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Pwnstar
Dec 9, 2007

Who wants some waffles?

I like how in the Baroque cycle Jack ends up being more noteworthy and infamous around the world than a lot of the "important" people.

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Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
I started with Snow Crash, read Cryptonomicon, and I'm a bit over halfway done with Quicksilver now.

I liked Cryptonomicon a lot, though as others said here I wasn't very invested in Randy's quest. I liked the characters and their interaction, but their end goal felt nebulous and odd. "We'll start our Bitcoin Haven, and then no one will use ethnic cleansing ever!". The whole thing with his 'antagonist' at the end just seems to fall from the sky for no reason, with all the grace or a hippo at an olympic diving event.

I like Quicksilver very much so far, as it alternates between funny, interesting and mind-boggling in a cool manner. But having read those, I started noticing some common threads in his books.

-If you're a human being, you better be a kicker of rear end and/or an engineer/scientist (of the HARD sciences), or go gently caress yourself. Everyone else is a useless waste of oxygen. Even worse if they try to voice any "opinions" on things.

-He has a definite conservative streak in the Burkean sense, that of "all systems that are stable have a degree of merit that might as well be moral". So religious people are better than atheists, because hey, their thing has been working for millenia and gives them useful values. Unless they are azteks, of course. Screw those guys. Good things they got wiped out! Luckily there was no bitcoin haven back then to save them.

It doesn't detract from enjoying his books, but it seems to be always there. It's like watching a Tarantino movie: you know there'll be foot fetish stuff at some point, but what the hell.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames

Sephyr posted:

-If you're a human being, you better be a kicker of rear end and/or an engineer/scientist (of the HARD sciences), or go gently caress yourself. Everyone else is a useless waste of oxygen. Even worse if they try to voice any "opinions" on things.

I think this is unfair. Roger Comstock is none of those (well, he TRIES to be a scientist, but fails miserably) and is pretty important and actually pretty cool. Daniel himself, while a genius, is also a bit of a bumbling Puritan who most definitely does not kick any rear end. Eliza (moreso in books 2 and 3) completely undercuts your theory. I'm sure there are a lot more I'm forgetting, but what I think you're doing is just letting his typical larger-than-life adventurers color your opinion a bit.

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
This is a spoiler but Daniel, the one everyone turns to as a mediator, is himself an atheist.

I do think that Stephenson places a huge amount of emphasis on the power of knowledge and more importantly the power of reason, but I also don't have a specific issue with that.

Anathem is cool because a couple of the supporting characters are more like "average Americans" with practical skills and believe in a vague notion of god and religion but don't really let it interfere with their lives. Though one of them does admittedly get converted. Actually, there are conversions in multiple directions in that book, from agnostic to theist and theist to philosopher (though I can't recall if he ends up denying the existence of god or just abandons his dogma).

Reamde carries the "average American" thing further and I don't think religion is at all important to anyone except the Jihadists, and then it's obviously not seen as a good thing. Stephenson at least makes those characters seem human, but you can only humanize a mass murderer so far.

The Walking Dad
Dec 31, 2012
The protagonist of Anathem, without giving away any spoilers, is definitely not a hard science kind of guy. He is more interested in metaphysics most of the time.

Neil Stephenson writes about systems and his characters place in them. I don't think this is an inherent endorsement of the systems he is trying to depict. His protagonists and antagonists succeed or fail due to their understandings of the systems that surround them and they often spend large amounts of time trying and failing to comprehend the systems they are caught up in.

He doesn't have any problem with his characters criticizing or fighting against the systems in his books, but what he doesn't have time for is characters who whine about things but never do anything about it and flail around helplessly. His books are picaresque adventures, not soul searching tear jerkers.

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
The other thing to remember is that Neal Stephenson is writing stories and is very well aware of the fact that he is writing stories. Even though I'm not super interested in Randy's plot, I'd be even less interested if he was a mildly successful computer programmer stuck in a loveless relationship for the rest of his life. Lars von Trier could probably make it compelling, but that's really not what Neal Stephenson is all about. The only reason we care about adventure stories is because implausible things happen to larger than life characters in interesting ways. Sure, not a lot of screen time is given to regular people so it could actually seem like Stephenson is criticizing not being a super-savant or bad-rear end-extraordinaire, but if that's what you're looking for you can just read someone's Livejournal.

Stephenson is directly addressing this problem in Anathem and Reamde. In Anathem, the narrative is so impossible that it actually relies on multiple parallel universes to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, while Reamde is a parody of over-the-top, unbelievable action movies.

The great thing about The Baroque Cycle is that most of the savants are actually real people so Jack's exploits almost become believable in that context.

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug

Atlas Hugged posted:


Reamde carries the "average American" thing further and I don't think religion is at all important to anyone except the Jihadists, and then it's obviously not seen as a good thing. Stephenson at least makes those characters seem human, but you can only humanize a mass murderer so far.


The relatives with an assload of guns are Christian sepratists.

Koivunen posted:

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.


Man, I would agree with this, if the bitcoiny blizzard-type stuff was on every page, but as the book went along it got replaced more and more with the terrorist chase stuff.

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all

Ugly In The Morning posted:

The relatives with an assload of guns are Christian sepratists.

Oh I totally forgot that.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
The best part of REAMDE was Sokolov. He was like every Neal Stephenson typical badass all at the same time.

Also the hacker and his friends. They were pretty cool.

Are there any hints that REAMDE takes place in the same "world" as Cryptonomicon and Baroque? I can't remember.

Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



Why are people comparing the Crypt's currency to bitcoins? Unless I completely missed the point, the currency in the Crypt is gold-backed and that's the whole reason for Randy and Doug's plotline.

precision posted:

Are there any hints that REAMDE takes place in the same "world" as Cryptonomicon and Baroque? I can't remember.

I'm currently halfway through Quicksilver, but I've read REAMDE and Cryptonomicon a couple of times.

I'd say that REAMDE isn't in the same universe. The Crypt comes online in the late 90s or early 2000s, and REAMDE seems to be set much closer to ~2010 than ~2000. If the Crypt exists in README's world, then T'Rain's importance as a way of anonymously moving money online doesn't make sense.

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug

AlphaDog posted:

Why are people comparing the Crypt's currency to bitcoins? Unless I completely missed the point, the currency in the Crypt is gold-backed and that's the whole reason for Randy and Doug's plotline.



I could see what the first guy was talking about in an "online currency and the shenanigans that ensue". It's not a 1:1 comparison, but it still has a lot of nerds being dumb with online money.

precision posted:

The best part of REAMDE was Sokolov. He was like every Neal Stephenson typical badass all at the same time.


He was pretty great, but I thought his parts were dragged down by the whole romance thing with the spy lady (I want to say Mina, but I'm 99 percent sure that's just Alpha Protocol eating my brain). It was really shoehorned in from the start where it could have worked naturally, and it really annoyed me every time Stephenson would jam it in again.

Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



Ugly In The Morning posted:

I could see what the first guy was talking about in an "online currency and the shenanigans that ensue". It's not a 1:1 comparison, but it still has a lot of nerds being dumb with online money.

Fair enough.

Ugly In The Morning posted:

He was pretty great, but I thought his parts were dragged down by the whole romance thing with the spy lady (I want to say Mina, but I'm 99 percent sure that's just Alpha Protocol eating my brain). It was really shoehorned in from the start where it could have worked naturally, and it really annoyed me every time Stephenson would jam it in again.

Yeah, he's my favorite character in that book, and his romance was my least favorite subplot. I did like the British agent's plot at first, and I think it would have been way better if she hadn't been involved later - the first part of her story works pretty well as one of Stephenson's "forget movies, this is how this thing usually goes for real" semi-tangents. She's a British Spy but her actual job is to pretend to be a business person and sit in an office all day looking out the window.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames

Ugly In The Morning posted:

He was pretty great, but I thought his parts were dragged down by the whole romance thing with the spy lady (I want to say Mina, but I'm 99 percent sure that's just Alpha Protocol eating my brain). It was really shoehorned in from the start where it could have worked naturally, and it really annoyed me every time Stephenson would jam it in again.

It was a bit shoehorned but I really liked her character (Olivia) and especially how she played out toward the end. There was something really fascinating in reading about how hard it is to actually get anything done in the spy world.

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug

AlphaDog posted:

Yeah, he's my favorite character in that book, and his romance was my least favorite subplot. I did like the British agent's plot at first, and I think it would have been way better if she hadn't been involved later - the first part of her story works pretty well as one of Stephenson's "forget movies, this is how this thing usually goes for real" semi-tangents. She's a British Spy but her actual job is to pretend to be a business person and sit in an office all day looking out the window.

This kind of sums up why I couldn't stand Reamde, and why I still end up foaming at the mouth every time it's mentioned. It set up a lot of cool stuff, with T'Rain, and Sokolov, and... British Spy Lady, but then expanded and expanded and kept moving away from why all that stuff was cool in the first place (and seemed to drop T'Rain altogether) to turn into some sort of bloated terrorist chase book. If it stuck to one plot and 500 pages I think I would have liked it quite a bit. As it is, I think he needs to hire an editor to hit him over the head with a hardcover copy of Reamde whenever he starts going on a tangent again.

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004
Part of me wants to think there's got to be a reason for a lot of these things and it's just over my head. But most of me thinks he just kind of flubbed one a little and that's ok because I still enjoy most everything he writes and this wasn't really bad, just not good in the way I am used to from him and it's following what I personally consider his best work so I think that might factor.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames

Nevvy Z posted:

Part of me wants to think there's got to be a reason for a lot of these things and it's just over my head. But most of me thinks he just kind of flubbed one a little and that's ok because I still enjoy most everything he writes and this wasn't really bad, just not good in the way I am used to from him and it's following what I personally consider his best work so I think that might factor.

Honestly, I think he just wanted to write something fun after the heavy weirdness of Anathem. There is a lot of obvious satire - the two fantasy writers are blatant digs at Robert Jordan/GRRM/Brooks/whoever else writes fantasy these days, the gun porn, T'Rain's economy - but mostly, I think he just turned his brain off.

I would have a hard time believing anyone who tries to tell me it was intended to be "on the level" of his previous 6 books unless they presented a really cohesive and thorough argument. It's nowhere near my favorite Stephenson novel, but even bad Stephenson is still pretty good.

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all

precision posted:

here is a lot of obvious satire - the two fantasy writers are blatant digs at Robert Jordan/GRRM/Brooks/whoever else writes fantasy these days,

In interviews he's said that the writers are actually parodies of himself. They're probably digs at some other authors too. Like I don't know how you can write about a morbidly obese fantasy writer and not have it be a dig at GRRM, but that writer is also highly prolific which is way more of a Stephenson trait than a trait of just about any other author in fantasy save for Sanderson.

Casimir Radon
Aug 2, 2008


AlphaDog posted:

I'd say that REAMDE isn't in the same universe. The Crypt comes online in the late 90s or early 2000s, and REAMDE seems to be set much closer to ~2010 than ~2000. If the Crypt exists in README's world, then T'Rain's importance as a way of anonymously moving money online doesn't make sense.
I suppose The Crypt could have failed miserably, which has been the case with every attempt to do something like it in real life.

Coca Koala
Nov 28, 2005

ongoing nowhere
College Slice

Sephyr posted:

I liked Cryptonomicon a lot, though as others said here I wasn't very invested in Randy's quest. I liked the characters and their interaction, but their end goal felt nebulous and odd. "We'll start our Bitcoin Haven, and then no one will use ethnic cleansing ever!". The whole thing with his 'antagonist' at the end just seems to fall from the sky for no reason, with all the grace or a hippo at an olympic diving event.

-If you're a human being, you better be a kicker of rear end and/or an engineer/scientist (of the HARD sciences), or go gently caress yourself. Everyone else is a useless waste of oxygen. Even worse if they try to voice any "opinions" on things.

Avi's idea wasn't "We'll start a bitcoin haven and then nobody will use ethnic cleansing ever again"; he actually explicitly says that trying to convince people to not commit genocide is a pipe dream. His goal was to start the bitcoin haven and then use the proceeds from that to fund a system by which the victims of ethnic cleansing might defend themselves, i.e. the HEAP. So it's more "We'll start a bitcoin haven and then distribute manuals on guerilla warfare tactics so that people aren't defenseless when the world inevitably turns to poo poo". It's still a weird idea, but it makes a bit more sense than you're giving it credit for here.

And he's not saying you have to be a scientist of the HARD sciences, he tends to say that you have to actually go out and accomplish things, preferably things that matter. Randy spends basically his entire life being a scientist, but doesn't really start to have any pride in his life until he actually does something important, i.e. not work at tech support for academia and hole himself up and play marathon D&D sessions every weekend.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
I just noticed this thread has the "Sci-Fi/Fantasy" tag and all the discussion is about his non-Sci Fi books. :haw:

Leospeare
Jun 27, 2003
I lack the ability to think of a creative title.

Atlas Hugged posted:

In interviews he's said that the writers are actually parodies of himself. They're probably digs at some other authors too. Like I don't know how you can write about a morbidly obese fantasy writer and not have it be a dig at GRRM, but that writer is also highly prolific which is way more of a Stephenson trait than a trait of just about any other author in fantasy save for Sanderson.

Piers Anthony or Kevin J Anderson, maybe. But if he did base them on other big names in his own field, who he likely has to see occasionally and might get offended at the parody, of course he wouldn't admit it.

Jazerus
May 24, 2011


Pwnstar posted:

I like how in the Baroque cycle Jack ends up being more noteworthy and infamous around the world than a lot of the "important" people.

That's sort of Jack's purpose, really. He's there so Stephenson can write about exotic locales and interesting people that Daniel and Eliza have no reason to ever encounter due to his low class, and to randomly intersect with their stories, usually to move them great distances because traveling chaos is the definition of Jack.

Cimber
Feb 3, 2014

Jazerus posted:

That's sort of Jack's purpose, really. He's there so Stephenson can write about exotic locales and interesting people that Daniel and Eliza have no reason to ever encounter due to his low class, and to randomly intersect with their stories, usually to move them great distances because traveling chaos is the definition of Jack.

This basically. Jack can do what everyone else can't. Too bad he gets screwed over again, and again, and again.

But if he does not get screwed well, he would have no reason to travel so much.

Pwnstar
Dec 9, 2007

Who wants some waffles?

Also I know its dumb and cheesy but I like the "it will never catch on" type jokes like Jack not being able to pronounce thaler or Enoch's friend saying that tea isn't really something English people would like.

Poldarn
Feb 18, 2011

Oh hey, a Neil Stephenson thread. I haven't read my NS books in a while but this is giving me a hankering to do so again.

I never had any problem with the frequent tangents he goes off on throughout his books. It's not the destination, it's the journey!

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
We should really get a mod to spell poor Neal's name correctly.

redshirt
Aug 11, 2007

Reporting for shovel mission Sir.
Question about Anathem:

What's the reason these 18-20 year old kids are literally in charge of Arbe's defense? Ala - an 18 or so year old woman is literally in charge of organizing the response. Cell 317 was led not by the head of the Ringing Vale, but Lio - another 18 or so year old. Jesry was the only avout sent to space in the first mission. What makes these kids so special, as compared to not only an entire world, but plenty of other highly trained avout? Erasmas's role kinda makes sense, due to his connections to both Orolo and Jad.

Still love the book on my re-read, I just keep wondering how this can be justified. Especially Ala.

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all

redshirt posted:

Question about Anathem:

What's the reason these 18-20 year old kids are literally in charge of Arbe's defense? Ala - an 18 or so year old woman is literally in charge of organizing the response. Cell 317 was led not by the head of the Ringing Vale, but Lio - another 18 or so year old. Jesry was the only avout sent to space in the first mission. What makes these kids so special, as compared to not only an entire world, but plenty of other highly trained avout? Erasmas's role kinda makes sense, due to his connections to both Orolo and Jad.

Still love the book on my re-read, I just keep wondering how this can be justified. Especially Ala.


Because Jad is orchestrating everything and the only people he is even remotely familiar with are the avout following him.

redshirt
Aug 11, 2007

Reporting for shovel mission Sir.

Atlas Hugged posted:

Because Jad is orchestrating everything and the only people he is even remotely familiar with are the avout following him.

Hadn't thought of it that way. Makes total sense - thanks!

Cimber
Feb 3, 2014

Atlas Hugged posted:

We should really get a mod to spell poor Neal's name correctly.

haha, whoops!

JagGator
Oct 31, 2012

Atlas Hugged posted:

We should really get a mod to spell poor Neal's name correctly.

I figured the 'a' from "Neal" and the 'i' from "furniture" decided to swap places for awhile.

SnakePlissken
Dec 31, 2009

by zen death robot

redshirt posted:

Question about Anathem:

What's the reason these 18-20 year old kids are literally in charge of Arbe's defense? Ala - an 18 or so year old woman is literally in charge of organizing the response. Cell 317 was led not by the head of the Ringing Vale, but Lio - another 18 or so year old. Jesry was the only avout sent to space in the first mission. What makes these kids so special, as compared to not only an entire world, but plenty of other highly trained avout? Erasmas's role kinda makes sense, due to his connections to both Orolo and Jad.

Still love the book on my re-read, I just keep wondering how this can be justified. Especially Ala.


Also because it's Neil's attempt at a Heinlein-esque young adult scifi novel. It's incredibly like a number of Heinleins, including a lot of the libertarian traits, redeemed by being about 2.5 times more brainy.

Cimber posted:

haha, whoops!

I was kind of getting used to its somethingawfulness.

SnakePlissken fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Apr 8, 2014

Cimber
Feb 3, 2014

SnakePlissken posted:

I was kind of getting used to its somethingawfulness.

I can't spell to save my lif.

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
I just finished my reread of King of the Vagabonds and Jack's last line about the prodigious butt-loving of Mr. Vliet is funny every time. It's like something out of the Bible!

I have to admit I was really disturbed by William of Orange face raping Eliza this time I read it.

Cimber
Feb 3, 2014

Atlas Hugged posted:

I just finished my reread of King of the Vagabonds and Jack's last line about the prodigious butt-loving of Mr. Vliet is funny every time. It's like something out of the Bible!

I have to admit I was really disturbed by William of Orange face raping Eliza this time I read it.

both of them are really butt monkeys for a good part of the book.

SnakePlissken
Dec 31, 2009

by zen death robot
BTW, funny that nobody has mentioned the Mongoliad ITT. It wasn't so bad. One gripe is that I think the trick of suddenly grabbing one's opponent's sword with a gauntleted hand being used I think *three times* was odd. But there was clearly a lot of Neil in that series and I enjoyed it.

Cimber
Feb 3, 2014

SnakePlissken posted:

BTW, funny that nobody has mentioned the Mongoliad ITT. It wasn't so bad. One gripe is that I think the trick of suddenly grabbing one's opponent's sword with a gauntleted hand being used I think *three times* was odd. But there was clearly a lot of Neil in that series and I enjoyed it.

Honestly I had never heard of it until recently. Is it cowritten by him or what.

SnakePlissken
Dec 31, 2009

by zen death robot

Cimber posted:

Honestly I had never heard of it until recently. Is it cowritten by him or what.

I think this is :thejoke: right? That I'm still not getting.

To answer your question, it's a sword-and-sandals/pseudohistorical adventure set right after Ghengis Khan's conquests made their furthest westward sweep into Germany, Hungary and Poland, and done in the general spirit of Robert Howard. Apparently other contributing writers include Greg Bear, Nicole Galland, and Mark Teppo and looking at the Wikipedia page, it was intended to be the foundation stone of a little gaming empire. A tiny bit like T'Rain in that single regard. I enjoyed it and I read historical novels set in that time period, although I generally don't like Howard nearly as much as Lamb, whose writing I had hoped would have a more noticeable influence in this series. I'll probably reread it.

SnakePlissken fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Apr 11, 2014

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
The thing about the Monoliad is that it's loving confusing as poo poo to figure out how much of it there is and how to get it. I mean for a long time a printed version didn't even exist. I'm not convinced that Neal actually wrote much more than a tiny fraction of it, he certainly jumped ship after book 3 entirely.

It's not bad but it's not really very good.

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SnakePlissken
Dec 31, 2009

by zen death robot

precision posted:

The thing about the Monoliad is that it's loving confusing as poo poo to figure out how much of it there is and how to get it. I mean for a long time a printed version didn't even exist. I'm not convinced that Neal actually wrote much more than a tiny fraction of it, he certainly jumped ship after book 3 entirely.

It's not bad but it's not really very good.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on that. For all the things that bug me, like the incredible superiority of the English longbow over the Asian curved bow, which I think is totally bogus, I enjoyed it. I think Neal's fingerprints are all over that series, and at worst I don't think it's much worse than anything else he's written. The greater portion of it is basically The Magnificent Seven goes to Mongolia. How is that not classic Neal?

And I waited until it was all published, or the main 3 volumes were, before buying them, and I listened to them on Audible rather than reading, so I felt like I got to read a complete series from beginning to end. The ending doesn't feel extremely conclusive, but when does a Neal Stephenson ending totally click anyway? It worked for me as well as any of his books do.

ED: And in passing, one minor thing I love about Neal also is the attention he pays to getting the audio version done well. I wouldn't be surprised if he lost money on the audio version of Anathem, but it was incredibly well done. And same for the Mongoliad. I for one am grateful. Reading is a pretty big part of my livelihood and I don't have the patience for novels I once had because of that.

SnakePlissken fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Apr 11, 2014

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