Neal Stephenson – Announcing Polostan | Hacker News Reader

Neal Stephenson – Announcing Polostan

nealstephenson.com

67 pointslkellar30 comments

I wonder if he's learned how to write endings yet. Don't get me wrong, Snow Crash changed my life and I love Diamond Age and Seveneves but...

The ending of Cryptonomicon is excellent!

Yes, it seemed like he had a definite ending decided for it. However books like the Diamond Age seemed more aimless.

I enjoy the ending of Anathem more every time I read it.

Anathem is the one book of his I've read that I thought had a really satisfying ending. It is also by far my favorite book of his. I wish he would revisit that universe. With Seveneves, it seemed to me that the quality of writing and pacing of the story changed somewhat abruptly near the end.

I felt like it ended right when things were getting interesting again.

Did you feel that way about Anthem or Seveneves? With Anthem, I felt like he had just finished laying the groundwork for an impressive feat of unique world building, which felt a shame to abandon at the end of the book, even though I enjoyed the ending. With Seveneves, I felt the book ended shortly after part 2 finally started to pick up pace, with several new sets of characters, and their dynamics, being introduced right before the end.

The world building is why I can re-read Anathem endlessly. The detail is just wonderful. Every time I finish it I get a feeling of grief knowing that it'll likely never be expanded on.

Seveneves was what I was thinking of. We meat the sea people, which really peaked my interest, then suddenly it was over. Really left me hanging.

I think the terrible endings are for the books that he has to meet deadlines on. Both Seveneves and Termination Shock suffered, in my opinion, from premature endings.

Maybe his publisher said: you have only 50 more pages before it's no longer one book

Hmmm. Interesting, but I prefer his sci-fi stuff. The Baroque Cycle was… weird. Full of intricate detail, but I derived relatively little satisfaction from reading it, and I’ll wait for proper reviews before reading this one.

Agreed. We need more mind-melting sci-fi books!

The Baroque Cycle is what made me stop reading him. It actually pissed me off.

I was a huge fan before these came out. Bought a hardcover copy of the first book as soon as it was available. It was tedious. Every page smelled of self-indulgence.

Lesson learned: Always wait for the reviews. It stays in a prominent position on my bookshelf to remind me of that.

I remember seeing a picture of him, I think it was attached to an interview or maybe on a later books dust jacket, not long after. He was wearing a red velvet smoking jacket surrounded by ornate walnut furniture.

That picture stuck with me. It seemed so pompous and pretentious, exactly the vibe I got from that book. If any of his new books give me the same vibe, I simply don't bother.

I didn't particularly enjoy the Baroque Cycle the first time I read it, but increasingly enjoy it the more often I read it!

I think a lot of it was adjusting headspace from "Stephenson == Sci Fi". It is a fantastically detailed read that touches on a lot of fascinating historical stuff.

The 'international espionage' trope seems a little well worn at this point.

> who re-christens her Aurora

Although there was probably a significant element of chance (how many naval ships were in St. Petersburg harbour at the time?), you have to hand it to the Bolsheviks: using a cruiser named "Dawn"* in latin, to signal a revolutionary attack, was a majorly literary flex.

* her greek epithet being rhododactylos, "red"-fingered, just layers on the allusions.

Loved the Baroque cycle.

NS is, of course, an Emacs user https://youtu.be/RC5yGM8fk8g?si=FfoxlXNeD7gLpcx2

Also he's author of In the Beginning Was the Command Line.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_Co...

I hope it’s more than a historical fiction person portrait. Reading the summary I’m not convinced… yet.

No offense to Neal, but I'd love to read more of Snow Crash and Diamond Age style books.

Me too, but i assume this will not happen for a while as this is the first in a series.

I also imagine that his more recent non scifi stuff also appeals to a broader audience

Have you looked at Seveneves? I really enjoyed the first half, never finished the second half. Never really liked Diamond Age, but really liked Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon. I have Termination Shock queued up, will see how that goes. The description of this one didn't sound interesting to me.

No, just the synopsis. He lost me at Reamde to be honest.

The first half is pretty good hard-ish sci-fi, might be worth checking out.

The first and second half of Seveneves felt like two different books, each written by a different author. The second half, in my opinion, does not come close to the quality of the first.

That effectively sums it up for me as well. I enjoyed the hard-ish sci-fi of the first half, then it turn into some speculative future storyline and I lost interest 5 mins in.

I'll take another book like Anathem any day.

Stephenson's latest book, Termination Shock seemed tired. It didn't have the sarcasm and vigor that sprinkled his earlier work.

Yeah I'm with you. Actually what I read it as was like a jazz musician who is so deeply into the music he just improvises and puts it out into the world immediately. Diamond age was so well crafted it felt like he agonized over every scene, termination shock felt like he had an outline and just did it in one shot. I didn't like it either although some scenes were fun

Same as Dodge: fall in hell, it's so much longer than necessary, the metaphors were so drawn out. And yet there are enough good parts I'll read it, just not reread

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