42 ms·

Neal is terrible at writing female characters, which is probably at its most obvious in Cryptonomicon.

• Barrin92 4y ago
  he'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 ago
    Reamde 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.
    • nibbleshifter 4y ago
      Yep, that's something I kind of flagged as a big "oof" as well after reading Reamde and noticing the repeat use in other books :/ I still enjoy his writing, and generally think he isn't a bad writer, but also...