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We are all nerds: The literary works of Neal Stephenson
- cantSpellSober 4y agoAnyone successfully convert their "I'm not into sci-fi" friend into a Stephenson fan? If so, with what book? (Having read em all, I would not recommend Fall; Or Dodge in Hell as an entrypoint)
- cl42 4y agoDiamond Age has been a hit with a lot of my friends, even ones not into scifi. Agree with you re Fall. Terrible book.
- the__alchemist 4y agoI thought Fall was outstanding; the apes, MOAB, and Ameristan parts were remarkably relevant, and the last part was fun.
- cl42 4y agoI think the concepts were pretty neat, I agree. However, it felt like two books in one. I will admit that I'm not a fantasy reader -- aside from LOTR, I'm not a big fan of the genre. Spending so much time on that was just not interesting to me. If that entire section was missing, the book would've been extremely compelling. But to each their own! :)
- aoanla 4y agoThis seems to be a thing that Stephenson likes: The Diamond Age has apparently deliberate significant changes in style and genre across it, Cryptonomicon is part very-near-future tech thriller and part-1940s spy thriller, Seveneves (as noted elsewhere here) has a big genre change some way through, and arguably The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O also blends a few different genres together, some of them historical. He's certainly more egregious about it in Fall, but it's something he obviously likes doing...
- roughly 4y agoI really liked everything about Fall except the main plot. The Ameristan parts felt almost prophetic - that’s the book I wanted to read.
- cantSpellSober 4y ago(spoilers) the part where Dodge's e-consciousness conceives of consciousness starting from static was...a tedious read hah. Good summary.
- zxexz 4y agoI’ve leant my copy of Cryptonomicon to many people who went on to read his other books.
- nocoiner 4y agoI’ve had good luck on that with Diamond Age, but I feel the need to couple that with a strident warning about how incredibly unsatisfying the ending is (which to me is a recurring thing with his books). I disliked Fall intensely. I either didn’t finish it, or skimmed the last third of it or so just to try to get a sense of what happened. I think I did finish it, but only because I was on vacation and had nothing else to read by the pool.
- jojoo 4y agoFor educators i always suggest "The Diamond Age". In the last few years, AI has just catched up enough for non-tech people to take it serious. I really liked the first half of Fall; Or Dodge in Hell. But it has been the only Stephenson book where i needed discipline not to get enough sleep, but to get through the second half.
- lelandbatey 4y agoAgree, "Fall" is not one of the more accessible of his works IMO. Neither Anathem, even though it's my favorite of his books. I feel like if Neal Stephenson wanted to write a DND campaign, he'd revolutionize that niche with his incredible world building and excellently pervasive themes.
- haroldl 4y agoI feel that his novels are becoming more and more mainstream friendly, and Termination Shock is my suggestion. The world is very similar to our own, set in the near future (versus The Diamond Age) of our planet (versus Anathem) and is very relatable. My other suggestions would be REAMDE for people who are into action movies or spy novels, or the first half of Seveneves for space nerds.
- lb1lf 4y agoI think they are becoming more mainstream friendly as, well, the world has caught up with him, more or less - I find he's a master at grasping what technologies will explode into the mainstream a few years early, then spin a wonderful yarn around that. Cryptonomicon, REAMDE (to some extent) and The Diamond Age seemed really future-y when released - but now, their basic concepts are all over the media and on people's minds.
- nibbleshifter 4y agoREAMDE came out a very short time before awareness of ransomware went from "a handful of people in the hacker world" to "infosec industry starts becoming aware of it". To more than a few people, it seemed very prescient.
- ghaff 4y agoReamde is much more thriller than SF. My big objection to it is that it was one of those novels where if everything didn't fall right into place again and again, there wouldn't be a story.
- Ono-Sendai 4y agoSnow crash
- sidibe 4y agoAnathem if you can convince them the to stick through the beginning and learn the words. Absolutely not Cryptonomicon unless you're sure they're libertarian and male. I reread this recently and I think it aged very poorly for women and liberals because what was once a quirky set of characters in the modern part of the story are now a widespread and polarizing demographic today (our free thinking hero has to deal with some very exaggerated wokeness, and spends a few pages explaining that women aren't as obsessed with tech because they're so good at everything else). This is not the author to start people who aren't into sci-fi on though. I really love some of his books but I think anyone who can get through one of them is probably already a sci-fi fan. There's more immediately fun books that people can get hooked on like Vinge and Brin or more literary and less tech-describing stuff like Ursula le Guin that appeal to wider audiences and from which they can look for other books with the same themes
- nibbleshifter 4y agoNeal is terrible at writing female characters, which is probably at its most obvious in Cryptonomicon.
- Barrin92 4y agohe's gotten better at it. I really don't like his more tech bro-ish books but I liked Reamde a lot, which features a pretty good set of characters.
- tialaramex 4y agoReamde does still have rape as character development which is... it's one of those tropes that once you notice an author keeps doing it you wince when it comes up again. This is of course in The Big U, and in Snow Crash, and in Diamond Age, and here it is again in Reamde. I really like Diamond Age, it's probably one of my favourite books, and if that was his only novel which did it I'd say well, fair enough it sort of makes sense in context - but it happens over and over, so that's not great. It's in the same category as Fridging in comics. Twice is coincidence, three times is lazy writing.
- harrisonhope 4y agoI really enjoyed Zodiac. It’s reads like a thriller novel but it’s a little more grounded and less weird than Snow Crash. I think it’s a good entry point for Stephenson novels.
- notahacker 4y agoZodiac is the easy introduction because it's the least Neal Stephenson book of the lot: short, minimal infodumps and tangents, and it really doesn't get much nerdier than the protagonist being a chemist [as well as a wetsuit-wearing crime fighter] or much weirder than there being a metal band in there because Stephenson wanted there to be a metal band.
- yetanotherloser 4y agoThe first half or so of Snow Crash is a great entry point if the recipient already read some cyberpunk and thought "this has something interesting but also has a stick up its arse, it's about time someone ripped the piss out of it" - and I say this as a fan of Gibsonian prose excess. The only problem is this puts the recipient in a too-cynical, too-stylistically-demanding mode for the rest of Stephenson. - Posted on my Ono-Sendai Rig, from some kind of Zone, while experiencing Hacker News as some kind of geometric hallucination, under a sky the colour of a television switched off...
- ghaff 4y agoSnow Crash is maybe the most accessible. And, while one of his older books, the association with the metaverse, etc. makes it rather timely.
- kadoban 4y agoTry Zodiac. It's not even sci-fi (or if it is, it's _barely_ sci-fi, and only near the end). If they like the writing style and etc. of that, should be easier to talk them into maybe Cryptonomicon or something next. Cryptonomicon might also be a good entry point, but it's long, so it's a harder sell.
- pmdulaney 4y agoThis is a curated (or annotated) list of Neal Stephenson's scifi novels. Very helpful if you're trying to decide which of his books to start with.
- dsr_ 4y agoIt's interesting that it simply leaves out: The Big U - About 7/5 on the weirdness scale of the other books. It was out of print for quite a while. Strange things happen at a thinly disguised Boston University. The Citgo sign becomes The Big Red Wheel. Zodiac - About 1/5 on the weirdness scale, except for the protagonist himself, who is about a 3/5. Modern thriller about pollution in Boston Harbor. Interface - About a 2/5 weirdness: a candidate runs for US President, aided by a direct brain interface that feeds immediate polling results and media reactions.
- mpettitt 4y agoWas going to mention Interface! It's very much Cambridge Analytica vibes - you feel that there are teams as described doing pretty much the same things, just without the direct brain interface. Personally, I think Anathem is the best of his works, although I enjoyed DODO - the sequel, which he wasn't directly involved with was less good though.
- the__alchemist 4y agoStephenson is by far my favorite fiction author. His style of sci-fi is what draws me to the genre: It's filled with on-the-edge-of-plausibility concepts that makes me wonder "What if we could do that", or gets me hacking on a project. The only other sci-fi I've found on his level have been the Children of Time books. I've read them all except Reamde, and found Termination Shock to be the tamest, so perhaps if you're new to Stephenson, don't start there.
- Rebelgecko 4y agoEven though Termination Shock wasn't super out there, I thought it's better than a lot of his book wrt characterization (even if there were a few moments that didn't work for me)
- lb1lf 4y agoMuch as I love Neal Stephenson's novels, I really wish he'd stayed around at the writer's class he surely took until they had learned how to wrap up books and write endings; more often than not, I turn the page on a Stephenson novel only to find it was the last... (While I exaggerate a little, his stories do not end as much as END - I would be thrilled if he could spend a few pages wrapping it up in the end before leaving us waiting for the next title...) The yarns he constructs are definitely entertaining enough for me to cope with this very minor annoyance, though.
- mayoff 4y agoNeal Stephenson discussing the “Stephenson can't write endings” meme: https://www.reddit.com/r/nealstephenson/comments/5jjwmq/neal_stephensons_response_to_a_question_on_how_he/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nealstephenson/comments/5jjwmq/neal...
- haroldl 4y agoIt's clear he can do it: the ending of Anathem ties up everything very neatly and it is hard for me to imagine any major events happening in the characters' lifetimes that would rival the plot arc they've been through.
- lb1lf 4y agoThat sounds great; I have had Anathem on my bookshelf for years after life got in the way just after starting it; I had planned to finally read it this fall. Your observation makes me look forward to it even more, thank you!
- JZL003 4y agoI agree, I don't think diamond age gets enough interest. It's one of my favorite books and the ending is unsatisfying but at least upbeat. Seveneves is also tons of fun. And if you know anyone who likes history, his older Baroque Cycle is pretty great I haven't heard this in an interview or anything but I think now Stephenson is older and successful enough, he just writes the books exactly how he likes. Diamond age feels like he was agonizing over every word to keep everything so short. But Fall, and his newest book Termination Shock (which I also didn't like most of) ,just feels like an author who likes writing. Both have these amazing moments, which reminds me like a jazz musician, where it's almost effortlessly insightful and funny. But with no editing or second thoughts
- JZL003 4y agoAlso for anyone who likes weird scifi, read Cory Doctorow's Rapture of the nerds, it has an amazing audiobook and is just fun and clever
- cl42 4y agoSpoiler Alert The idea that rich people have access to more compute power in the cloud, and can experience more compute cycles per minute (and thus have more experiences in a metaverse!), is exactly how I see a dystopian universe based on cloud computing developing. When I read that part in the book, it blew my mind.
- the__alchemist 4y agoProbably my favorite, edging the others out slightly... as you might guess.
- cl42 4y agoA bit random, but I always think about how Seveneves could be a fantastic RPG.
- PBnFlash 4y agoFall, dodge in hell has a super interesting take on post fact reality. Ai spam can get a lot crazier.
- jabl 4y agoI really loved the Baroque cycle; Is there any other author that writes similar stuff? I've liked other Stephenson novels I've read (Cryptonomicon and Diamond age), but to be honest they haven't been the mind blowing experience of the Baroque cycle. I'm planning to read Anathem and Termination Shock in the hopefully not too far future, but we'll see.
- jimmygrapes 4y agoNot quite at the same scale, but Dan Simmons writes some pretty great alternate/fictionalized history that tend to be pretty lengthy (if that's your thing). I particularly enjoyed Drood and The Terror (from which the TV series was adapted), and Black Hills is pretty nice as well. He also did Hyperion Cantos and the Ilium/Olympos series if you're more into s-f.
- disgruntledphd2 4y agoHyperion is absolutely wonderful, I enjoyed all four but the first two are definitely worth reading. The first one is the best SF Pilgrims Progress update ever.
- k2enemy 4y agoIn my search for more works like the Baroque Cycle, I was led to Thomas Pynchon, who's writing far surpass that of Stephenson (in my opinion). In particular, Against the Day, Gravity's Rainbow, and Mason & Dixon. They are all historical fiction of sorts, with long detailed excursions into well researched nooks and crannies of history. Pynchon's writing is sublime once you get used to it.
- jpm_sd 4y agoI think you'd really like the Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian. Surprising amount of history-of-science in his historical fiction. For straight up history of science, Simon Winchester is pretty great.
- jabl 4y ago
- sedev 4y agoThere's a Blood Knife article https://bloodknife.com/inadequacy-of-inspirational-scifi/ https://bloodknife.com/inadequacy-of-inspirational-scifi/ critiquing Stephenson that makes an interesting companion read to this. I have enjoyed Stephenson's novels tremendously, but when OP says they're not "preachy," that is rather a whopper — particularly thinking of _Cryptonomicon,_ but _Termination Shock_ also digresses into it.
- anubhav200 4y agoThanks, I was looking for exactly this only.
- skybrian 4y agoNot mentioned but somewhat related: The Mongoliad series, for which Stephenson is one of the co-authors. (It's a collective work that came out of a failed startup; it's complicated.) This is historical fiction and it's very long, but I found it interesting. You might say it arose in part out of Stephenson's interest how historical fighting might have actually worked. https://www.amazon.com/The-Mongoliad-Series-5-book-series/dp/B074C3XQ4Y https://www.amazon.com/The-Mongoliad-Series-5-book-series/dp...
- progre 4y agoNot even mentioned in the article, but a book I really like: Zodiak Not sf exactly, it's an "eco-thriller" but it has its fair share of science. And it's a pretty good thriller.
- labrador 4y agoI wish I could get the time back in invested in reading "Cryptonomicon." I had high hopes after "Snow Crash", but they never materialized. It's my fault: I knew I should have quit after the author indulged himself by going on about his furniture sorting algorithm. Inexcusable in a book over a 1000 pages long. "What is your favorite rambling, tangential aside from a Neal Stephenson novel and why?" https://old.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/362bej/what_is_your_favorite_rambling_tangential_aside/cra0zxo/ https://old.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/362bej/what_is_you...
- jameshart 4y agoIt's not the author's furniture sorting algorithm. It's the Waterhouse family's. It tells us a considerable amount about the Waterhouse family's particular dysfunctions, and the various Shaftoes' ability to tolerate, or slot into supporting roles around that, and in particular it digs deeply into the conflicts that arise between hyperrational people who think 'we can build an algorithm that will permit a fair and equitable distribution of wealth' and the reality of people who will abuse the properties of that algorithm to make sure they get what they want. If you think that was an irrelevant aside to the rest of the book's themes, I dunno what to tell you.
- labrador 4y agoSnow Crash appears on at lists of the best Science Fiction books of all time, while Cryptonomicon is in no danger of appearing on any list of favorite Science Fiction books. Cryptonomicon is 25 times less popular than Snow Crash on Amazon (rank #6,737 vs #153,999) and no one on reddit challenged the assertion that Stephenson sometimes writes "rambling, tangential asides." I prefer my Science Fiction books have a good story, not teach me about math and game theory. There are better books for that. If you liked Cryptonomicon, congratulations, you have the same taste as the author. I stand by my disappointment going from Snow Crash to Cryptonomicon.
- scombridae 4y agoI stand by my disappointment going from Snow Crash to Cryptonomicon. If by "disappointment" you mean Cryptonomicon stretched the turgidity of Snow Crash to its theoretical page limit, you may have a point.
- The_Colonel 4y agoMy favorite Stephenson's novel is Anathem with superb world building (as usual) but also a pretty good story and ending. But it's also a book whose world (specifically the avout society) attracts me. I've grown up in a Catholic setting, but "converted" to atheism/agnosticism pretty early. But even with its many failings, there are certain aspects of religions which seem worth preserving - the focus on community, the rituals, a particular rule framework, meditation (prayers) and introspection. The book presents a (on a certain level) pretty attractive model of society which combines the practical religious patterns with a full rationalism. I kind of understand why such "atheist religion" is unlikely to get off in the real world, but it's still something I would wish for.
- bradleyjg 4y agoAnathem is also my favorite, fairly easily. I’m not surprised there are Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, Diamond Age, or Baroque Cycle favorite-rs but I am when I come across someone that thought Seveneves or Dodge was his best.
- stuven 4y agoI've only read Seveneves to the end and was blown away (and simultaneously a bit disappointed if that makes sense?). I've started Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash but they didn't interest me as much.
- smogcutter 4y agoSame! I love Diamond Age and to a lesser extent Cryptonomicon, but for my money Seveneves found him leaning into his worst instincts. At his best, Stephenson’s love of oddball, hyper-focused engineers leads him into in-depth explorations of niche fields & communities. In Seveneves though it manifested as boring Heinlein-esque heroic Mary Sue libertarian engineers who are never wrong, while every other character is somewhere on a spectrum of stupid to nefarious.
- noSyncCloud 4y agoI absolutely loved Seveneves; easily my second favorite. The first part was too long and the second too short, however, and it's obviously not as good as Anathem ;)
- odiroot 4y agoI really loved Snow Crash. That's a perfect balance between science fiction and reality, without crossing the cringe-threshold. Really wish someone adapted it into a mini-series. Encouraged by that lecture, I tried Cryptonomicon and liked it even more. I then listened to the audio-book version read by Stephenson himself. It's actually hilarious in this way. REAMDE has actually been quite disappointing. I put it down after 2 chapters (it crossed the cringe-threshold for me). Haven't picked up any of Neal's books since.
- mgarfias 4y agoAuthor here forgot The Big U and Zodiac. The writing wasn't as polished as his later stuff, but still good stories. U's weirdness rating would be a 5/5.
- jameshart 4y agoAnd, since D.O.D.O being included means we're evidently including collaborations, The Interface, which reads as more prescient of modern political discourse every year.
- jdkee 4y agoThe Interface is a criminally underrated book. Same with the Cobweb, under written by him under the pseudonym Stephen Bury.
- balentio 4y agoI'm probably in the minority opinion here, but I'd say his newer work is in some ways less inventive than his older work. I think a lot of it boils down to being around silicon valley weirdos for too long wherein the books take on themes the extremely wealthy technocrats are actually trying to accomplish. It goes from being Sci-Fi to Sci-we-really-are-doing-this.
- wolfram74 4y agoI read Termination Shock and was pretty let down when it seemed like the innovative new social dynamic to resolve climate change was monarchy. It was a fun enough read, but I don't think I'll revisit it like I do with Cryptonomicon or Anathem.
- decebalus1 4y agoI agree with you. Avid Stephenson fan, I read all of his works but 'The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.' was the last novel I actually enjoyed..
- the__alchemist 4y agoCould be. I really liked Fall except for its opening moves, but Termination shock was... in terms of inventiveness, mystery, and thrill... not on the same level as his older books.
- zuluonezero 4y agoThe Baroque Cycle made me understand maths and the impact of the 18th century renaissance on computing. It made me more curious to learn algebraic concepts that I had neglected. Plus he wrote those long books by hand with ink and a feather dip pen! It has a kind of crazy genius stupidity to it that is serious and light at the same time.
- ttepasse 4y ago> Stephenson’s worlds are not populated predominantly by Heinleinian larger-than-life characters than can do anything … Funnily enough I have in Stephenson’s more recent books the contrary impression. The last near future books read more like a love letter to billionaires, all that seems missing is the long flowery dedication to patrons like authors did it in the 1700s. Maybe twenty years ago I was to young or blind to register it but modern Stephenson has just with this trope put himself from my must-read into the meh/maybe category. (Contrapoint: I can see a structural need for billionaires in his storytelling: He needs a source of financing for the fictional projects. But somehow Stephenson seems to be to unimaginative as to consider other means of realization than the magic billionaire.)
- fatbird 4y agoThis captures a lot of what makes me tired of Stephenson now. Elon Musk is his Gandalf.
- aoanla 4y agoYeah, Stephenson seems to have developed something of a moral blindspot regarding billionaires, which has been growing over time. It was somewhat obvious in Seveneves, but the "Dodge" sequence (REAMDE and Fall) becomes blatant to the point that much of the latter is full of people you just can't identify with, because they're all stupendously wealthy tech people.
- LiberationUnion 4y ago
- jpm_sd 4y agoI reread Cryptonomicon every couple of years. It's so very 90s, so very startup, I revel in it every time. It's delightfully appealing and appalling
- InTheArena 4y agoSince adaptations of some of Neal's earlier work are in development now for the streaming services, I think he's about to become much more popular. That said, every time I read the Baroque Cycle, I feel like he wrote it just for me. It will be a bit - but I suspect that just like Snow Crash seems to be taking over from Neuromancer in terms of the great metaverse work of fiction, I think his later work will also eventually come into vogue. I also adore the ending of the Baroque Cycle. Unlike virtually every other conclusion to a Stephenson novel, it feels like the ending is the satisfying moment where the whole story comes together - the total synthesis of the thesis of his works.
- uptime 4y agoCount me as a Zodiac reader. I grew up in the era where falling into the Charles River bought you a tetanus shot, and the opening scene is in an industrial corridor I used to explore. I also liked Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon and thought the Baroque cycle was a bold achievement, tying science and credit and warfare together. I haven’t invested in his later work enough to have an opinion, but he must have a lot of pages left in him - I hope he keep going and give us another good yarn with an ending.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jillesvangurp 4y agoHis early work is definitely interesting. The Big U is also missing from the list. And since they are tracking weirdness, this one hits a 5 out of 5. He also did a few thrillers with his uncle (Cobweb and Interface), and a series of medieval martial arts novels with a group of writers (The Mongoliad). And as a few longish essays and articles for e.g. wired (Motherboard Earth). And some short stories. All worth reading.
- robotguy 4y agoMost Stephenson fans think I'm nuts when I say The Big U is my favorite. What can I say? I like my sci-fi cheesy with lots of interesting concepts.
- sylens 4y agoMy first Stephenson book was Seveneves and I feel like its discussion of social media feedback loops in the 2nd act was eerily prescient
- cletus 4y agoIt's always fascinating to read people's takes on Stephenson's corpus. For me, Cryptonomicon to this day remains one of my most favorite books of all time. It harkens back to Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in that it meanders through what many would describe as filler. Some seem to dislike that. To me it helped paint such a great picture. I guess some people are more interested in the destination than the journey. Stephenson is much more about the journey. I love his description of those who just seem to have a gift for cryptography with the example of the street map of London [1]. Likewise his satire of academic writing with the paper on beards [2]. But it also captured (at least for me) the spirit of the dot-com era like nothing else I've ever read. It also wove together a cohesive mix of the (then) modern era and the code breaking of the Second World War (eg the abhorrent treatment of Alan Turing by the British Government). I really don't know if it would translate to the small screen (it's too long for the large screen and it would be a crime to try). Snow Crash, which I read years earlier, was highly memorable. It was really the closing days of the Cyperpunk era and I loved the world building. Both of the above suffer from Stephenson's achilles heels: actually ending a story. Anathem I also enjoyed. But the Baroque Cycle I never finished. I can't even remember where I stopped. I think it was early in the third book. I just found it so tedious. Early on I find it way more interesting. [1]: https://tentacle.net/~chrisr/bookshelf/Stephenson,%20Neal%20-%20Cryptonomicon/slide14.html https://tentacle.net/~chrisr/bookshelf/Stephenson,%20Neal%20... [2]: https://tentacle.net/~chrisr/bookshelf/Stephenson,%20Neal%20-%20Cryptonomicon/slide8.html https://tentacle.net/~chrisr/bookshelf/Stephenson,%20Neal%20...
- robswc 4y agoI love Cryptonomicon. I almost put it down though, before I really figured out what it was, so glad I finished it.
- InTheArena 4y agoOn baroque cycle, try the audio book version. It’s fantastic and the voice acting is top notch and helps really illustrate the story.
- dsign 4y agoSmall nitpick: > the abhorrent treatment of Alan Turning by the British Government. What the British Government did to him reflected what the people who elected that government thought at the time; it was in-line with the moral and civic expectations of the time. It is just that for all us it is often easier to blame the government than to admit the culture of the people of a time or place was at fault. This issue is all the most jarring in writing: government X that is democratically elected does something bad (e.g. spies on its citizens or invades Iraq), and then writers, who are culture-makers, blame the government wholly instead of being more equitable and handing some blame to Joe Plumber, voter, as well.
- beaugunderson 4y agoIf you like his books but haven't read "Mother Earth Mother Board", a piece of hacker tourism published in WIRED in 1996, do yourself a favor: https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/
- drivers99 4y agoAlso “In the Beginning was the Command Line.”
- stoical 4y agoYes, a site with 'Nerd' in the title on Neal Stephenson really needs to mention 'In the beginning was the command line' an analogy-fest on the state of personal computing in the late ninties https://web.archive.org/web/20180218045352/http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html https://web.archive.org/web/20180218045352/http://www.crypto...
- chillpenguin 4y agoJust read Cyptonomicon (the only Stephenson book I have read so far) and was thinking about what to read next, so this post was timely for me :)
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoI am probably not going to make myself a lot of friends here but my issue with Stephenson is that he is not really a good writer. I liked Snow Crash. It’s a very fun book. It doesn’t overstay its welcome too much. Of course, the ending is awful and the prose average but I could forgive that for the enjoyment value. I then tried to read Cryptonimicon and the Diamond Age. I couldn’t go further than thirty pages. I’m sure there are interesting ideas somewhere in these books but I can’t really imagine having to plod through the rest to reach them.
- RNAlfons 4y agoI had to scroll down way too far for a critical comment... I feel the same. Having grown up on SciFi I found him to be the most overrated author in the genre. I don't know how the author of that article came to the conclusion that Stephenson writes "realistic characters" when all the characters I've seen in the only two books I read by him (Snow Crash and Anathem) were pure cliche. I understand that it was supposed to be a joke in Snow Crash but after reading Anathem I'm not so sure if he really intended it to be a joke in the first place. Female characters are especially bad. Than there is the world building: yes he can go forever about a single small thing quoting wikipedia for pages. Than a few pages later the character leaves the enclosed environment and what you get is a rough sketch of the rest of the world. As if he ran out of "describing". In the end you're left borrowing from other authors like he somehow expects you to do. Also...all those single small thing describing was completely irrelevant. It's quite sad because he does have good ideas but he neither has a clue how to bring them to an interesting end nor when to stop beating it. 1/5 would not recommend.
- nswest23 4y agoHe just isn't a very good writer. That's ok I guess. Some folks seem to be able to get past the alternately dull or cartoonish characters (I did get a chuckle out of the fact that the blog post mentioned realistic characters are one of his strong suits).
- reubenswartz 4y agoStephenson is one of my favorite storytellers and one of my least favorite writers. It’s quite maddening. :)
- pbj1968 4y agoHe’s worth seeing in person. A very thoughtful question and answer session. His books are an exhausting read, but he does have a beautiful command of language.
- wdr1 4y agoAm I the only one who is continually disappointed by his inability to write a good ending? He does an _excellent_ job building worlds, creating compelling characters, intriguing plots... but I've just been let down by so many bad endings I stopped reading him.
- the__alchemist 4y agoDoes anyone have recommended books or authors for people who like Stephenson? My primary recommendation is Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time books; their attention to detail is almost on Stephenson's level, although without as much edge in their tone and metaphors. I think most Stephenson fans would like them. I'd also recommend Carl Sagan's Contact, and any of the Andy Weir books, although these are milder in tone, scope, and world-building.
- Eric_WVGG 4y agoSteven Baxter is a good one, he’s an ex-NASA guy so he’s got the science cred, and wrote with Arthur C. Clarke a few times early in his career. His Manifold trilogy absolutely captured the modern era of rich-startup-dudes-trying-to-reboot-space-flight about fifteen years ago. I also can’t recommend Iain M. Banks highly enough; start with Player of Games. [edit] a little more on Banks… his Culture novels take the best aspects of Star Wars (the drama, but none of the magic space wizards) and Star Trek (the pretention of trying to write about politics, but actually succeeding instead of muddling around), and all written by a guy who somehow maintained a parallel career in Serious Literary Fiction (done via a hack of writing his genre fiction with the middle initial, and without it for the “serious” stuff, thus leading booksellers to thinking he was two different guys). Simply the best space opera ever written.
- tobbe2064 4y agoTo me he writes like a person who mainly likes hearing his own voice. Further, all his female characters are morons and serve only to hamper the guys or as sexual objects. If the later they tend to be teenagers or at least have the brains of teenagers.
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- madrox 4y agoStephenson has an incredible style that I appreciate more with every book I read because he has some regard for what you're probably thinking while reading it. Some of his books are incredibly easy to read. Some, like Quicksilver, are a slog. However, pretty much all of his books have a point near the end where a couple of characters sit down together to talk about what the story was really about in a way that puts a new lens on everything that happened. Usually, I never see it coming. His ability to obfuscate the theme until he's ready to surprise you with it is an impressive mental feat. I don't think I've encountered another author that's so consistently good at it.
- Derbasti 4y agoSnow Crash is probably the one formative book that made me who I am. I bought this book in the English section of a Norwegian bookstore while on a bike trip there. I was just out of school and I had not decided yet what to do with my life. My English was just barely good enough to understand Snow Crash. At its essence, Snow Crash introduced me to the idea of hacking. That is, hacking in the abstract sense of using knowledge about the inner workings of things to influence the world. At the time, I didn't know anything about software yet. Even though the main hero of the book is a master hacker and part of the book plays out in cyber space, it never really talks about the act of writing code. I would learn about that later. Snow Crash was my red pill. Re-reading it today, after having been a professional software engineer for a number of years, I can't overstate how influential this book has been in my life. It instilled in me the desire to understand the deep structures of things. And with that, the ability to influence and create the world around me. It set me on the path to becoming who I am today. Snow Crash also served as my introduction to modern utopian cyberpunk. Even though I spent my youth playing video games and reading bad sci-fi, I still remember Snow Crash as my formal introduction to cyber space, virtual avatars, megacorporations, and light cycle races. And it told of the awesome power of reason. My second favorite Stephenson is Zodiac, strangely.
- ridgered4 4y agoI read this book for the first time fairly recently, and enjoyed it. I'd seen quite a bit of media that was influenced by it so some parts felt a little more old hat to me than they otherwise would have. Not sure how you see it as utopian cyberpunk though. It sure seemed like a dystopia to me!
- LordViper128 4y agoNeal Stephenson, I love his work. I accidentally fell into seveneves, while that has it's problems, especially near the end, I absolutely devoured it. from there I just started reading all his stuff. Such a cool way to integrate science with story telling.
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y agoAgain. Why no love for "The Years of Rice and Salt"?