5 ms·
> Stephenson's later books are much better (though after Diamond Age they become too long to film anyway). I disagree - his most recent novel, REAMDE, is twice
by adriand 14y ago
> Stephenson's later books are much better (though after Diamond Age they become too long to film anyway).
I disagree - his most recent novel, REAMDE, is twice as long as it needs to be (and badly in need of a ruthless editor), takes itself far too seriously, is full of absurdly unlikely plot scenarios, and is in general almost totally unreadable.
- liamondrop 14y agoWhat you are portraying as negatives (meandering detours into entirely unnecessary, but hilarious, trivia; absurdly unlikely plot scenarios [since when is anything about Snowcrash a likely scenario?]; etc.) are probably what loom as the largest selling points for fans of Stephenson's work from Cryptonomicon onward. I don't think we buy the books for the "plausability" factor. Also, the books hardly take themselves seriously.
- waterlesscloud 14y agoThe Baroque Trilogy literally changed how I see the way the world works. Those endless detours are worth quite a lot.
- planetguy 14y agoSome of them are. Some of them are truly pointless. Neal Stephenson apparently had a giant map of 18th century London on the wall of the room where he wrote it, and as such apparently feels compelled, on certain occasions when a character goes from one place to another, to name every street he passes on the way. That's not atmospheric or interesting, it's just filler.
- excuse-me 14y agoThe point of Baroque architecture and music is to have too much detail at every level to take in - presumably he was trying the same thing in writing.
- dredmorbius 14y agoThe best textbook on modern banking and finance I've ever read. Which, I realize, is a really damning endorsement of a novel, but I honestly found it fascinating. Once I chewed through enough (roughly half) of the first book to the point that it was engaging. And yes, its exposition was itself an exploration of the baroque.
- pavel_lishin 14y agoI was with you up until the final point; I loved it, and devoured it in a couple of days on my phone.
- eli 14y agoI enjoyed it, though I'd agree that it comes off as a bit of a goofy spy novel in the end. My guess is that Stephenson overcompensated for the perception that his earlier novels had anti-climatic endings.
- mikeash 14y agoI thought it was pretty readable, but painfully predictable and fairly unoriginal. It was pretty much Stephenson's writing style grafted onto a grocery store checkout line novel's plot.
- planetguy 14y agoI stand corrected on the latest one, which I haven't read. I've picked it up in the bookstore a few times but the combination of a thousand pages of thickness and a less-than--compelling blurb on the back (wasn't this a Michael Douglas movie?) have failed to convince me. Thanks for the anti-recommendation... a thousand-page book is a serious time commitment and there's a lot of other things I want to read. To be honest Cryptonomicon is the only NS book which I really and wholeheartedly recommend. Diamond Age and Anathem are definitely interesting and I'm glad I read them but they have their flaws, Snow Crash comes across as juvenile, and the Baroque Cycle is approximately five hundred pages of a fantastic book bound at random with twelve hundred pages of boring.
- excuse-me 14y agoDiamond age is interesting, he almost gets to write actual characters. Snow Crash is an 80s heavy metal album made into a book. Cryptomincon is excellent. The Baroque cycle - you have to like Baroque. All those gold filigrees and cherubs of a Baroque opera house don't compare to the elegant lines of a Gothic cathedral and these three books aren't a lean story. Anathem - I have to read again to decide if it's simply too long or if there is a point. Readme - I can only assume he got a massive tax bill or is channeling the spirit of Michael Chrichton on a bad day. The only thing that raises it above Tom Clancy is that his editor managed to cut out 1000pages of weapons specifications.
- adriand 14y ago> To be honest Cryptonomicon is the only NS book which I really and wholeheartedly recommend. We're on the same page then, I agree with you. I really enjoyed Cryptonomicon. Diamond Age was interesting but tended to read like the script for an over-the-top sci-fi movie.
- lukejduncan 14y agoOh man, The Diamond Age is my all time favorite and the book that drew me to Stephenson in the first place
- excuse-me 14y ago
- gcv 14y agoREAMDE was a bit long, true, but I had a blast reading it anyway. For one thing, it's really fun — right now — to read a book which accurately portrays up-to-the moment garbage like social media, MMORPGs, and a bit about startup culture. Plus, much of the text is hilarious, especially Ivanov's lines.