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Comment by Jedd | Hacker News Reader

Possibly a key indicator of a quality SF idea / author -- how much closer we are to their universe a decade or two later.

I've loved everything Neal's written, though I may begrudgingly agree with various critics that suggest he really doesn't do endings very well (REAMDE and Anathem are much, much better on this front).

I've tried recommending various books of his to different friends, and I've concluded that I have basically zero predictive capability in terms of working out who would like which of his books. Maybe I've simply failed to grade them properly on the geek scale, but it feels like some of his more technical books appeal to people who don't normally like deep tech, and his deeply social commentary style novels appeal to people who normally push back against strong societal allegory. Which just makes me love his stuff even more.

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Possibly a key indicator of a quality SF idea / author -- how much closer we are to their universe a decade or two later.

I wholeheartedly disagree. As the great (and unfortunately late) Ursula Le Guin wrote, I write science fiction, and science fiction isn't about the future. I don't know any more about the future than you do, and very likely less.[1]

Predictions are cute and all, and I enjoy reading them, but SF certainly can't be judged by how predictive it is.

[1] http://theliterarylink.com/leguinintro.html

Margaret Atwood claimed that if she could predict the future she wouldn't be an author, she'd be a stock trader

I read somewhere (cannot find source at the moment) that Neal Stephenson would start each day with a complete reread of the book he was working on, editing as he went. This would explain why the first few chapters of his books are always the strongest, because they get the most attention and polish in this method, while the endings tend to be weaker.

Were you thinking of William Gibson[0]?

[0] https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6089/william-gibso...

You are correct, and I was thinking of William Gibson. Thank you for correcting me.

> though I may begrudgingly agree with various critics that suggest he really doesn't do endings very well (REAMDE and Anathem are much, much better on this front).

It seems his "formula" is that the first 90% of the book is world building (and he's absolutely amazing at that), then the last 10% is the actual story, but packed into an impossibly small space, so it feels like everything happening at once.

In REAMDE and Anathem, the split feel more like 70/30, but he "compensates" by having so much more story, so it's still everything happening at once, but for much longer. It almost feels exhausting.

Seveneves tries a different formula, it's more like 40/10/40/10. Still, I'd wish he'd nail a story that actually goes on throughout the novel, with the world building interleaved.

Normally with his books I can self-restrain in the 'this is interesting, but I want to keep it going as long as possible' and put the book down for a bit. REAMDE was the first book of his where it was more along the lines of 'jesus christ I must know what happens next, I don't care what time it is' ... and got through the whole thing in a couple of days. Much agreement on the 'exhausting' sensation, but also in a good way.

REAMDE was also similarly received by my other half -- a case in point to my earlier observation about being unable to predict which NS book matches (my understanding of) someone's literary tastes.

Seveneves also backs up my low-quality self-assessment capabilities -- my other half loved that too, despite always pushing back on 'science fiction'. I read an astonishingly annoying spoiler in an HN comment soon after that book was released, and I've subsequently been very cautious talking about it. Suffice to say the ending of that book is frustrating primarily because it's still not clear if there may be a follow-up work.

I would suggest checking out Dan Simmons. He's like Neal in many ways (lots of world building, interesting scifi), but I think a better writer and story teller. I picked up Hyperion based on a review of Seveneves, which suggested the third part was a pale imitation. It and Ilium are amazing.

+1 for Dan Simmons and especially Hyperion. It is more what I'd call "science fantasy" in my personal classification system, but it's an amazing book, in my top 5 for sure.

Thank you both for the recommendation - Hyperion's now queued up on my ebook. Sounds like the first pair of novels are more highly regarded than the second pair?

I think if I had to rank them I'd say Hyperion is top-tier, the sort of book I can quote from even years after reading it. The others are merely excellent sci-fi novels. I don't know how I'd rank the second book against the last two; they're fairly different and I enjoyed them all.

Hyperion is the best of the books in my opinion. One of my favorite books of all time. The Endymion books are a different story set in the same universe, and can be skipped if you want.

REAMDE was his first book that I read. I was totally captivated by the book, but I hated the ending. That's one of his good endings?

Stephenson is terrible at endings.

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