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Cimber posted:What game is that? T'Rain is really reminiscent of Eve's insistence that the world grow organically, and that the "realistic" economy be the driving force of all player interactions. All the parts about mining being the primary focus for many players, and how they need to fund the players that actually get to have fun is eerily close to the way some people play the game, with mining vessels and other craft being really cheap and easy, and the super star destroyer type ships costing the in game equivalent of thousands of dollars. Even the stuff about all your skills training automatically during downtime is in Eve. Stephenson is a big enough geek that I'd be shocked if he wasn't familiar. Of course, the makers of Eve also didn't seem to count on folks like us enjoying RPing socialist organizations that can easily transform a crappy ship that the vast coffers of Goonswarm can basically give away for free into a monster than can destroy the aforementioned super star destroyer. Or, well, that can easily organize a couple goons in those crappy ships to take out the $3,500 multiple real time months building time ship and laugh about it because it's a game and there are no consequences (only the ones that exist in your head). Read more about it here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3609703 Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Mar 21, 2014 |
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Mar 21, 2014 06:31
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Spoilers Below posted:T'Rain is really reminiscent of Eve's insistence that the world grow organically, and that the "realistic" economy be the driving force of all player interactions. All the parts about mining being the primary focus for many players, and how they need to fund the players that actually get to have fun is eerily close to the way some people play the game, with mining vessels and other craft being really cheap and easy, and the super star destroyer type ships costing the in game equivalent of thousands of dollars. Even the stuff about all your skills training automatically during downtime is in Eve. Stephenson is a big enough geek that I'd be shocked if he wasn't familiar. Strange Matter fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Mar 21, 2014 |
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Mar 21, 2014 15:11
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Spoilers Below posted:T'Rain is really reminiscent of Eve's insistence that the world grow organically, and that the "realistic" economy be the driving force of all player interactions. All the parts about mining being the primary focus for many players, and how they need to fund the players that actually get to have fun is eerily close to the way some people play the game, with mining vessels and other craft being really cheap and easy, and the super star destroyer type ships costing the in game equivalent of thousands of dollars. Even the stuff about all your skills training automatically during downtime is in Eve. Stephenson is a big enough geek that I'd be shocked if he wasn't familiar. That actually sounds rather cool. Huh.
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Mar 21, 2014 15:15
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Cimber posted:That actually sounds rather cool. Huh. And I actually felt the opposite about Eve and T'Rain. I thought that he'd clearly never done much of an indepth research into Eve but his exposure to MMOs was something like WOW, since so much of what he was talking about as novel and new about T'Rain was already done in Eve, or at least laid the groundwork for it.
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Mar 21, 2014 18:29
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Ravenfood posted:EVE is the greatest game to hear about other people playing. Apparently his kickstarted venture into doing the MMO with 'clang' isnt doing very well.http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/09/clang-kickstarter/ Older story however.
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Mar 21, 2014 20:09
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Cimber posted:I've read Eco before, but drat is he hard to get through some times. His sex scene in The Name of the Rose was...different. Okay, this makes me curious. Compared to Stephenson? I mean, he used the phrase "imperial pint of semen" in a sex scene in Cryptonomicon. Admittedly, it was in the context of a goony and extremely horny dude fresh out of a southeast Asian prison loving in the front seats of a beat-rear end jeep, so…
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Mar 23, 2014 07:19
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DrankSinatra posted:Okay, this makes me curious. Compared to Stephenson? I mean, he used the phrase "imperial pint of semen" in a sex scene in Cryptonomicon. Admittedly, it was in the context of a goony and extremely horny dude fresh out of a southeast Asian prison loving in the front seats of a beat-rear end jeep, so… Every time I think of Cryptonomicon (which I love), That's the stand-out awkward scene. It's not terrible in context, but it's still pretty bad. edit: no spoilers for Name of the Rose, please. I've read Focault's Pendulum but I've barely started Name of the Rose...
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Mar 23, 2014 07:52
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Snak posted:Every time I think of Cryptonomicon (which I love), That's the stand-out awkward scene. It's not terrible in context, but it's still pretty bad. If i remember right, the sex scene in TNotR was 95 percent the narrator discussing St. Augustus's writings. It was just bizarre.
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Mar 24, 2014 01:06
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Writing a good sex scene that won't be creepy is pretty much impossible so you might as well have fun with it.
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Mar 24, 2014 02:05
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There was an interview with Stephenson where he was asked why his books never have any "good smut" and his response was that he simply didn't know how to write "good smut"
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Mar 24, 2014 02:56
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DrankSinatra posted:Okay, this makes me curious. Compared to Stephenson? I mean, he used the phrase "imperial pint of semen" in a sex scene in Cryptonomicon. Admittedly, it was in the context of a goony and extremely horny dude fresh out of a southeast Asian prison loving in the front seats of a beat-rear end jeep, so… Odds are if you like Stephenson, you'll like Eco. They both write in that "I know a lot of stuff, and I'm going to bring it up at weird times" style where, it makes perfect sense why they're bringing said thing up in context, but explaining that context to someone who hasn't read the book can be almost impossible without looking like a weirdo. One major difference is that Eco always writes in the first person, and so there's always this lingering doubt as the veracity of his narrators that lends an element of unreality to his stories that isn't quite as present in Stephenson's encyclopedic 3rd person narrators, and when you're talking about stories which are about liars, conspiracies of liars and con men, people who've lost their memories, and other types where whether or not the narrator is telling the truth is really important... But seriously, Eco is awesome.
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Mar 24, 2014 06:21
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Snak posted:There was an interview with Stephenson where he was asked why his books never have any "good smut" and his response was that he simply didn't know how to write "good smut" There are some pretty smutty things in the Baroque Cycle, but they're all good because he doesn't go into much detail and lets your mind fill in the blanks (Eliza and Jack in the Hot Springs, for example).
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Mar 29, 2014 01:11
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precision posted:There are some pretty smutty things in the Baroque Cycle, but they're all good because he doesn't go into much detail and lets your mind fill in the blanks (Eliza and Jack in the Hot Springs, for example). I stopped reading Quicksilver because I found everything about Eliza and Jack's story to be terrible, cliche, and boring.
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Mar 29, 2014 02:35
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Snak posted:I stopped reading Quicksilver because I found everything about Eliza and Jack's story to be terrible, cliche, and boring. I think that's a very wrong opinion that would change if you kept reading, but also, Eliza/Jack are only 1/3 of the series (well, Eliza does a lot of stuff in book 2, but it's not Jack related at all). I would certainly give it another go. Their relationship does not follow any path you would expect it to, I think.
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Mar 29, 2014 05:01
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Snak posted:I stopped reading Quicksilver because I found everything about Eliza and Jack's story to be terrible, cliche, and boring. At what point did you stop?
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Mar 29, 2014 05:30
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precision posted:There are some pretty smutty things in the Baroque Cycle, but they're all good because he doesn't go into much detail and lets your mind fill in the blanks (Eliza and Jack in the Hot Springs, for example). Is that the half-dick handjob scene? That was a pretty  moment.Stephenson is weird, because he's written some stuff that I enjoy (Snow Crash, for example), but also the only book I've ever finished out of spite. I hated Reamde so, so much by page 300 or so, but I didn't want to let it beat me. Well, that, and I spent my book budget for the week on it. I really don't understand why he didn't just focus on the T'Rain stuff. That part of the book was actually interesting, but it never went anywhere and ended up being replaced by a painfully slow and boring terrorist hunt. When your "We have to stop him before he gets to carry out his attack!" plotline is less interesting than what a former fat nerd who's always on an elliptical is doing with MMO lore, you hosed up bad.
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Mar 29, 2014 16:02
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Is that the half-dick handjob scene? That was a pretty I... don't think you understood what Eliza did to him in that scene. I hate myself for typing this, by the way: Since the tip of Jack's dick was burned off, he can't achieve orgasm the normal way. He hasn't had one in years by the time he meets Eliza. She gives him an orgasm by stimulating his prostate, because she's a courtesan and knows about this stuff.
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Mar 29, 2014 23:19
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precision posted:I... don't think you understood what Eliza did to him in that scene. I hate myself for typing this, by the way: Since the tip of Jack's dick was burned off, he can't achieve orgasm the normal way. He hasn't had one in years by the time he meets Eliza. She gives him an orgasm by stimulating his prostate, because she's a courtesan and knows about this stuff. Oh, man, I didn't even think about that because I was like "Yep, don't need to know the logistics of getting a dude with half a dick off, let alone ten-fifteen pages worth of it" and pretty much skimmed that chapter. And now I know. God dammit. As if Reamde didn't already have me convinced that man needed an editor. Speaking of editors, I really can't overstate how much that, despite the fact I loved Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash and Anathem, and might still pick up his next novel, Reamde is possibly the worst book I've ever read. It was so bloated. Ugly In The Morning fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Mar 30, 2014 |
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Mar 30, 2014 05:26
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Oh, man, I didn't even think about that because I was like "Yep, don't need to know the logistics of getting a dude with half a dick off, let alone ten-fifteen pages worth of it" and pretty much skimmed that chapter. And now I know. God dammit. As if Reamde didn't already have me convinced that man needed an editor. I think you're remember wrong; the scene is actually only like a page, maybe half a page, and is extremely ambiguous and more funny than lewd. That was my original point. Actually, here it is: There followed a long, long, mysterious procedure—tedious and yet somehow not. “What’re you groping about for?” Jack muttered faintly. “My fall-bladder is just to the left.” “I’m trying to locate a certain chakra—should be somewhere around here—“ What’s a chakra?” “You’ll know when I find it.” Some time later, she did, and then the procedure took on greater intensity, to say the least. Suspended between Eliza’s two hands, like a scale in a market-place, Jack could feel his balance-point shifting as quantities of fluids were pumped between internal reservoirs, all in preparation for some Event. Finally, the crisis— Jack’s legs thrashed in the hot water as if his body were trying to flee, but he was staked, impaled. A bubble of numinous light, as if the sun were mistakenly attempting to rise inside his head. Some kind of Hindoo apocalypse played out. He died, went to Hell, ascended into Heaven, was reincarnated as various braying, screeching, and howling beasts, and repeated this cycle many times over. In the end he was reincarnated, just barely, as a Man. Not a very alert one. I've read far worse sex scenes, though I think also that many Stephenson fans are a bit prudish.
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Mar 30, 2014 06:14
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precision posted:I've read far worse sex scenes, though I think also that many Stephenson fans are a bit prudish. It may have been this thread, the sci-fi thread, or the Abercrombie thread where it came up, but the theory I like is that the issue is that people like their sex scenes like they like their sex, and what some people enjoy, or can tolerate, is very different from what others enjoy. That said, that's like the smallest part of the longest book ever.
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Mar 30, 2014 08:54
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precision posted:I think you're remember wrong; the scene is actually only like a page, maybe half a page, and is extremely ambiguous and more funny than lewd. That was my original point. It's been a while since I read Quicksilver, so it's been inflated in my mind, I guess. I've never been able to get through the Baroque Cycle, something always comes up that distracts me and I never get back around to the series.
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Mar 30, 2014 15:09
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It took me a couple tries to finish Quicksilver, but once I did I powered through The Confusion and System of the World in about a month. poo poo picks up really fast once the Minerva finally gets out of the Bay (though since you got to Jack and Eliza you already got past that part, so).
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Mar 30, 2014 21:31
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In the beginning of Anathem, while on the way to Provener, Fraa Erasmus finds Fraa Lio studying ants, trying to figure out if ants can flank (or use other strategies or tactic). Raz says, "I've seen ants work together to carry off part of my lunch, so I know they coordinate their actions." Fraa Lio responds, "But if I'm one of a hundred ants all pushing on the same raisin, I can feel the raisin moving, can't I--so the raisin itself is a way that they communicate with one another." Even though the topic is Ant Vlor, I always suspect it's a bit of a clue as to the multitudes of transpolycosmic consciousnesses working together to move a narrative. All the Fraa Jads are independent but are able to transmit information by the very thing they are all working on together, separately.
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Mar 30, 2014 23:22
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precision posted:It took me a couple tries to finish Quicksilver, but once I did I powered through The Confusion and System of the World in about a month. poo poo picks up really fast once the Minerva finally gets out of the Bay (though since you got to Jack and Eliza you already got past that part, so). I am not sure how so many people are consistently stymied by the young Daniel section of the story. I could read Stephenson describe madcap experiments to prove spontaneous generation, on the salubrious properties of quicksilver, in which retinas are damaged through sun exposure to determine the curvature of the eye, etc. forever. Jack's portions of the trilogy are alternately amusing and deadly dull, but rarely did I ever feel as pulled into the period during Jack's sections as the rest. A standout exception I think is Jack's adventure through the siege of Vienna.
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Mar 31, 2014 02:26
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SardaTheSage posted:In the beginning of Anathem, while on the way to Provener, Fraa Erasmus finds Fraa Lio studying ants, trying to figure out if ants can flank (or use other strategies or tactic). Raz says, "I've seen ants work together to carry off part of my lunch, so I know they coordinate their actions." The same allusion was made with the story of the fly, the bat, and the worm. I'm re-reading the book right now and paying extra attention to everything Jad does. He's the one, for example, who sends Erasmus over the north pole in search of Orolo.
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Mar 31, 2014 02:28
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Jazerus posted:I am not sure how so many people are consistently stymied by the young Daniel section of the story. I could read Stephenson describe madcap experiments to prove spontaneous generation, on the salubrious properties of quicksilver, in which retinas are damaged through sun exposure to determine the curvature of the eye, etc. forever. Jack's portions of the trilogy are alternately amusing and deadly dull, but rarely did I ever feel as pulled into the period during Jack's sections as the rest. A standout exception I think is Jack's adventure through the siege of Vienna. I guess this is just different strokes for different folks, because I too could read an entire book about Daniel Waterhouse, Natural Philosophy, and the Royal Society.
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Mar 31, 2014 02:41
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redshirt posted:The same allusion was made with the story of the fly, the bat, and the worm. I'm re-reading the book right now and paying extra attention to everything Jad does. He's the one, for example, who sends Erasmus over the north pole in search of Orolo. I liked when Fraa Jad did that he loosened his subsonic vocals to say that Orolo has gone north. I wonder if he did that just to be fun and dramatic or if the use of his bone-shaking voice is a bit connected to his accessing information from other cosmi. Raz mentions how his own long chanting can put him in a bit of a trance and thinks it may be a requirement for special types of thinking.
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Mar 31, 2014 02:44
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I'm doing a reread of The Baroque Cycle last night and just finished Quicksilver (the book, not the volume, seriously the most confusing way to discuss a series ever). I think it starts slowly with Enoch and Trinity, but once you get into the Plague Years things are only slowed down by the Minerva sections, which are way more interesting on the reread just because you realize these characters are actually important to the story later. The economic stuff, notably the rise and fall of the two Comstock houses, makes a great deal more sense the second time through. I think I'm enjoying the storytelling a lot more than I did the first time. Jack's story was always more accessible I thought because it was the most conventionally a story with him traveling from point to point and having adventures, but I do like all the insane theories and experiments the Royal Society get up to. I can't tell if Stephenson is implying Leibniz really did steal the calculus or not. There's the scene near the end of Quicksilver where Daniel and Leibniz are discussing using series to approach a number and how Newton has been using them to find tangents. Leibniz is deeply unsettled by this because he had assumed Newton was only interested in alchemy. It's at that point that Leibniz swears to be unmatched in mathematics. So it seems that at least the seeds for the calculus were planted in Leibniz's mind by Daniel from what Daniel learned from Newton.
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Mar 31, 2014 03:20
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Jazerus posted:I am not sure how so many people are consistently stymied by the young Daniel section of the story. I could read Stephenson describe madcap experiments to prove spontaneous generation, on the salubrious properties of quicksilver, in which retinas are damaged through sun exposure to determine the curvature of the eye, etc. forever. Jack's portions of the trilogy are alternately amusing and deadly dull, but rarely did I ever feel as pulled into the period during Jack's sections as the rest. A standout exception I think is Jack's adventure through the siege of Vienna. I loved that stuff actually, what kept tripping me up was "and now let's go back and spend 20 pages talking about Minerva going back and forth between pirates". I would even go so far as to want Stephenson to write a whole 1000 page book that goes into more detail about Daniel and Isaac's college days.
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Mar 31, 2014 03:22
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precision posted:I loved that stuff actually, what kept tripping me up was "and now let's go back and spend 20 pages talking about Minerva going back and forth between pirates". Between the way the pirates from Quicksilver dragged it down, and the way the terrorist chase from Reamde was way more tedious than reading about the MMO drama, I think Stephenson just needs to stop writing about things that sound exciting and just stick to the stuff he cares about, even if it doesn't make for a good back-of-the-book summary.
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Mar 31, 2014 12:59
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Cryptonomicon is the same way, if not as bad. Stephenson writes action sequences as though he's trying to transplant a badass action scene from a movie into his book. It never works, in my opinion, and I wish he would stop trying to do it.
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Mar 31, 2014 13:06
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I far prefer the Daniel portions of the Baroque Cycle to the Eliza or Jack sections, with the exception being the Bonanza portion of The Confusion, which is by far my favorite part of the entire series. Being that I don't usually read that genre of fiction it really riveted me from beginning to end, and those parts kept me going through the Juncto portions, which were far duller to me.
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Mar 31, 2014 16:12
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Strange Matter posted:I far prefer the Daniel portions of the Baroque Cycle to the Eliza or Jack sections, with the exception being the Bonanza portion of The Confusion, which is by far my favorite part of the entire series. Being that I don't usually read that genre of fiction it really riveted me from beginning to end, and those parts kept me going through the Juncto portions, which were far duller to me. Absolutely. I love the 'clever people doing clever things to achieve their goals' aspect of his writings. Cooking up the phosphorus to scare away the bandit king was a great example. The historical parts can be iether really dull or highly interesting. If i can see where things are going its great, if it gets mixed up with lots of characters it can be confusing and annoying to read.
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Mar 31, 2014 16:19
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I don't think there was any one part of the Baroque cycle I didn't enjoy, but it was so goddamn LONG.
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Mar 31, 2014 17:08
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Snak posted:Cryptonomicon is the same way, if not as bad. Stephenson writes action sequences as though he's trying to transplant a badass action scene from a movie into his book. It never works, in my opinion, and I wish he would stop trying to do it. There is one very notable exception: the 80-ish page action sequence near the end of The System of the World was just loving insane in its scope and quality. Although honestly I liked the last part of REAMDE, partly because I suspect it was partially satire (it even had a hilarious random thing in common with 24 that could not have been a coincidence). It's a weird book, and even weirder as a Stephenson book, because it doesn't have most of the things that anyone normally likes about his books, other than "likeable/awesome characters".
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Mar 31, 2014 22:35
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Some of his action sequences are great. Bobby Shaftoe on top of the fort is amazing, and also the bit with Randy/Amy/Enoch in the river. The part in The Big U where the LARPers actually get attacked by the mutant rats or whatever was also fantastic. Reamde didn't really have those. I still liked it though, and like Precision said I'm pretty sure it was partly satire - the terrorist plot has to be satire once they're on the plane.
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Mar 31, 2014 23:07
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I think his action sequences that are more a comedy of errors than people being badass work really well. Jack Shaftoe is constantly stumbling his way into fights and they're all really fun and interesting. The kung fu battle in Anathem is great because there are multiple times when Raz probably did die, but the story just switches to a different narrative where he didn't.
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Apr 1, 2014 02:45
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Atlas Hugged posted:I think his action sequences that are more a comedy of errors than people being badass work really well. Jack Shaftoe is constantly stumbling his way into fights and they're all really fun and interesting. The kung fu battle in Anathem is great because there are multiple times when Raz probably did die, but the story just switches to a different narrative where he didn't. They outright said he died when the everything killers in his gut were detonated by Fra Jaad
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Apr 1, 2014 03:39
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Cimber posted:They outright said he died when the everything killers in his gut were detonated by Fra Jaad I meant when the Valers rescued him from the mob.
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Apr 1, 2014 03:50
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Reamde is loving brilliant and I hate myself for scratching my head when it came out and largely ignoring it until now. Considering everything that happened with bitcoin after he wrote it, and speaking as someone who lost 10 years of their youth to blizzard video games, i can't help but laugh at every page.
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Apr 1, 2014 06:11
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