinator 9y agoI made the conscious decision to just skip any plot lines where I wasn't interested. I left over half the writing on the shelf, but I think I enjoyed it more than most people who've read the whole thing.
- usrusr 9y agoDon't fear. The inertia from all the over the top action sequences where the reading marker drops through the stack of pages like through vacuum keeps you going through the heavier parts in no time. Ps: Anathem > Seveneves, unless you ignore the last third. Stephenson is usually weak at the end, when all the pieces are put in place and there is no room left for brilliant tangents. Anathem suffered surprisingly little, Seveneves more than usual.
- pdwetz 9y agoI think the issue I had with the last "section" of Seveneves was it felt more like a prologue. The pacing was entirely different. I didn't hate it or anything, but going from the previous two parts to the last one was jolting.
- loeg 9y agoI also disliked REAMDE and am struggling to get into D.O.D.O. Cryptonomicon, Diamond Age, and Seveneves were great. Have't read Anathem.
- teekert 9y agoI started in Cryptonomicon, I just doesn't catch me, I'm about 20% in but nothing happens. I like descriptive, setting an atmosphere, but Stephenson goes to far I feel. The world is different ok, fun, but it just moves so slowly. Shaftoe goes everywhere and nowhere, I get it, he saw some dragon, yes third time you mention it... I put it away. Perhaps I'll pick it up later.