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Neil is probably one of my favorite writers. I've gone through three copies of Cryptonomicon, starting my second copy of Anathem and have read the Baroque series multiple times. He's a great author who really gives science and history lessons in the form of his fiction. The only book of his I did not like was Reamde, which I felt was a bit too much Tom Clancy. He had several themes I think went unexplored and the ending was just not something I enjoyed. Question is, what other authors write in similar styles and of similar types of science/history/economics as he does?
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Feb 25, 2014 18:09
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Can anyone explain how in the hell Snow Crash ended up on Time's list of 100 best books since 1923? It was a fun read, but c'mon. Pages and pages of dry lecturing on Sumerian myth and the characters don't have one iota of an arc.
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Feb 26, 2014 06:19
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blue squares posted:Can anyone explain how in the hell Snow Crash ended up on Time's list of 100 best books since 1923? It was a fun read, but c'mon. Pages and pages of dry lecturing on Sumerian myth and the characters don't have one iota of an arc. Time is a terrible magazine.
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Feb 26, 2014 06:38
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blue squares posted:Can anyone explain how in the hell Snow Crash ended up on Time's list of 100 best books since 1923? It was a fun read, but c'mon. Pages and pages of dry lecturing on Sumerian myth and the characters don't have one iota of an arc. probably because the editors of Time were wowed by the idea of social media, the internet and chat rooms being discussed in 1992. Snow crash was decent, but not a great book.
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Feb 26, 2014 16:11
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Cryptonomicon is a brilliant book, but it may be the only thing Stephenson's ever written that had a half-decent ending. I liked the first half of everything I've ever read by him! If you want other similar authors, Umberto Eco is probably the closest pick, at least to Stephenson's historical side. He writes a similar style of intricately researched historical fiction, but Eco is an actual professor of medieval aesthetics and history whereas Stephenson is just a smart guy interested in cool poo poo, and the difference shows. (An alternative and significantly dumbed-down pick would be Dan Brown, who's just an idiot).
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Feb 26, 2014 16:42
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Cryptonomicon is a brilliant book, but it may be the only thing Stephenson's ever written that had a half-decent ending. I liked the first half of everything I've ever read by him! I dunno, I thought the baroque saga had a decent ending, and Anathem wrapped itself up too. 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. Dan Brown is just terrible and needs to go away.
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Feb 26, 2014 18:37
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Cimber posted:Question is, what other authors write in similar styles and of similar types of science/history/economics as he does? Charles Stross scratches a lot of the same itches. His historical interests are mainly the Cold War and its various mad science projects. He has written a lot of books set during or after The Singularity, and delves into different ideas of what an interstellar economy might look like. And if you like the idea of urban fantasy set in a modern day intelligence agency with a healthy dose of Lovecraft The Laundry Files series is pretty good too.
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Feb 28, 2014 12:53
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Anathem was a wonderful book and I really enjoyed Snow Crash but Cryptonomicon left me very disappointed for reasons I can't really articulate. Hearing it was linked to the Baroque Cycle has knocked that right down my 'must read' list.
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Feb 28, 2014 16:43
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It's linked in that the main characters in Cryptonomicon are the decedents of the characters in the Baroque Cycle, and fulfill the same archetypes. But you could read the Baroque Cycle (which was written later) without reading Cryptonomicon and not miss anything critical. I read them in reverse order (Baroque Cycle first) and it was fine. I was "eh" on Cryptonomicon too, but the Baroque Cycle is pretty different. I think it's at least worth a shot.
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Feb 28, 2014 18:01
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I am about 300 pages into Anathem right now and when it was a pseudo-monk philosophy lifestyle type thing it was fairly interesting, but when it takes a hard right with the twist I haven't been able to put it down. Cryptonomicon was the same way. Reamde also grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't let go. Something about Stephenson's writing style just really clicks with me. e: Mustn't forget The Diamond Age. WarLocke fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Feb 28, 2014 |
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Feb 28, 2014 19:04
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WarLocke posted:I am about 300 pages into Anathem right now and when it was a pseudo-monk philosophy lifestyle type thing it was fairly interesting, but when it takes a hard right with the twist I haven't been able to put it down. I enjoyed the hell out of Cryptonomicon, Reamde, Snow Crash, and The Big U, and I absolutely loved The Diamond Age. I couldn't get in to Anathem at all, how long does it take before the twist? (Don't spoil the twist if you can help it, I just want to know how far through the book it is).
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Mar 1, 2014 00:55
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AlphaDog posted:I enjoyed the hell out of Cryptonomicon, Reamde, Snow Crash, and The Big U, and I absolutely loved The Diamond Age. I couldn't get in to Anathem at all, how long does it take before the twist? (Don't spoil the twist if you can help it, I just want to know how far through the book it is). I'm reading it on my Nook so I don't know if the page count is different from a physical book, but they start hinting towards it at around the 200 page mark and by page 300ish it's pretty much out of the bag. This is out of ~770ish pages listed.
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Mar 1, 2014 01:05
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AlphaDog posted:I enjoyed the hell out of Cryptonomicon, Reamde, Snow Crash, and The Big U, and I absolutely loved The Diamond Age. I couldn't get in to Anathem at all, how long does it take before the twist? (Don't spoil the twist if you can help it, I just want to know how far through the book it is). The twist is after the first third. The second third of the book is I think the weakest part, and the third part gets back up to speed again with some really cool and clever stuff. Also I read that NS will be having another epic historical series coming out this year. About time, hopefully it will be better than reamde.
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Mar 1, 2014 03:25
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blue squares posted:Can anyone explain how in the hell Snow Crash ended up on Time's list of 100 best books since 1923? It was a fun read, but c'mon. Pages and pages of dry lecturing on Sumerian myth and the characters don't have one iota of an arc. They actually don't get to the Sumerian stuff until pretty late in the book from what I recall.
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Mar 1, 2014 04:22
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computer parts posted:They actually don't get to the Sumerian stuff until pretty late in the book from what I recall. yeah, that reading that was like reading the elvish poetry in LOTR. "oh, hmmm, dry lecture about Sumeria" *flip flip flip* still going, sigh *flip flip*
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Mar 1, 2014 04:57
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The first chapter of Snow Crash is the most enjoyable piece of written language I've ever had the pleasure of reading.quote:Chapter One
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Mar 1, 2014 15:42
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Anathem is my favorite of his books. I've tried and tried to read Snow Crash but I just don't care about the characters or the world or any part of it. I guess my brain can only tolerate a certain amount of cyber punk before it rebels. I will never forget the scene where one of his characters creates a spreadsheet to track his masturbatory habits vs his productivity, I loving lost it, what a loving ubergoon. Christ, Neal, there's just some things you don't talk about in public.
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Mar 1, 2014 19:52
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empty sea posted:I will never forget the scene where one of his characters creates a spreadsheet to track his masturbatory habits vs his productivity, I loving lost it, what a loving ubergoon. Christ, Neal, there's just some things you don't talk about in public. I wish this was a reference to Moscow to the End of the Line, but everything in my head says no its probably not. In Moscow to the End of the Line, the protagonist makes a spreadsheet to track drunkenness of the people that worked with him vs their productivity. Stravinsky fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 20:26
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Coriolis posted:The first chapter of Snow Crash is the most enjoyable piece of written language I've ever had the pleasure of reading. I much prefer quote:He pours the milk with one hand while jamming the spoon in with the other, not wanting to waste a single moment of the magical, golden time when cold milk and Cap’n Crunch are together but have not yet begun to pollute each other’s essential natures: two Platonic ideals separated by a boundary a molecule wide. Where the flume of milk splashes over the spoon-handle, the polished stainless steel fogs with condensation. Randy of course uses whole milk, because otherwise why bother? Anything less is indistinguishable from water, and besides he thinks that the fat in whole milk acts as some kind of a buffer that retards the dissolution-into-slime process. The giant spoon goes into his mouth before the milk in the bowl has even had time to seek its own level. A few drips come off the bottom and are caught by his freshly washed goatee (still trying to find the right balance between beardedness and vulnerability, Randy has allowed one of these to grow). Randy sets the milk-pod down, grabs a fluffy napkin, lifts it to his chin, and uses a pinching motion to sort of lift the drops of milk from his whiskers rather than smashing and smearing them down into the beard. Meanwhile all his concentration is fixed on the interior of his mouth, which naturally he cannot see, but which he can imagine in three dimensions as if zooming through it in a virtual reality display. Here is where a novice would lose his cool and simply chomp down. A few of the nuggets would explode between his molars, but then his jaw would snap shut and drive all of the unshattered nuggets straight up into his palate where their armor of razor-sharp dextrose crystals would inflict massive collateral damage, turning the rest of the meal into a sort of pain-hazed death march and rendering him Novocain mute for three days. But Randy has, over time, worked out a really fiendish Cap’n Crunch eating strategy that revolves around playing the nuggets’ most deadly features against each other. The nuggets themselves are pillow-shaped and vaguely striated to echo piratical treasure chests. Now, with a flake-type of cereal, Randy’s strategy would never work. But then, Cap’n Crunch in a flake form would be suicidal madness; it would last about as long, when immersed in milk, as snowflakes sifting down into a deep fryer. No, the cereal engineers at General Mills had to find a shape that would minimize surface area, and, as some sort of compromise between the sphere that is dictated by Euclidean geometry and whatever sunken-treasure-related shapes that the cereal-aestheticians were probably clamoring for, they came up with this hard-to-pin-down striated pillow formation. The important thing, for Randy’s purposes, is that the individual pieces of Cap’n Crunch are, to a very rough approximation, shaped kind of like molars. The strategy, then, is to make the Cap’n Crunch chew itself by grinding the nuggets together in the center of the oral cavity, like stones in a lapidary tumbler. Like advanced ballroom dancing, verbal explanations (or for that matter watching videotapes) only goes so far and then your body just has to learn the moves.
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Mar 1, 2014 21:45
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empty sea posted:I will never forget the scene where one of his characters creates a spreadsheet to track his masturbatory habits vs his productivity, I loving lost it, what a loving ubergoon. Christ, Neal, there's just some things you don't talk about in public. This was in Cryptonomicon. I recall there being graphs. This canonically takes place around WWII, so the character was writing this out by hand. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse than using Excel. I adore Cryptonomicon, it's among my favorite books, but between that and the scene where they use a complicated system of antennae to look at someone's computer and read their furniture shopping self-insert erotica as it is being written, sometimes I wonder what the hell I was thinking when I read it in high school and decided it was so great.
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Mar 3, 2014 19:13
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I believe he was also using that to justify going to brothels. Poor bastard.
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Mar 3, 2014 22:32
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Bobby Shaftoe and the giant lizard make the whole book worth it.
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Mar 4, 2014 18:39
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Snow Crash was one of my favourite books ever when I read it (I was 12 or 13 years old at the time) but I've never been able to finish any of Stephenson's other books. Its not that I ever threw them down and vowed to stop reading but with both The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon I started them and then put them down at some point and never bothered picking them up again. It's not that they were bad they just really didn't grip me the way Snow Crash did. I mean Snow Crash was just so much fun. Sure it's got huge flaws but there's a sort of crazy energy to that book that not even a long digression on Summerian mythology can derail. His other books just didn't give me that sense of momentum and I guess I'm not particularly interested in cryptography. Admittedly I was also a teenager when I started those books so maybe I'd appreciate them more now, but there's a lot of other stuff I'd rather spend me time reading. I'd probably rather reread Snow Crash.
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Mar 4, 2014 19:16
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empty sea posted:I will never forget the scene where one of his characters creates a spreadsheet to track his masturbatory habits vs his productivity, I loving lost it, what a loving ubergoon. Christ, Neal, there's just some things you don't talk about in public. To be fair, it's heavily implied that Lawrence Waterhouse, the guy making the chart, is semi-autistic. It's also basically explicitly stated that he's an ubergoon. I'm a huge fan of Neal Stephenson's work and spend my time constantly working my way through the Baroque Cycle or Cryptonomicon, so I've definitely got strong opinions on those books. Cryptonomicon gets a lot of flack for having unnecessary stuff in it, but the only part that I really think could be clipped is the ten page penthouse letter in the middle, which serves the purpose of establishing that Van Eck phreaking is a thing. Everything else reveals, on some level, important things about the characters. Lawrence is the sort of guy who thinks about his productivity in terms of how long it's been since his last orgasm, and in fairness, that entire exercise is a way of demonstrating how utterly in love and infatuated he's just become with the woman he will go on to marry. Randy is the sort of guy who will sit down and work out the perfect method to eat cereal in his brain. It's the epitome of showing as opposed to telling. Helsing posted:Snow Crash was one of my favourite books ever when I read it (I was 12 or 13 years old at the time) but I've never been able to finish any of Stephenson's other books. Its not that I ever threw them down and vowed to stop reading but with both The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon I started them and then put them down at some point and never bothered picking them up again. It's not that they were bad they just really didn't grip me the way Snow Crash did. Try reading Zodiac, which has some of the same crazy energy that Snow Crash does. Stephenson's work makes a pretty dramatic shift in tone around the time of Diamond Age, so if you're not a fan of the slower paced, more cerebral stuff you've pretty much got Zodiac, the Big U, Snow Crash, and maybe the stuff he wrote as Stephen Bury, namely Cobweb and Interface. Coca Koala fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Mar 5, 2014 |
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Mar 5, 2014 08:27
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Just started a reread of The Baroque Cycle. I read it before I read Cryptonomicon and liked it a lot better. Anathem still remains my favorite book of his. I'm a total sucker for anything that teaches me a made-up language while I read it. Reading the proofs and axioms and trying to figure out which real philosophers they were based on was a fun game too.
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Mar 5, 2014 15:25
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Atlas Hugged posted:Just started a reread of The Baroque Cycle. I read it before I read Cryptonomicon and liked it a lot better. Anathem still remains my favorite book of his. I'm a total sucker for anything that teaches me a made-up language while I read it. Reading the proofs and axioms and trying to figure out which real philosophers they were based on was a fun game too. Anathem is probably up there tied with Cryptonomicon as my favorite books. Its just so interesting and nerdy. Going from that to Reamde was such a disappointment.
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Mar 6, 2014 03:46
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Cimber posted:Anathem is probably up there tied with Cryptonomicon as my favorite books. Its just so interesting and nerdy. Going from that to Reamde was such a disappointment. Reamde is super weird, for him I mean, but I'm excited to reread it. Usually on rereading his books I can piece them together better because there's just so much STUFF going on all the time. I think my favorite thing about him is that his work really can't be pinned down. He isn't the * guy, even a little.
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Mar 6, 2014 04:37
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Nevvy Z posted:Reamde is super weird, for him I mean, but I'm excited to reread it. Usually on rereading his books I can piece them together better because there's just so much STUFF going on all the time. Well he's definitely the "go on long tangents" guy.
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Mar 6, 2014 11:02
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When I was a teenager a girl I loved and I read through all of his books up to that point in tandem. I haven't seen her in 6 years and we are both happily living our separate lives, but whenever he writes a new book I buy it on release day, gift wrap it, and send it to her. Sharing a good book with someone is one of life's finest pleasures. Neil Stephenson's writing attracts certain sorts of people, and I can confidently say I'd probably get along with anyone who Stephenson's writing clicks with. The Walking Dad fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Mar 6, 2014 |
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Mar 6, 2014 12:41
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Atlas Hugged posted:Anathem still remains my favorite book of his. I'm a total sucker for anything that teaches me a made-up language while I read it. Reading the proofs and axioms and trying to figure out which real philosophers they were based on was a fun game too. I actually had the opposite experience. I found it so distracting that every chapter was taking 4-5 times longer than it should have, coupled with constantly flipping back and forth from the glossary to translate. His made up language just didn't have the natural flow of, say, A Clockwork Orange, and I ended up quitting about 1/4 of the way through because nothing was really happening. It was a shame, too, because I had really dug all his previous novels. I take it I should give it another go, perhaps not worrying so much about the language and focusing more on the plot and ideas? It picks up a bit, hopefully? Coca Koala posted:It's the epitome of showing as opposed to telling. This is the most brilliant summation of Stephenson's work I've ever read.
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Mar 7, 2014 23:16
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Spoilers Below posted:I take it I should give it another go, perhaps not worrying so much about the language and focusing more on the plot and ideas? It picks up a bit, hopefully? If you divide Anathem up into thirds, the first third is basically a bunch of world building, the second third is easily the 'worst' part of the book (but it's kind of necessary for the plot) but in the last third it gets really, really good. Like I don't want to say why because that would be a spoiler but trust me, all that setup in the first third just comes together beautifully.
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Mar 8, 2014 05:40
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Spoilers Below posted:I actually had the opposite experience. I found it so distracting that every chapter was taking 4-5 times longer than it should have, coupled with constantly flipping back and forth from the glossary to translate. His made up language just didn't have the natural flow of, say, A Clockwork Orange, and I ended up quitting about 1/4 of the way through because nothing was really happening. It was a shame, too, because I had really dug all his previous novels. I take it I should give it another go, perhaps not worrying so much about the language and focusing more on the plot and ideas? It picks up a bit, hopefully? Oh yes, it really picks up. You actually dropped it right before SHTF. And once you learn the lingo you will reduce your flipping a lot.
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Mar 8, 2014 05:42
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I actually thought the lingo in Anathem was really natural sounding. I assume he used English etymology for a lot of the words as opposed to Russian like in A Clockwork Orange but I could be wrong. It also helped that the most important word or phrase in the chapter was given a definition at the start of the chapter it was relevant too. The book definitely benefits from a reread though because you're already familiar with the terminology the characters are using.
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Mar 8, 2014 06:47
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Yeah, I never once looked up any terminology in Anathem. The beginning of chapter definitions, the section where the monks are checking out the new technology, and the context made it all pretty natural I thought.
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Mar 8, 2014 06:54
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Some of the philisophy and technical terms in the book actually lost me such as Procian, Haikarian, hemm space, etc. Other terms like Apert and Speely I picked up without much problem. I don't have a background in either mathematics or philosophy so I got a bit confused on that. But since they are based on real world principals i started to read them a bit.
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Mar 8, 2014 16:17
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A quick google search found this. http://anathem.wikia.com/wiki/Anathem_Wiki It explains the meanings of terms in the context of the book and then explains what real world philosophy the term is referencing.
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Mar 8, 2014 17:46
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I see a lot of discussion about Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon whenever a Stephenson discussion pops up on SA for whatever reason, but very little about the Baroque Cycle. Personally I don't really enjoy any of his books other than the Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver in particular) - do most people not care for them?
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Mar 8, 2014 20:33
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Just finished The Diamond Age, and I was slightly disappointed with its ending. It's almost as if he spent too much time with world building and character development and then said "poo poo, I need to wrap this up in the next 50 pages..." The plot flow didn't seem well balanced and would lose momentum here and there, especially in the second half. Nevertheless it was still an amazing book with a lot of interesting ideas and concepts. Anathem or Zodiak next?
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Mar 8, 2014 20:34
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Soggy Muffin posted:Anathem or Zodiak next? Have not read Zodiak (or the Baroque Cycle) yet, but everyone should read Anathem. 
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Mar 8, 2014 20:49
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Zodiac is his funniest book, IMO. Some of his very best lines are in there.
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Mar 8, 2014 20:59
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