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Snak posted:Yeah, there were a lot of missed opportunities to make better use of what was already there. It almost feels like two different books, and when you find out that it was originally going to be a cgi graphic novel that sort of falls into place. Snow Crash suffered from not having a good editor. poo poo like Da5id should have never made it into print. I'd love for him to come back into the Snow Crash universe at some point, if no other reason than to clean it up.
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Aug 25, 2014 17:07
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He wrote Snow Crash while smoking a lot of weed and listening to heavy metal. It shows. Zodiac is much better as a novel with structure and stuff, but is a much more boring story. Also, I mean, around that time Mondo 2000 was taken seriously, and in comparison Snow Crash is almost understated.
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Aug 25, 2014 18:54
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I really enjoyed The Big U. It was the atmosphere he created, of a giant sprawling building, upgraded and remodeled so much over the years, with dead-end halls, like the Winchester Mystery House of Collitch.
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Aug 26, 2014 06:17
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The Baroque Cycle is probably my favourite novel/series but I really did not enjoy Reamde. The stuff with the writers was great, some bits of T'Rain were great, but a lot of the plot to do with the mafia/terrorists just bored me. Also I don't really remember what Csongor added to the story beyond being a mafia infodump and falling in love with Zula for some reason. The Baroque Cycle in terms of narrative structure actually reminded me a bit of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell in terms of how it ends up being read. The first book is spent painstakingly setting up all the elements of the setting. Then the rest of the work accelerates to an action-packed conclusion. I guess they're also both historical novels with large sections of them set in England, which helps. bewilderment fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 06:53
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New book was recently announced, Seveneves will be released in April next year. Apparently it has something to do with the last 7 women to survive a global catastrophe or something.
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Aug 26, 2014 07:41
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precision posted:He wrote Snow Crash while smoking a lot of weed and listening to heavy metal. It shows. Zodiac is much better as a novel with structure and stuff, but is a much more boring story.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:58
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bewilderment posted:The Baroque Cycle is probably my favourite novel/series but I really did not enjoy Reamde. The stuff with the writers was great, some bits of T'Rain were great, but a lot of the plot to do with the mafia/terrorists just bored me. Also I don't really remember what Csongor added to the story beyond being a mafia infodumb and falling in love with Zula for some reason. The thing I find fascinating about the Baroque Cycle is that the second time I read it, Quicksilver was so much better. And better again on the third read. Yeah I read that series three times, shut up, don't judge me!
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Aug 26, 2014 18:52
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precision posted:Eliza's letter writing in The Confusion can get really annoying at times. The way they're integrated is kind of clumsy and they take a lot of words to give very little information. And I get that he's just being "realistic" but still, you know. Remember that the encryption they use needs eight words to convey one. So yes it needs to be wordy. Also has anyone read les liaisons dangereaux? That whole section of the book reads like letters between French Quality, which it is.
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Sep 10, 2014 07:40
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Semi-related: Anyone pickup Hieroglyph?
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Sep 11, 2014 00:13
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precision posted:Yeah I read that series three times, shut up, don't judge me! I tend to read really fast, to the extent that I rapidly outpace the number of available new books by authors or in genres I enjoy. Because of that, roughly every year I break open the Baroque Cycle and read through it again just to have a couple months of holding pattern to let more new books I'm interested in accumulate. It helps that A) It's really good, and probably some of my favorite Stephenson and B) Very complex to the degree that it rewards reading over and over again. You get a lot more out of it the second time through when you are familiar with all the characters and the plot, as time consuming as additional reads are.
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Sep 11, 2014 01:14
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I decided that I was going to get around to finally reading Anathem, only to find that it's $2.52 on the Kindle right now. Pleasant surprise. I'm really enjoying it this time, despite the fact that I couldn't get more than 50 pages into it the first time I tried.
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Sep 12, 2014 17:00
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The first time I tried reading Anathem I made it about 120 pages and set it down. I was disappointed and couldn't understand what the gently caress was going on. Picked it up again about 8 months later and boy was I wrong. It's pretty good. Maybe it's just me, but I find this true of any author worth a drat at world building. Once you get used to the prose and pacing everything just clicks. I had the same problem with the first half of Quicksilver. Really glad I didn't give up on that one.
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Sep 12, 2014 21:55
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Anathem I can at least reread. The Baroque cycle is scary.
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Sep 13, 2014 01:34
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Yeah, my re-read of Anathem was way more enjoyable than the first read circa first 300 pages.
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Sep 13, 2014 01:49
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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. Isn't snow crash just making fun of lovely sci fi writers (cryptonomicon specifically?)
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Sep 13, 2014 04:00
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Normal Adult Human posted:Isn't snow crash just making fun of lovely sci fi writers (cryptonomicon specifically?)
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Sep 13, 2014 10:49
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Casimir Radon posted:New book was recently announced, Seveneves will be released in April next year. Apparently it has something to do with the last 7 women to survive a global catastrophe or something. Huh. Not sure if it sounds good or not. Then again, when i heard the one line summary of Anathem (Scientist monks on an alien planet) i wasn't too thrilled either but i ended up loving it.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:15
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The only Neal Stephenson book I've read is The Diamond Age, which is probably odd since it seems to be one of his least mentioned. Picked it up for a quarter at a thrift store (along with Cryptonomicon) and finished it a few weeks ago. It was a neat book, but felt like there were too many ideas crammed in there that didn't really get fleshed out (I would've liked to know more about the Drummers, particularly). If I really liked the world building elements of The Diamond Age, how the world straddles believable and ridiculously outlandish, but wasn't too keen on the actual plot of the story nor any of the characters, what should I check out by him next? Have Cryptonomicon on the shelf, so that one would be easy.
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Dec 26, 2014 12:38
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my bony fealty posted:The only Neal Stephenson book I've read is The Diamond Age, which is probably odd since it seems to be one of his least mentioned. Picked it up for a quarter at a thrift store (along with Cryptonomicon) and finished it a few weeks ago. It was a neat book, but felt like there were too many ideas crammed in there that didn't really get fleshed out (I would've liked to know more about the Drummers, particularly). Diamond age and snow crash are kinda similar: pulpy stories with rather one dimensional characters but really interesting setting and world building. Cryptonomicon is a great book but it's more rooted in reality and really focuses on characters and situations instead of the world itself. I think you would like his pre Cryptonomicon books more, so snow crash, big u, zodiac. I would really recommend trying Cryptonomicon though, it's one of his best works imo.
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Dec 26, 2014 13:32
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my bony fealty posted:It was a neat book, but felt like there were too many ideas crammed in there that didn't really get fleshed out (I would've liked to know more about the Drummers, particularly). So, it was a Neal Stephenson novel 
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Dec 26, 2014 13:54
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my bony fealty posted:If I really liked the world building elements of The Diamond Age, how the world straddles believable and ridiculously outlandish, but wasn't too keen on the actual plot of the story nor any of the characters, what should I check out by him next? Have Cryptonomicon on the shelf, so that one would be easy.
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Dec 26, 2014 14:34
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Diamond Age is a massive step up in maturity/writing quality from Snow Crash but still shows signs of "early writer syndrome". Also some people use it as evidence to legitimize Steampunk.  I really enjoyed it though, I just wish it didn't just... end.
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Dec 26, 2014 20:36
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If you liked The Diamond Age, you should probably check out Snow Crash next. See if you can spot the character they have in common!
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Dec 26, 2014 21:34
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Strange Matter posted:You want to read Anathem. It has an insane amount of ideas but unlike Diamond Age (and Snow Crash for that matter) it actually develops on basically all of them. It's an incredibly well flushed out book. Seconding this recommendation. Anathem is fantastic. But be prepared for some strangeness.
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Dec 26, 2014 22:20
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Anathem is by far my favorite. Things just keep getting crazier, the more you read. I like to imagine this kind of poo poo happened to Wesley after he got too old for the Traveler to be interested in him anymore and he dumped him on a ship where they literally live in balls. The ending is exactly what he deserved for being such a whiny bitch.
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Dec 27, 2014 04:20
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None of that happened in Anathem. Are you talking about Diamond Age? I haven't read it in a long, long time so I'm just assuming these characters and settings you're talking about are somehow relevant to the conversation. I do remember kind of liking Diamond Age but also being pretty let down by the ending. And maybe it was just because I had recently read Ender's Game, but I felt a strong parallel between the games played in those two books. Not sure if I've seen that remarked on here, but I thought it was kind of interesting. Inspector 34 fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Dec 27, 2014 |
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Dec 27, 2014 05:37
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Inspector 34 posted:None of that happened in Anathem. Are you talking about Diamond Age? I haven't read it in a long, long time so I'm just assuming these characters and settings you're talking about are somehow relevant to the conversation. I'm pretty sure he's talking about Star Trek for some reason, but only because I was as confused as you at first.
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Dec 27, 2014 14:30
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I thought he was talking about a cult punk rocker who would honestly fit right in in any Stephenson book.
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Dec 30, 2014 15:08
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SnakePlissken posted: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. I read them all as pulp, and they were good for what they were imho. After a certain point I am pretty sure Stephenson and maybe Bear stepped down and left the rest of the pack to fight over scraps in the world they'd created. I wouldn't dissuade someone from reading them but the focus on ebook/audiobook formats really seemed to be a focus of the entire thing as an experiment in cooperative ebook publishing and it's potential viability, maybe.. The Walking Dad posted:So I was reading some material on Islam and alchemy and I stumbled across the origins of Enoch Root.  precision posted:He wrote Snow Crash while smoking a lot of weed and listening to heavy metal. It shows. Zodiac is much better as a novel with structure and stuff, but is a much more boring story. Ironically, with the way people took to txtspeech on phones and other rapid-messaging mediums, stuff like "Da5id" probably was a little more prescient than we might like. 
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Jan 20, 2015 19:22
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coyo7e posted:I got all the main Mongoliad novels on Kindle, they were almost all like 1-3 bucks each. There are a ton of novelettes by the author cooperative as a whole, but I stopped at the end of the story about the Templars et al - essentially when I noticed a couple of big names were no longer on all the remaining books, or when one book or another was obviously one author taking his pet character out on a new jaunt in a prequel etc. I mean, on the one hand, Snow Crash is all those things, but on the other hand it also has multiple, extremely long scenes where Hiro is researching Sumerian linguistics and glossolalia with a librarian.
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Jan 20, 2015 20:09
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Rincewind posted:I mean, on the one hand, Snow Crash is all those things, but on the other hand it also has multiple, extremely long scenes where Hiro is researching Sumerian linguistics and glossolalia with a librarian. 
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Jan 20, 2015 22:54
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I've never understood why the Da5id thing is such a big problem for people. I am posting with people who go by names like Atlas Hugged, Inspector34, Nevvy Z, and coyo7e on a forum owned by a guy who goes by Lowtax, and I've played games produced by people who go by things like Notch, Ghostcrawler, Phreak, and HotStuff, and I'v listened to music by people who go by names like zircon, sixtosounds, and bLiNd, and the fact that some internet famous guy in this book goes by Da5id is a problem?
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Jan 21, 2015 04:30
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It probably seemed like a better idea 23 years ago before "leetspeak" completely wore out its welcome.
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Jan 21, 2015 08:11
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Casimir Radon posted:It probably seemed like a better idea 23 years ago before "leetspeak" completely wore out its welcome. considering a lot of the writing in that book is downright atrocious, Da5id is really one of the less offensive things about it. I have no idea why anyone would fixate on it when the rest of the book is right there. Also, while glass weapons are incredibly sharp, they still loving break and you couldn't lift someone up by a foot long spearpoint made of glass.
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Jan 21, 2015 14:47
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Khizan posted:I've never understood why the Da5id thing is such a big problem for people. Back in college Lobsterboy came to hang out with me from the dorm across the way and my best friend ended up calling me Nevvy for a week IRL. It was weird as gently caress. How is Davidwithafive prounounced anyway? That's the bigger issue I have. Casimir Radon posted:It probably seemed like a better idea 23 years ago before "leetspeak" completely wore out its welcome. L33TSP3@K
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Jan 21, 2015 15:18
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It's probably just pronounced "David" and spelled "Da5id", it's really not that weird. That's how all "replaces some letters with some vaguely similar sounding/looking numbers" names work... Thir13een Ghosts, for example. edit: the long and the short of it is that it's not a poor choice by the author, it's a poor choice by Da5id. It's a totally realistic name/handle, especially in a setting that is literally a parody of dumb nerd poo poo, while also being the dumbest of nerd poo poo.
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Jan 21, 2015 15:53
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I think it's just David, and the v/5 switch is because 'V' is the roman numeral for 5.
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Jan 21, 2015 19:05
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Khizan posted:I think it's just David, and the v/5 switch is because 'V' is the roman numeral for 5. I never even thought of that, and that makes way more sense.
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Jan 21, 2015 22:35
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Snak posted:I never even thought of that, and that makes way more sense. It's also the kind of semi-clever but cringeworthy thing that helps the book be "a parody of dumb nerd poo poo, while also being the dumbest of nerd poo poo". I love that summary so much.
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Jan 22, 2015 01:43
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AlphaDog posted:It's also the kind of semi-clever but cringeworthy thing that helps the book be "a parody of dumb nerd poo poo, while also being the dumbest of nerd poo poo". I love that summary so much. I basically just wish the Stephenson would write nonfiction. I think all the best elements of his talent could still be present and all the weeaboo poo poo I hate would end up being way more toned down. My favorite thing about Stephenson always makes me think of the phrase George Lucas used while describing the Star Wars prequels in comparison to he original films: "It's like poetry, it's like they rhyme." Except that Stephenson is really loving good at and Lucas was terrible. Stephenson always picks one or two ideas, and then makes a book that is a just a loving fractal of that idea. Like, even Snow Crash is basically about two things: Surfing/Going with the flow and memetics, and those two are arguably related. Just about everything that happens in that book is related to one of those two things. He's also very fond of being critical of bureaucracy, which I think was a bigger influence in his earlier work. But he can't just stick to that, he also has to take the latest cool thing he's obsessed with and loving fellate it all over the page and make sure to have almost all of his characters be "super badass" at something. Like he's never had a character who wasn't a prodigy at something. I do love the fact that, after getting super into swords, he realized that Katanas aren't as cool as he thought and admitted it outright. edit: I think at this point I'm posting basically this same rant more than once per page in this thread, so I'm sorry for that...
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Jan 22, 2015 04:56
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