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If you read the Baroque Cycle and came away with that as it's main theme, I'm shocked. If anything it's more of a pseudo-history for science in general. And to
by greedo 5y ago
If you read the Baroque Cycle and came away with that as it's main theme, I'm shocked. If anything it's more of a pseudo-history for science in general.
And to dismiss it and his other works as "take some idea and run with it" is to dismiss not only his work, but other well-written sci-fi.
Would you call Ringworld "dudes built a ring around a sun but entropy kicked in? Ender's Game, "just another Campbellian archetype?"
- dredmorbius 5y agoI'm not dismissing anything. I'm not saying that this is all that there is to Stephenson. I'm saying that as I read it, this is the spine and core of the book --- the central organising premise, if you will. Other elements are hung off that. Put another way, though there are characters in Stephenson, his books are not generally character driven. Or narrrative-driven. Plot ... maybe, though I'd argue that the central conceit drives the plot itself. And for the record, I've enjoyed his books tremendously and seek them out, not something I can say of many authors these days.