Neal is one of two living authors whose all books I buy. Happy to have found him during Covid, thanks to HN comments. I found Greg Egan during that time, and I am grateful to HN threads and comments on books.
My first exposure to Neal was through Reamde and it's definitely the fastest I've managed to get through a novel relative to length. I really enjoy his style.
I recommend his older stuff to anyone else looking to check him out: Snow Crash is an undeniable classic, Diamond Age was absolutely incredible, and even Zodiac and In the Beginning Was the Command Line are both very good (although the last one is obviously more for computer people).
His newer stuff is very ... verbose. It started with Cryptonomicon (not sci-fi and WAY longer than it should have been) and by the time he got to Anathema he was so full of himself he not only wrote a giant text ... he wrote it in a made-up sub-language he created (and expected you to learn) just to enjoy the story.
He's one of my absolute favorite authors ... or at least he was for the first half of his career.
Anathem was my favorite book by him. It has a lotta re-read value, I appreciate the work he did to make it feel like a complete, fleshed out world. But different folks have different tastes, and that's ok.
I also liked Seveneves, but it should have ended 2/3 of the way through. There was a point that would have made for an excellent ending (which is something Stephenson famously struggles with IMO), but then he forced in another 1/3 of a book that didn't engage me and which felt like it just petered out.
Anathem and Seveneves are my favorites of his, in that order. The orbital launch and operation in Anathem is probably my favorite piece of writing ever.
Polostan went down very easy. only read Anathem, Snow Crash, Reamde, Fall;, and Cryptonomicon. Plolostan was a novella compared to those. finished in a day or two on vacation and im a sorta slow reader
i like Polostan and generally recommend it. looking forward to the sequel in a few weeks. havent read anything Stevensons said about Polostan but if i had to guess id say it targets a YA audience instead of a high school/undergrad audience
amazing none of his books have been adapted. they play out like movies in my head, albeit a lot of men participating in the socratic method and waving at white boards
Cryptonomicon definitely differs from Stephenson’s first phase but he’s had other phases since then. I’d lump that into the Shaftoe/Waterhouse small universe alongside the Baroque Cycle; some of the same names show up in REAMDE. (Sort of how there’s universe/character overlap between Snow Crash and Diamond Age.) Anathem has a similar vibe, though IIRC no character overlap.
These were indeed verbose. Some folks love it, some not as much. Then there was a deliberately semi-utopian near-futurism phase (Seveneves, whatever one it is with the cloud-seeding gun in West Texas) and now we’re into some historical fiction (Russian spy stuff).
Might be worth dipping in a toe again to see if any of these fits your fancy. Stephenson didn’t just swap to Cryptonomicon and stop there.
Anathem, please reconsider. Do you remember the part about Artificial Inanity? Right before the entire book is revealed as an elaboration of Everett's MWI? It's right up there with Snow Crash's reflection on Jaynes' Origin of Consciousness.
It was still an awful lot to ask of a reader, and IMO, not worth the "reward." I agree with the person you are responding to. His early works are really amazing, but beginning with Cryptonomicon he became increasingly verbose and I found his later books a lot less fun to read.
Tastes are interesting. I sprinted through Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon because they were so good. I struggled to get past the first few chapters of Reamde. Didn't engage me at all.
The 'sequel' that does lean on some of Reamde's worldbuilding, 'Fall; or, Dodge in Hell' is much more oddly ambitious. But it is a very strange work. You have to be on board for the literary direction.
It's also concerningly prescient, as he often has been, especially in an early scenario in the book that shapes the world so the rest of the book can happen.
"Remember Moab" has become a sort of in-joke/shibboleth/curse for my close friend group as a reaction to (or identification of) the sort of FB/Instagram things that make real, normal people lose their minds forever.
I know he’s well liked, but damn. It’s difficult to take him seriously when he says things like “The novel is a very new form of art. It was unthinkable until the invention of printing and impractical until a significant fraction of the population became literate.”
Perhaps the biggest loss of cryptocurrency being branded as "crypto" is losing the Matt Blaze's thoughts on cryptography (and in turn, how this informed Stephenson's thoughts on these topics).
Neal is one of two living authors whose all books I buy. Happy to have found him during Covid, thanks to HN comments. I found Greg Egan during that time, and I am grateful to HN threads and comments on books.
My first exposure to Neal was through Reamde and it's definitely the fastest I've managed to get through a novel relative to length. I really enjoy his style.
I recommend his older stuff to anyone else looking to check him out: Snow Crash is an undeniable classic, Diamond Age was absolutely incredible, and even Zodiac and In the Beginning Was the Command Line are both very good (although the last one is obviously more for computer people).
His newer stuff is very ... verbose. It started with Cryptonomicon (not sci-fi and WAY longer than it should have been) and by the time he got to Anathema he was so full of himself he not only wrote a giant text ... he wrote it in a made-up sub-language he created (and expected you to learn) just to enjoy the story.
He's one of my absolute favorite authors ... or at least he was for the first half of his career.
Anathem was my favorite book by him. It has a lotta re-read value, I appreciate the work he did to make it feel like a complete, fleshed out world. But different folks have different tastes, and that's ok.
I also liked Seveneves, but it should have ended 2/3 of the way through. There was a point that would have made for an excellent ending (which is something Stephenson famously struggles with IMO), but then he forced in another 1/3 of a book that didn't engage me and which felt like it just petered out.
Anathem and Seveneves are my favorites of his, in that order. The orbital launch and operation in Anathem is probably my favorite piece of writing ever.
I’d argue that Seveneves DID end 2/3rds of the way through! There’s at least another third of a book that would’ve cleanly followed the end.
Anathem is written in English. There's just some made up words that are generally easy to figure out the meaning of.
Polostan went down very easy. only read Anathem, Snow Crash, Reamde, Fall;, and Cryptonomicon. Plolostan was a novella compared to those. finished in a day or two on vacation and im a sorta slow reader
i like Polostan and generally recommend it. looking forward to the sequel in a few weeks. havent read anything Stevensons said about Polostan but if i had to guess id say it targets a YA audience instead of a high school/undergrad audience
amazing none of his books have been adapted. they play out like movies in my head, albeit a lot of men participating in the socratic method and waving at white boards
Cryptonomicon definitely differs from Stephenson’s first phase but he’s had other phases since then. I’d lump that into the Shaftoe/Waterhouse small universe alongside the Baroque Cycle; some of the same names show up in REAMDE. (Sort of how there’s universe/character overlap between Snow Crash and Diamond Age.) Anathem has a similar vibe, though IIRC no character overlap.
These were indeed verbose. Some folks love it, some not as much. Then there was a deliberately semi-utopian near-futurism phase (Seveneves, whatever one it is with the cloud-seeding gun in West Texas) and now we’re into some historical fiction (Russian spy stuff).
Might be worth dipping in a toe again to see if any of these fits your fancy. Stephenson didn’t just swap to Cryptonomicon and stop there.
Anathem, please reconsider. Do you remember the part about Artificial Inanity? Right before the entire book is revealed as an elaboration of Everett's MWI? It's right up there with Snow Crash's reflection on Jaynes' Origin of Consciousness.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14554592
The “made up language” is directly tied to the plot and overall themes, and leads to an “aha” moment.
It was still an awful lot to ask of a reader, and IMO, not worth the "reward." I agree with the person you are responding to. His early works are really amazing, but beginning with Cryptonomicon he became increasingly verbose and I found his later books a lot less fun to read.
Tastes are interesting. I sprinted through Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon because they were so good. I struggled to get past the first few chapters of Reamde. Didn't engage me at all.
The 'sequel' that does lean on some of Reamde's worldbuilding, 'Fall; or, Dodge in Hell' is much more oddly ambitious. But it is a very strange work. You have to be on board for the literary direction.
It's also concerningly prescient, as he often has been, especially in an early scenario in the book that shapes the world so the rest of the book can happen.
"Remember Moab" has become a sort of in-joke/shibboleth/curse for my close friend group as a reaction to (or identification of) the sort of FB/Instagram things that make real, normal people lose their minds forever.
> ... Reamde and it's definitely the fastest I've managed to get through a novel relative to length.
Same here. But I skipped far fewer paragraphs of his earlier works.
:)
That was the best explanation of litfic vs. commercial/genre fiction I've ever read.
Ah, a classic. This was Slashdot’s high point.
Note: (2004)
I love this site, but I miss classic Slashdot
Slashdot is still there.
It's kind of tiny compared to here (<1/5th the articles maybe?) but it still has an older/Slashdot-y crowd.
Oh man, remember when getting a BMW was the high of excessive greed?
Noted!
I know he’s well liked, but damn. It’s difficult to take him seriously when he says things like “The novel is a very new form of art. It was unthinkable until the invention of printing and impractical until a significant fraction of the population became literate.”
Another classic of his, Mother Earth, Mother Board: https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/
Ah, I always wondered how Vancouver Island came to be - a fight between Stephenson and Gibson makes perfect sense.
Perhaps the biggest loss of cryptocurrency being branded as "crypto" is losing the Matt Blaze's thoughts on cryptography (and in turn, how this informed Stephenson's thoughts on these topics).
Anyway, in case you were curious:
Hobbs: https://web.archive.org/web/20041204055248/http://www.crypto...
Master Key: https://web.archive.org/web/20041022021127/http://www.crypto...
Matt Blaze is still around. I get the feeling he doesn't post often:
https://www.mattblaze.org/blog/
https://federate.social/@mattblaze
given how Neal never goes online, i wonder how long he sat on this to reply