Stupid question: Who is Neal Stephenson, and why is he famous?
Wikipedia suggests that he's a sci-fi author, is there a particular reason for his fame, could you recommend some of his works?
Wikipedia suggests that he's a sci-fi author, is there a particular reason for his fame, could you recommend some of his works?
The Baroque Cycle for a semi-fictional view of the beginnings of science - the Newton and Hooke era.
Anathem for an interesting take on the philosophy of science disguised as a sci-fi epic.
The Baroque Cycle is a massive piece of work spanning 3 volumes, comprised of 8 nominally independent books. If it seems intimidating, just try the first one and see if you're not hooked. I'd love it if there was twice as much material.
Anathem is by far my favorite. Its hooks take longer to set, but for me they set much deeper. There is a lot going on in this book, and it will truly blow your mind if you let it.
The beginning is actually really tough going as a completely new reader today. It's just so ridiculous. I can see where he was coming from, as I grew up in that era, but it's actually pretty bizarre now given the reality is nation states, religion and banks turned out to be so much more powerful than corporations.
Which is one of the perils of predictions in ageing sci-fi.
I've been on a sci-fi kick recently of all the classics I never read (William Gibson, Ender's Game, The Mars Trilogy, Forever War, Starship Troopers, A Canticle For Leibowitz, Philip K. Dick, Hyperion Cantos, Ringworld) and re-reading some I've not read for a long time (Foundation Series).
I personally found that Snow Crash is by far the most dated book. Even Ringworld and the foundation series were better.
All cyberpunk is like that, for reasons that are pretty obvious.
> Even Ringworld and the foundation series were better.
Of course. Physical reality changes much more slowly.
And when I refer to Foundation & Ringworld I meant that they are from the 60s and so have some weird cultural ideals as well as some (unintentional) misogyny & racism in the foundation series.
Some of the space opera, on the other hand, was so earnest and certain that we'd be flying around at light-speed by now you feel almost disappointed for the authors.
I've a major in Physics and it took me a couple readings to figure out all (well, most of) the connections therein. My favorite game to play while reading Anathem was figuring out where are the borders between historical fact (translated into the fictional world of Arbre, of course), current hypotheses within present-day science, and just downright fiction. Quick quiz: is "geometrodynamics" Stephenson's invention, or a term used in the real world? You get puzzles like that at every step, some easier, some harder.
A few examples that stand out:
Actual history of science - well, Thelenes, Adrakhones, Saunt Tredegarh, Saunt Muncoster, etc. (again, real people disguised under the mask of Arbran characters)
Current hypotheses - the whole Multiverse thing, the Fraa Paphlagon / Hugh Everett parallel.
Out-and-out fiction - eh... this is harder. The Wick, maybe?
And then there's Fraa Jad, all alone in a category of his own. :) I daresay one of the most striking, memorable characters in all sci-fi - if you get the point of the whole book.
[1] http://anathem.wikia.com/wiki/Earth%E2%80%93Arbre_Correlatio...
The Mongoliad semi-fictional view of mid-thirteenth century Mongol invasion of Europe
Reamde MMO gold farming, social networking, criminal methods of the Russian mafia, Islamic terrorists
Writing aside I've found the plot pretty slow with not much interesting happening for most of the Zula portions (ie. middle half of the book). Maybe Stephenson's level of detail just isn't for me but it really wants for editing.
Anathem and Diamond Age were harder for me because of the depth of ideas. I had to slow down and think to get through them.
Baroque Cycle was harder because of the sheer number of characters with multiple and/or similar names, which is realistic but annoying. There's a list of characters in the back of the first book, which helps, but it's annoying to have to keep the first book handy when you're reading the others.
Stephenson does have a reputation for starting great books and not knowing how to finish them. But I think I've gotten more than my money's worth out of all of them.
Reamde starts off with a lot of interesting ideas, and then morphs into quite possibly the worst watered-down, airport-paperback, fourth-rate-Tom-Clancy-triller nonsense I have ever read. Avoid it at all costs. Unbelievable plot and character motives. ick.
If you can suspend disbelief at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, it's pretty awesome.
IMO it is one of his best works. Nanotech/Networks/Crypto for the masses to understand. I read, loved and was caught up in the VR fever of the 90's via Snow Crash, and love his other books, but TDA is the one I'll never get rid of.
* cult sex scenes
* a forced-participation theater that humiliates you using Occulus Rift-technology
* the Kill Bill-esque ending
* ... and, most of all, the idea of continous education using an immersive Minecraft-like book/world that expands in complexity as your education grows.
Too bad we (the hackers) never completed even a crude version of the Primer (the book in the last bullet point) for the young geeks out there.
Damn, I'm going to have to read it again now. Still, it's about time for a refresh...
I like your point; it compliments itself nicely with my previous one. Soon enough, computers may be able to do many things very well -- however, hackers are not catching up to corporations.
What I mean: if I remember correctly, in the DA world TV and big companies have as big as a grip on general populace as they have to day, but hackers are able to create alternatives, like the mentioned Primer for children's education.
In the real world, "hackers" (or those with the technical know-how to be one) love Apple and Google as much as the rest of the populace does, and leave the big things (OS, main APIs, maps, voice assistant, their personal data, ebook stores, videos available to young children) to them with very little opposition.
There was a time when I thought Snow Crash was the best. There was a time when Cryptonomicon was a lot of fun (still is). Nowadays I incline slightly more towards the 'philosophical opus' type of vibe that Anathem gives off.
Anyway, all his books are pretty good representatives of one sub-genre or another. He's a very good author, and he wrote in a lot of different keys through his career so far.
http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html
Warning: written fifteen years ago, also really long.
I'd recommend his "Mother Earth Mother Board" article (more like a small book, be warned) as the definitive tome on the physical reality of how the Internet is held together across the world: http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html
Google Earth was heavily influenced by ideas in his books.
The Kindle was codenamed "Fiona", after Fiona Hackworth, a character in one of his books who uses a super-duper e-book.