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Comment by cl42 | Hacker News Reader

Do you think that's a Neal Stephenson issue? Don't get me wrong, I love his writing, but I found this to be the case with Fall too. I can see it becoming tiring if one is writing 400+ page books.

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Definitely a Stephenson issue. It's a meme for sure, but there is some truth in it. Nowadays when I re-read any of his old works, I tend to stop after getting about 80% through. That said, I do think that these incredibly complex narratives are extremely hard to wrap up neatly. GRRM has this issue as well.

That's the problem with letting characters act how they would actually act, and make decisions that make sense for them. Those decisions often don't end in a way that's concise and brings closure.

I think he tried to sidestep this issue quite a bit in Seveneves in a fairly clever way. To me personally (and I know there are others who disagree), the third act felt the weakest. Despite that it did bring closure to the story. There was no finality to the characters themselves - it skipped over all of that, but there was closure to the story.

One thing I'm curious on the other end of the spectrum - who does HN think writes good endings to complex scifi stories?

My memory of the scifi I read in my youth (50 years ago!) is hazy. But I do remember that Arthur C. Clarke's short story, The Nine Million Names of God, had a spectacular ending. Also, Ray Bradbury's The Sound of Thunder.

I personally loved the ending to the three body problem series. It felt really satisfying to me.

Gene Wolfe. Somehow resolves or explains every seemingly random occurrence throughout the story, even if the first person narrator is extremely unreliable and doesn’t make the connection

What book would you recommend as a good introduction to his works?

Despite what the parent comment said I'd still recommend Shadow of The Torturer, the first book in the Book of The New Sun series. If you like the idea of being immersed in a world that you don't fully understand, but gives you the impression that there is a richness of lore behind every minor detail, then you'll enjoy it.

“Book of the New Sun”, beginning with Shadow of the Torturer, is his major work but can be unapproachable at first. The narrator/protagonist is a terrific character, but a IMO difficult one to spend time with.

The Fifth Head of Cerberus is also a great entry point. It’s a set of three interconnected novellas that, for my part at least, were more immediately engaging than BotNS. It’s got all the Wolfe-isms you want: unreliable narrators, unconventional settings, and puzzle-box stories that slowly open themselves.

And he is literally an inverted Stephenson; it can be a slog getting through the middles of his books, where Stephenson really shines. It took me a half-dozen tries to make it through The Book of the New Sun.

I remember some books from his "Latro in the mist" series, where the last pages have at least as much action as the rest of the book. Very strange pacing, but it is memorable and it works.

The ending of the original Foundation trilogy was absolutely top-notch, down to the final reveal. Too bad the sequels kinda ruined it (for me).

The introduction of the mule spoiled it for me. Up until that point suspension of disbelief worked well and the world seemed very real, the introduction of a supernatural element didn’t fit the previous tone of the story IMHO

Seveneves is IMO the worst Stephenson story I read so far. No good sign if you stop reading midway. Although the first act was nice.

I recently found my love for Greg Egan again. Incandescence is currently way up on my list of hard scifi novels I absolutely loved. I'd love to read more of this kind...

Iain M. Banks. Many of his endings are tragic, or at least bittersweet, and have some sort of a twist in them, so slightly YMMV. But they do always bring closure, and "then almost everyone dies" is an entirely reasonable ending if the characters were on a suicide mission all along.

I think it's a cyberpunk thing. There's all this action, and it is fascinating and absorbing. It's all leading up to some major reveal and then -- the reveal is disappointing.

There is the concept of a MacGuffin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin. It's the thing that sets a story in motion, but is actually irrelevant, beside the point. Like the Maltese Falcon in The Maltese Falcon. The important point is something else entirely, usually about human nature.

What The Diamond Age, and much cyberpunk do, is introduce the MacGuffin, but then they stick with it, forgetting that the MacGuffin is just a plot device. They mistake the plot device for the plot itself, like the whole point is to retrieve The Maltese Falcon. The MacGuffin is a point from which the story takes off, not the point of the story.

SevenEves has a canonical MacGuffin, in its first sentence.

The best sci-fi stories are ones that you could relatively easily translate to fantasy, or even just "normal world" - because it is extremely difficult to write an engaging story that is "only the MacGuffin" - it can be done, but it is quite hard (and often appeals to a particular niche audience).

Do you think, perhaps, that the Harry Potter series and its' Horcruxes is an example of a MacGuffin that worked?

Since I read all of the books, but forgot what a Horcrux even is, I don't think so. Because I would not have had forgotten the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. A central element that gets referenced often. I don't know if Harry Potter has a MacGuffin at all, maybe the wands and magic in itself?

It had a few of them, more or less, but they're all basically just "quest items" and less "pure" MacGuffins- the philosopher's stone in the first book, for example.

I don't think Horcruxes count - it's introduced way later in the series where we're already very deeply invested in all the characters, and instead of disappearing, it becomes the center of the attention for the rest of the series.

So, in a sense, I'd call it an anti-MacGuffin.

My favorite MacGuffin of all time was the one in _The_Amazing_World_of_Gumball_ (S5E27, "The Menu")

I think it's a well-known Stephenson issue. Here's his response when asked:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nealstephenson/comments/5jjwmq/neal...

Wow, this is fascinating, thank you!

Made me wonder whether editors get in the way too.

Based on book-mass alone, I suspect Stephenson chomps on editor souls for breakfast.

> I think Anathem does ok on that score

Well, I know at least one person who's read a lot of Stephenson agrees with him on that, so maybe he's improving.

I read most of his books and I would agree too.

I would also agree Anathem has a well paced conclusion.

This is funny, both Fall and Diamond Age are Stephenson novels I haven't managed to get through, but of the ones I've read (and enjoyed!), the endings have been as follows:

Remade - massively stretched my suspension of disbelief.

Cryptonomicon - pretty bad.

Snow Crash - No memory, I might have blocked it out?

Anthem - maybe ok? There are two though so that's cheating.

Seven Eves - That one might have been ok, but it's possible I also blocked it out. The second half was a bit strange tbh.

To be clear, I'd still recommend all of these books. Cryptonomicon is one of my favorite pieces of fiction of all time (up there with LOTR and Three Body Problem), and Anthem is in the mix. Stephenson just sucks at endings I guess.

> Snow Crash - No memory, I might have blocked it out?

The Snow Crash ending is IMO fine. Nothing amazing, but it wraps things up okay. It's just kind of typical action story beat-the-clock type thing, so it's not as memorable as really anything else in that book, though it is exciting.

> Stephenson just sucks at endings I guess.

Yeah, pretty much. He does beginnings and middles _so_ very well though that I never mind.

p.s. read Zodiac sometime if you haven't, it's one of his few books I noticed you didn't mention and it's a fun read.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out!

>> Seven Eves - That one might have been ok, but it's possible I also blocked it out. The second half was a bit strange tbh.

I found Seveneves both endings (Parts I and II being one book, Part III being another) of Seveneves to be extremely satisfying. I found the Part II ending beautiful and melancholic, and the Part III was exciting - felt like a setup for a sequel I hope gets written!

[although I would love a prequel to Part III]

Seveneves is a serious novel with many serious/tragic moments, but one funny moment that still sticks with me is in Part III. To avoid spoilers, I will describe it as when faction A is observing faction B making an approach to faction C, which faction A also hopes to contact. What faction B has improvised using available equipment as part of their approach is hilarious (and, really, totally makes sense).

I really enjoy Stephenson novels, and Three Body Problem seemed pretty popular around here. But I really disliked the Three Body Problem (I only read the first book). I think this might be my own fault, because I had convinced myself this book was the same story as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremis_(Doctor_Who) but in the end it wasn't, and I felt the story would have been so much better if it was.

There are at least two of us. I loathed Three Body Problem with a flaming passion. There was like a decent 30 page sci-fi story surrounded by ~300 pages of incomprehensible frittering around.

Folks have told me they liked the later books better, but I’ve never felt the urge to try them.

Since 3 body was first published in 2008 and Extremis in 2017, I think you mean to say "I convinced myself that Extremis was the same story as 3 body"... maybe it's irrelevant, but precedence can matter sometimes

Yes, that is what I should have said (and it was also what I was thinking at the time, since it is not uncommon for sci-fi episodes to take plots from other stories. https://www.escapistmagazine.com/star-trek-strange-new-world... is another such example).

I absolutely loved the ending of _Fall_. I literally sat in my truck with tears streaming down my face for five minutes. To each their own, I suppose.

Definitely Stephenson. He has a tendency to write one-and-a-half books where the main drama resolves, then a lot of new context appears full of fresh challenges for our protagonists, and then the book ends.

Stephenson is famous for terrible endings.

(Dont get me wrong, still love him)

That's always been my take.

The first 75% of most of his books are among my favorite recent books.

I've never enjoyed an ending.

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