3 ms·

I 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 ve

I 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 ago
I 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 ago
  He 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).

RNAlfons 4y ago

I 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 ago
He 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).