Comment by jjcm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jjcm | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

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.

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.

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

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...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com