Hacker News Reader

I found REAMDE maybe his worst book that I've read. For one thing, it was one of those books where, if a lot of things don't line up just perfectly again and again, there's really no story.

I mostly liked Cryptonomicon and Anathem--but I probably wouldn't push a reader into the latter as an introduction.

Yeah, REAMDE was a weird mashing together of what if things were happening in WoW and IRL and it all was somehow about the global war on terror?

I concur that it's probably his worst novel that I've read. And that Anathem probably shouldn't be anyone's introduction to his work.

Anathem was my introduction and I feel that it has spoiled his other works for me.

Cryptonomicon was my introduction and none of his other works really compare, for me.. at least, it's the only one I've felt the desire to read again.

REAMDE's ending with those gun-preppers orgasming over the idea of finally getting an excuse for hunting human did it for me. Stephenson nerding out about that subculture is a thing I can't unsee, now it colors my perception of even his most liberal-leaning writings.

In a good or bad way? Like now you notice it more in other writings of his? There was a few pages like this in Snow Crash, and I remember breezing past it, but then re-reading it years later, could see the common thread.

But all in all. His take on that culture seems accurate. Not exaggerated that much for satire.

In a very bad way. I suspect that I'm really not doing him justice because he's probably not all too fond of any of the subcultures be portraits, but I can't completely shake off that change in perception.

Cryptonomicon and Anathem were what got me into Stephenson, and I loved both of those. Then I read Quicksilver and it held my attention, but I had a really hard time slogging through The Confusion and never made it to System of a World. On the other hand, Reamde was a fun story along the lines of something a popular spy fic author my write. Not high art, but easy and entertaining and something that could be easily adapted for the screen (like Snow Crash). In the Beginning... is, I believe, his best and most pure writing from a tech POV, but he's always been sort of the information technology version of what Michael Crichton is to biotech.

You should read the Baroque Cycle, then Cryptonomicon, then REAMDE, then Fall, Or Dodge in Hell. You can think of it as all one storyline, so the ending of each book is less critical.

I'd actually go with publication order myself...

Nice username!

It's what happens when you sign up for Slashdot while reading Cryptonomicon without doing any checks as to where the name actually comes from!

I tried reading the first of the Baroque Cycle like 5 times. Could never make it more than 1/4 through it before losing steam. Anathem was the worst for me though.

The Baroque Cycle made double-entry bookkeeping click for me, bizarre as that sounds. The whole cycle is a long, long read. But there are nuggets that make it well worth it.

Anathem really picks up after the first 400-500 pages.

I laughed. It's both true, and very not helpful. It's the equivalent of a fairly long not-so-great book before a pretty good book. Hard agree.

Also agreed, although I enjoyed some of the philosophical debate in the early portions of the book so I would put Anathem higher in books I enjoyed from Neal Stephenson

I am the rare Anathem reader who enjoyed the slow first part more than the active later parts. The initial world immersion was fascinating. The Big Event and subsequent faster paced developments were a lot less memorable. But I also enjoyed the instructional sections about whaling in Moby Dick.

personally, I found Anathem to be fun the whole way through, but Baroque Cycle has like only one enjoyable part at the end of book two

The first part of the book is super slow and boring, but it does get much better later on and what they setup is necessary for the story.

You Should not read fall under any circumstances.

Seriously: life is too short.

(I say this as a huge NS fan)

Cannot possibly agree more. It's an absolutely terrible book.

REAMDE was ok, except the sections about the MMO which frequently left me catatonic with cringe. In Fall, the whole book is that cringe.

If you like mythology and scifi, then you should absolutely read it

I really liked Fall, even before the Cryptonomicon tie-in.

It’s not high art, but I probably enjoyed it in my top 5 books of the year.

Different people have different tastes, I just find it funny when people make generalized statements like “this book is so bad, no one should ever read it.”

I read Cryptonomicon, then the Baroque Cycle, then Cryptonomicon (or a long period of years) which has nice tie-ins to each other.

However I disliked Reamde enough that I didn't start Fall. Is it better?

Fall is, IMHO, nowhere near as good as Reamde. But I've always been a technothriller fan, and Reamde is pretty high on my enjoyment list.

I loved both in totally different ways.

But I would read the phone book if NS wrote it.

Baroque Cycle is my favourite, worth giving it a shot. Dodo is such a strange book because the beginning and middle are amazing and the ending is terrible

All his endings are weak. He builds momentum and reaches a climactic moment, and then…fizzle.

I think the ending of Anathem is possibly one of his best; it’s an acknowledgment that it is the ending, it’s rather tender and sweet, and it fits the mood perfectly.

Yeah, I think of Anathem as so far the only Reverse Stephenson book. Most of his books have killer starts and then end in a didactic "meh". Anathem starts with an incredibly didactic "meh" but then delivers a killer end.

> A great deal of content about whatever Neal Stephenson is nerding out about at the time

This was so true in SEVENEVES. There's a whole section about debris avoidance by a constellation of orbiting spacecraft and it was so tedious. I felt like I was reading someone describing an academic paper they'd recently read.

It's a progression. Story, style, characterization, and science in equal measure at first. Then more and more of the latter and less of the first three. Perhaps he did peak in Diamond Age, then it's basically Asimov after - pretty hard sci-fi with no story / characters (or at least no characters / story anyone cares about).

Snow Crash - most story / style / MEMORABLE characters

Diamond Age - same but with a very dramatic evolution from traditional Cyberpunk

Anathem / Seven Eves - virtually no memorable characters, interesting concepts and science though

Cryptonomicon - I couldn't.

I think I've read every one of his books. My favourite is The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O..

And D.O.D.O was one of only three Stephenson books I started and could not finish.

@mauvehaus, with your idiosyncratic spelling of emacs as "eMacs", you put Stephenson in a bad light. He knows how to spell. And edit.

As a vi guy, I trusted whatever my iPhone said was the canonical capitalization of emacs when it autocorrected it :-)

EDITED TO ADD: I just figured it out. My iPhone presumably thinks I'm taking about an obsolete Apple product. Doh. I'll let my error stand as a monument to not trusting everything a computer says.

I would also note that most of what we seem to be discussing is whether his writing is good or not. Spelling, I'll give him. The opinions on editing seem to be a little more divided.

There’s also usually “protagonist or major character has a weird method of travel”, “protagonist or major character goes through a period of loneliness as part of their heroes journey”, and a few other bits that are common across most of his fiction work.

He’s also largely absolutely shit at writing female characters.

Still enjoy his work, but it’s fun to find the common threads.

I have found that folks who don’t like Snow Crash will enjoy Seveneves.