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Comment by huhtenberg | Hacker News Reader

Stross next to Gibson and Stephenson... hmm.

I tried The Atrocity Archives but I couldn't get past the first half. It felt like a pile of nerd paraphernalia force-stuffed into a story line.

I mean... Neuromancer is a true masterpiece from the story to the concepts to the succinct writing, just perfect. Snow Crash is less perfect, but exceptionally enthralling nonetheless. What would be a comparable read from Stross?

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> What would be a comparable read from Stross?

Accelerando [1] isn't in the same league as Neuromancer in terms of style and succinctness, but the idea-density is pretty high and it moves along at a nice pace.

[1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...

I can skim through most sci-fi stories. But not this one. I had to slow down and focus on what Charles was saying. It's seriously dense reading, and worth the effort.

Man, Stross has written a whole lot of shitty pulp over his career but some of his short stories are kinda kooky [1] and Accelerando [2] was a ripping yarn

[1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/toast/to...

[2] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...

I liked his "Missile Gap" -- a novella that combines the Cold War and alternate history in a way that I really liked. I agree with you about the "Atrocity Archives" -- and I love Cthulhu and spy stuff, so you'd think I would have liked it, but I just didn't like the way it didn't take itself seriously -- all this winking at the reader takes away all drama imho.

That's possibly the difference between UK and US humour - self deprecating humour Is a very British thing.

Admittedly, as a fan of The Laundry Files, that's a major problem with the Atrocity Archives, for the first half, anyways. The second half, after Bob and Mo visit the Atrocity Archives themselves, is much better. We meet a variety of Checkov's Guns, several important people, and get a glimpse of the kind of horror that the Laundry Files is all about. The Concrete Jungle, a short story included in the book, is equally absorbing, and sets the scene for all short stories to come, as well as showing us a bit more of Angleton, and giving us introduction to MAGINOT BLUE STARS.

The second novel, The Jennifer Morgue, is very good, and largely free of the problems you mentioned, but is very different from much of the rest of the series, for reasons which will become obvious when you read it. It's in the third book, The Fuller Memorandum, where the series really hits its stride, and gets going.

However, the series doesn't mind an offside wink or two every once in a while, like Persephone's parenthesized Enochian, and the way The Scrum talks about its problems.

Accelerando, Glass House, Halting State & Rule 34. His short story collection Wireless also has some great ones. Unwirer (with Cory Doctorow) being one of my favourites.

Accelerando stands up there with Neuromancer, to me.

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