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It'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 dysf
by jameshart 4y ago
It'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.
- jameshart 4y ago“Cryptonomicon is in no danger of appearing on any list of favorite Science Fiction books” That’s an odd claim. It was a Hugo nominee and won the Locus award the year it came out. But it also shows up on lists of the best books of the 1990s, not just ‘sci fi’ lists. You don’t have to have liked it, but trying to argue that the ‘rambling asides’ which are the signature of what many people love about Stephenson’s work somehow make it objectively worse sci fi than Snow Crash is a bizarre way to approach literature.
- labrador 4y agoCryptonomicon is trash but will continued to be held up by Sci Fi snobs to signal their refined tastes. It's ever been so in the two decades since I suffered through it.
- Cd00d 4y agoOkay, you didn't like Cryptonomicon. Maybe you don't like longer books, which is fine. Personally, it's my favorite book of all time. I'm not a Sci Fi snob and rarely read the genre, so I'm not sure what the signaling is.
- labrador 4y agoNever mind me, I'm just on a tear over this book because invariably some intellectual insinuates that I'm not bright enough to understand it. I have a strict policy of not commenting on this book that I hate with a passion because I always get caught in the same loop with other people about it, but in a moment of weakness I did once again.
- Cd00d 4y agoI don't see that insinuation in this thread. Your comments are legitimate from the perspective of a reader that doesn't want long tangents and asides, but your attacks on the book itself are hyperbolic - "Cryptonomicon is in no danger of appearing on any list of favorite Science Fiction books". The book literally is on lists like this. We're all allowed to like different things, and you shouldn't take that difference as commentary on your intelligence. I think an unemotional reading of this thread lacks condescension or insinuation. What is your favorite SciFi novel? Maybe highlighting that will help see the difference in style preference. Personally, of the SciFi I've read, after Stephenson I liked Weir and the Altered Carbon series. There's another book that I think of all the time but don't recall the title or author - future dystopia where the USA has split into two countries - conservative middle America red states and liberal coastal states with strongly defended but crossable borders.