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Comment by chrisshroba | Hacker News Reader

I strongly disagree about Snow Crash. I abandoned it halfway through because the style struck me as cringily cyberpunk. Relatively cool plot but the style just wasn't for me.

However, Seveneves to me is everything I could hope for in a sci-fi book, and I Anathem had amazing world building. I can't speak for Diamond Age, but based on the four books I've read (Termination Shock being the other), I thought Snow Crash was wildly different from the rest.

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Snow Crash was one of the archetypical cypherpunk stories, which was a trend that often mocked if not outright took a piss over cyberpunk.

I find it a lot like a variation of "the cyberpunk dystopia arrived but not as cool as we imagined", but not as boring as what actually happens.

> I abandoned it halfway through because the style struck me as cringily cyberpunk.

I believe that was fully intentional.

The main character's name is Hiro Protagonist. He's definitely leaning into it.

Yeah totally! Just not my preference.

> However, Seveneves to me is everything I could hope for in a sci-fi book

Serious question: what did you think of the ending and plot closure?

To me, the first 2/3 of Seveneves was a good thriller, followed by and then a miracle happpened, followed by probably the book Stephenson wanted to write.

This to me feels like most of his plots.

For me, the ending was a little rushed, but fine. It tied up at least some of the plot elements from the first part. Yes, it was like two separate books, as if Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer was mashed together with the TV version of Asimov's Foundation, but both parts were pretty good.

I feel the same way. I’ve had a few false starts with Snow Crash, each time powering through about half despite my love of the imagery and the coolness. But have easily read Seveneves 2-3 times, with the last time somewhat skimming the third part, which isn’t as good as the rest.

I thought Snow Crash was basically a satire of cyberpunk.

I mean the dude's name is Hiro Protagonist.

Underlined rather emphatically in The Diamond Age by the literal murder of the clichéd cyberpunk character right out of the gates. Quite an unambiguous statement about What Will Not Be Happening In This Book From Now On.

That's probably the key part. If someone goes in expecting earnest sci-fi like Neuromancer and the satire part doesn't click early on, they're likely to be disappointed. (That being said, IMHO there are some aspects of Snow Crash that come off as low-effort, independent of the satire.)

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