4 ms·

The thing about the Diamond Age is the first half is a brilliant book full of great ideas that seems to be set for a complex and enthralling finale, and the sec

The thing about the Diamond Age is the first half is a brilliant book full of great ideas that seems to be set for a complex and enthralling finale, and the second half is an absolute mess that ruins the first half. Only book I can think of comparable in that respect is Stranger in a Strange Land (note to sci-fi authors: don't think you can tie the plot of your killer high-concept idea together with the first thing that comes to mind, especially not if the first thing that comes to mind is the need to come up with creative reasons for your characters to have orgies)

jamestimmins 4y ago
I accidentally purchased the "uncut" version of Stranger in a Strange Land, which included 85,000 more words that were edited out of the original release. If ever there was a book that didn't need an extra 85,000 words...
- number6 4y ago
  I read Stranger in a Strange Land in my youth and it was mind-blowing. The unnecessary Lewdness was nice in puberty but looking back today it's more like a thing of its time thing...
  - stevenwoo 4y ago
    I, too, read it when younger and thought there was a lot of sex in Stranger in a Strange Land until I read Dahlgren where there is a lot less thinking and talking about it and more just step by step descriptions of every act, and that book came about fifteen years later.
cainxinth 4y ago
I sorta agree, but I also think one of the reasons that the first part is stronger has something to do with the protagonist’s age. When she’s just an innocent little girl, you feel incredible tension every time she is threatened. As she gets older and more capable, the danger doesn’t connect as viscerally to the reader (in my case anyway). But, warts and all, still one of my favorite novels ever.
- notahacker 4y ago
  Agree it's inevitable that it loses some tension and sweetness (and the role of the all-important Primer), but it's more that Stephenson just takes her in terrible directions (she decides to work in a brothel dictating BDSM fantasies, then she gets violated by rebels, then she unironically becomes the Victorian colonialist ideal of the great White Leader the Chinese girls need) and the others in even worse directions (disappear from the narrative, die a pathos-free death, wake up after 12 years of drug induced orgies and have no emotional reaction whatsoever but a compelling need to wander into a pace-killing subplot about a theatre). The plotting is clunky, I'm not sure the writing is as good despite a few nice moments and the whole Drummers orgy-computer concept is best reserved for another book, preferably unpublished.
  - number6 4y ago
    I can totally relate. Despite the shortcomings I love the book; there are parts better to be forgotten though... I secretly dream of a distributed republic.
    - notahacker 4y ago
      I secretly dream of discovering a second half of the book I enjoyed as much as the first...
      - number6 4y ago
        We should feed the first half into an AI and ask for the second half
  - aoanla 4y ago
    Yeah, I think the dissonance I fundamentally had with the ending of The Diamond Age is that it seems to not have any sense of irony (or any concept that, maybe, the Seed might not be the awful idea that his protagonists are trying to sell us that it is, for example).
  - tialaramex 4y ago
nixlim 4y ago
This. Absolutely the feeling I had after reading both of them
Gatsky 4y ago
I think you can write a book to have a good beginning, and you can write a book to have a good ending, but it is very hard to do both. William Gibson books are all about the ending I find. The beginnings are positively disorienting most of the time. The book with the best ending I've ever read was Musashi. The entire book is building up to the finale which is almost unbearably dramatic. But it starts pretty slowly. The Magus is a book with a well connected beginning and end, almost seamless if you like. Although it employs a trick to make this happen, where the first person narrator is possessed of preternatural insight into what is going on, which streamlines the story. But Fowles is a pretty exceptional writer.

jamestimmins 4y ago

I accidentally purchased the "uncut" version of Stranger in a Strange Land, which included 85,000 more words that were edited out of the original release. If ever there was a book that didn't need an extra 85,000 words...

number6 4y ago
I read Stranger in a Strange Land in my youth and it was mind-blowing. The unnecessary Lewdness was nice in puberty but looking back today it's more like a thing of its time thing...
- stevenwoo 4y ago
  I, too, read it when younger and thought there was a lot of sex in Stranger in a Strange Land until I read Dahlgren where there is a lot less thinking and talking about it and more just step by step descriptions of every act, and that book came about fifteen years later.

cainxinth 4y ago

I sorta agree, but I also think one of the reasons that the first part is stronger has something to do with the protagonist’s age. When she’s just an innocent little girl, you feel incredible tension every time she is threatened. As she gets older and more capable, the danger doesn’t connect as viscerally to the reader (in my case anyway). But, warts and all, still one of my favorite novels ever.

notahacker 4y ago
Agree it's inevitable that it loses some tension and sweetness (and the role of the all-important Primer), but it's more that Stephenson just takes her in terrible directions (she decides to work in a brothel dictating BDSM fantasies, then she gets violated by rebels, then she unironically becomes the Victorian colonialist ideal of the great White Leader the Chinese girls need) and the others in even worse directions (disappear from the narrative, die a pathos-free death, wake up after 12 years of drug induced orgies and have no emotional reaction whatsoever but a compelling need to wander into a pace-killing subplot about a theatre). The plotting is clunky, I'm not sure the writing is as good despite a few nice moments and the whole Drummers orgy-computer concept is best reserved for another book, preferably unpublished.
- number6 4y ago
  I can totally relate. Despite the shortcomings I love the book; there are parts better to be forgotten though... I secretly dream of a distributed republic.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    I secretly dream of discovering a second half of the book I enjoyed as much as the first...
    - number6 4y ago
      We should feed the first half into an AI and ask for the second half
- aoanla 4y ago
  Yeah, I think the dissonance I fundamentally had with the ending of The Diamond Age is that it seems to not have any sense of irony (or any concept that, maybe, the Seed might not be the awful idea that his protagonists are trying to sell us that it is, for example).
- tialaramex 4y ago

nixlim 4y ago

This. Absolutely the feeling I had after reading both of them

Gatsky 4y ago

I think you can write a book to have a good beginning, and you can write a book to have a good ending, but it is very hard to do both. William Gibson books are all about the ending I find. The beginnings are positively disorienting most of the time. The book with the best ending I've ever read was Musashi. The entire book is building up to the finale which is almost unbearably dramatic. But it starts pretty slowly. The Magus is a book with a well connected beginning and end, almost seamless if you like. Although it employs a trick to make this happen, where the first person narrator is possessed of preternatural insight into what is going on, which streamlines the story. But Fowles is a pretty exceptional writer.