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I generally love the subjects Stephenson writes about and the specific ideas he explores, but I find his style exhausting. He's just so damn wordy.
by incision 14y ago
I generally love the subjects Stephenson writes about and the specific ideas he explores, but I find his style exhausting.
He's just so damn wordy.
- CodeMage 14y agoMy biggest problem with Stephenson's works is that he doesn't really finish his books, he either just stops abruptly (e.g. "Diamond Age" or "Snow Crash") or winds down gently, but anticlimactically (e.g. "Cryptonomicon" or "Anathem"). I still love his books, because they're full of awesomeness and the ending doesn't make the rest of the book crap (unlike what BioWare did to Mass Effect with the original ME3 ending).
- bsenftner 14y agoMy feelings exactly. Great ideas are fun, but can you wrap it up convincingly? Pull that off and you've got greatness...
- laserDinosaur 14y agoI was chatting to a friend about this the other day who felt the same way. He will have moments in his books that will come across as such powerful theologies and ideas that you will spend years thinking about it. The problem is for every mind blowing idea he explores, he has 15 chapters of the wordiest words I've ever worded. I'm reading Cryptonomicon and he spent 19 pages - 19 PAGES - describing a guy eating cereal. Combine that with the fact that he will frequently use words that I don't think anybody but him knows (The whole reason I bought a e-reader was so I can use the definition function to understand what the hell he is talking about) and it feels like I'm reading the literary equivalent of Dark Souls. I really love the ideas he writes about, I just wish he didn't have a burning hatred for the reader.