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Sci-Fi Books Media

Locus Interviews Neal Stephenson 166

Posted by timothy from the bold-new-do-for-the-greatest-living-writer dept.
Embedded Geek writes "Locus, the trade magazine of Science Fiction, has an interview with Neal Stephenson in their August issue. Excerpts can be found here. A teaser: 'The world of the 'Baroque Cycle' happens to be 99% factual history, or as close as I can come to it, but what readers of this kind of fiction are looking for is the ability to become immersed in a different world. That's why there is a big crossover between historical fiction and SF.' An interesting read for his long time fans or anyone just wondering what all the fuss is about." So this is a teaser for a teaser, but this makes me want to shell out the $8.
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Locus Interviews Neal Stephenson More

Locus Interviews Neal Stephenson

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  • Interview with Neil (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:46PM (#10051840)
    At a guess the interview is overlong, never really gets anywhere, and has no real substance.

    • Re:Interview with Neil (Score:5, Funny)

      by sideshow ( 99249 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @01:12AM (#10053566)
      And has sex scenes that are by far the most uncomfortable to read. Sounds like Stephenson to me all right.
      • I'd rather read a Neil Stephenson sex scene than a Steven Donaldson one. The latter has a decidely unhealty obsession with rape (in both the Thomas Covernant and The Gap series)

      • A lot of Stephenson's sex scenes aren't really bad. They're just... weird. For one thing, they're rarely anything that you'd call "erotic" -- if anything, he seems to try his best to avoid making it erotic. And yet, he'll succeed at making it very clear how intensely erotic it is for the characters; there's plenty of excitement for them, just none for you. He also has a way of emphasizing some of the less pornogenic but more realistic aspects of sex, like premature ejaculation, prostate issues, and the post
        • Totally didn't catch that. My take on it was that in stage terms, "exit stage left" means go off the RIGHT side of the stage from the audience's point of view. My "vantage point" during this section of narrative was basically above the center console, almost between the two seats, so for me "exit stage left" fit perfectly well =) Incidentally, as I don't have the book with me, what country was this in, and have you verified that the seating is the opposite of the USA?

          • My "vantage point" during this section of narrative was basically above the center console

            You mean, you weren't reading in "first-person shooter" mode, from Randy's point of view? I'm pretty sure the reader is supposed to be identifying with Randy there (or is it just us male geeks?).

            Let me see -- so you were looking at them from the side, so you saw them in profile, with Randy on the right and Amy on the left? Oh, I think I get it -- you were also a bit forward, looking back at them, so you could see

  • Crossover between historical fiction and Sci-Fi (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:46PM (#10051850)
    Is that why the Sci-Fi Channel shows Braveheart?

  • Baroque Cycle (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JTWYO ( 583112 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:49PM (#10051867)
    I've really enjoyed Neal's previous books, but I find the Baroque Cycle books to be a little too long-winded and exposition-heavy. It's almost like he suffered through all this research to write the books, so now he's going to make the reader suffer through it too. I just didn't find the first one to move very well under the weight of all that explaining.

    I still consider Snow Crash to be a classic, though, precisely for how light on it's proverbial feet it is.

    • Re:Baroque Cycle (Score:4, Interesting)

      by 0111 1110 ( 518466 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @09:07PM (#10052359)
      I wasn't too thrilled with Snow Crash. I did read it though. For me Cryptonomicon was his great work. I have read that book so many times and was breathlessly awaiting the "prequel", Quicksilver. What a letdown. It didn't have any of the spirit of the original. None of the humour or the witty, clever conversations. I found it to have no redeeming features. I was shocked. I haven't bothered to even skim his latest one.

      What annoys me far more than any long windedness is the characters themselves. Particularly that female, beautiful, intelligent, clever, wise, and otherwise completely perfect human creature that became some kind of main character by the name of Eliza. Grrrr. Sounds to me like his wife was doing the writing or something. Soon after "meeting" her I longed to see her die a grisly death.

      I had liked all of his previous female characters, but Eliza was a totally one dimensional PerfectFemale. Yawn. She was also totally portrayed like a modern American Woman which is very very far from the reality at the time. Actually some of his other female characters in the book don't fare much better. Eighteenth century my arse! I wouldn't be surprised if they were all just carbon copies of his wife's basic personality.
      • Eliza was a totally one dimensional PerfectFemale.

        I disagree.

        She was also totally portrayed like a modern American Woman

        She is neither fat nor ignorant of world matters.

        very far from the reality at the time.

        He repeatedly describes the reality of women in those times. Eliza is an extraordinary person who manages to navigate this society to her advantage despite it all.
        I am normally the first to compain about one-dimentional "girl power" strong women stereotyped characters. She isn't one.

        And one di
      • I wasn't too thrilled with Snow Crash. I did read it though. For me Cryptonomicon was his great work. I have read that book so many times and was breathlessly awaiting the "prequel", Quicksilver. What a letdown. It didn't have any of the spirit of the original. None of the humour or the witty, clever conversations. I found it to have no redeeming features. I was shocked. I haven't bothered to even skim his latest one.

        To each his own &c &c.
        The whole royal society bit can be a bit too geeky I guess

      • A Conversation with Eliza (Score:5, Funny)

        by Embedded Geek ( 532893 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @11:26AM (#10057513) Homepage
        I can see it now:

        Eliza was a totally one dimensional PerfectFemale.
        But why do you think Eliza is a totally one dimensional female?
        Because she's too perfect
        Does that make you feel threatened?
        Well, no. Well, maybe. Somewhat.
        Interesting. Do you think this has anything to do with your parents?

        Of course, the notion of Eliza as a long winded character all depends on what you ask her [www-ai.ijs.si] in the first place.

    • Re:Baroque Cycle (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Daleks ( 226923 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @09:43PM (#10052600)
      I never touched Baroque Cycle because Quicksilver made me want to stab my eyes out with a dull spoon. Eventually I just snapped after Stephenson felt he had to described the cityscape of London for the zillionth time. Cryptonomicon was fun, but it's as if he took the worst of that book and magnified it to create Quicksilver.
      • I never touched Baroque Cycle because Quicksilver made me want to stab my eyes out with a dull spoon.

        I'm curious, is it its very existance that angers you? Because if, as you said, you "never touched" the Baroque Cycle, then how, pray tell, would you know that he "described the cityscape of London for the zillionth time" or "took the worst of [Cryptonomicon] and magnified it to create Quicksilver"?
        • Although I could be wrong, I think the grandparent means that he read Quicksilver and isn't going to touch the rest of the Baroque cycle because Quicksilver is so bad.

          Incidentally, I suspect my reaction is similar to his and many other posters: awe at Cryptonomicon, which is a fantastic work, followed by steadily building excitement for the release of Quicksilver, which disappoints so much that I will not be fooled again.

          • You know, I was a bit disaponted that Quicksilver wasn't as incredibly good as Cryptonomicon, but I took it philosophically: Cryptonomicon isn't any worse because of it, and I was just hyping it in my own mind.

            But after having read Quicksilver and the Confusion, I re-read the beginning of Cryptonomicon, and I loved it even more because I now know the backgrond f the characters and it makes it much more interresting.
            • Well, one can't account for taste, and I could understand how someone would like the detail and in-jokes from the period: but overall, as another poster said, the book came off as too "cute". The worst part is that I think that, somewhere in Quicksilver, a winner exists -- perhaps it still wouldn't measure up to Cryptonomicon, but it could still be worth reading.
          • Yep, that's what I meant. I don't see how I could've meant anything else. Anyways, Cryptonomicon had ungodly prose in some parts, but it was always fun. It always had pace. Remember the part where Randy's (modern geek?) grandfather was dueling with his WW2 duffel bag? Quicksilver had none of those moments, or at least the first 200 pages didn't.

        • "took the worst of [Cryptonomicon] and magnified it to create Quicksilver"

          Subtle but important difference: I'd say it's more that he took some of the best of Cryptonomicon, and magnified it to such an obscene degree in Quicksilver that, like too much of any good thing, it became almost unbearable. (Okay, not the very best elements of Cryptonomicon, but it was good stuff.)

          I was pretty disappointed by Quicksilver, though I wouldn't say I quite "hated" it, and the rest of the Baroque Cycle is still on my
      • Huh...I have loved everything I've read by NS: Snow Crash, Diamond Age (though the ending did leave me going "WTF?"), Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver and The Confusion.

        Just wanted to throw in my two cents after seeing a bunch of pans of The Baroque Cycle. I will be getting The System of the World as soon as I possibly can.

      • i agree that he sometimes get a little long winded in description in quicksilver which i'm still reading right now. the only other book of his i read was snow crash. i read the first 2 pages of cryptonomicon and gave up cause i just didn't feel like reading it at the time, so i read a vonnegut book instead. sometimes when he gets especially over the top in description i just scan several paragraphs ahead til soemthing actually happens. this makes the book much more enjoyable. i'll probably read the rest
    • I liked Quicksilver, and I liked The Confusion, but then again, I like novels by Michener, Wouk, Uris, and Clavell.

      If you want novels that read like a movie script, read Crichton.

  • If you said, "Who?" (Score:4, Informative)

    by zaxios ( 776027 ) <zaxios@gmail.com> on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:53PM (#10051900) Journal
    For those who, like me, hadn't heard of this guy, a quick Googling turned this [nealstephenson.com], this book page [amazon.com] and this interview [salon.com] up. Also, an author profile [about.com].
    • I discovered him through /. Cryptonomicon was the best book I've read in years. Action, suspense, historical acuracy, math, and computers. The Diamond Age was also stunningly good. Quicksilver wasn't very good, and I havn't yet read Snow Crash, but I've heard good things.
      • And I'd bet that people who liked it would like his later work, but I'm not sure the inverse is really true. It's pretty goofy, certanly dosn't have the realistic edge that Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle.
        • Like someone just below you said, Snow Crash is really considered to be his defining work. I once heard Microsoft's Linda Stone say on stage at a con something about how much Snow Crash had "affected us all" (I don't remember all the exact words), and half the audience (techies and many execs) went up in applause. While I think Cryptonomicon has a lot of good stuff, it's in pretty much no way a harbinger of things to come, and does not, like many defining works out there, guide technologists towards future

      • Re:If you said, "Who?" (Score:3, Insightful)

        by plover ( 150551 ) *
        Heh. Most of us consider Snow Crash to be his his defining work. I almost felt like The Diamond Age was the penance I had to sit through for enjoying Snow Crash so much, that's how much better Snow Crash is than his other work.

        It's that good.

      • I love Neal Stephenson, even the Big U, but holy shit Diamond Age was bad.

        I've already pre-ordered System of the World, the Baroque series is utterly compelling.

        Here's what I would like to know after reading The Confusion - can one really extract phosphorus from urine?

        bhj
      • Hmm. I dunno what to say to that except: Quicksilver was damn well very good. Much better than Cryptonomicon, when you figure in things like "the plot".

        The Diamond Age I really like in concept, but that whole drummers subplot (no, wait, main plot) is just silly.

        But really, you should stop reading slashdot right now and go get Snow Crash, because, sheesh. :)
      • ...and I havn't yet read Snow Crash...

        I read Snow Crash about 1.5 years ago now and I think its a book that would of been better read when it was released rather than now. I did enjoy it, but it didn't seem quite so revolutionary now as it may of appeared then.

    • Re:If you said, "Who?" (Score:5, Funny)

      by damiangerous ( 218679 ) <1ndt7174ekq80001@sneakemail.com> on Monday August 23, 2004 @09:25PM (#10052457)
      For those who, like me, hadn't heard of this guy

      Hey, welcome to your first day at Slashdot!

  • Good author (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bgackle ( 597616 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:55PM (#10051913)
    I think I'd read anything by a guy that is able to make a mathematical plot out of the main character's labido.
    • But what about making an a plot out of the text? :P

      Cheap shot, I know. I just happen to be nearly finished reading Snow Crash, my first Neal Stephenson novel. It has been critized for its lackluster plot, which I tend to agree with somewhat. But I nevertheless enjoyed the book very much for its style, wit, and imagination.

      I hear Cryptonomicon is awesome though. I'm definitely going to read that one next.

      • Re:Yes but ... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by sllim ( 95682 ) <achance@earthlink . n et> on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @01:45AM (#10053667)
        Do yourself a favor and wait at least 6 months between finishing Snow Crash and reading Cryptonomicon.

        Crypto is an amazing, incredible classic book that will blow your mind. You will feel smarter for having read it.
        However it is as different from Snow Crash as one can get. So much so that if you are freshly done with Snow Crash you probably won't like Cryptonomicon.
        This isn't a put down of either book.
        But rather a compliment to the author. That he can write 2 distinctly different books that are both legendary among there fans yet are so different as to spoil a person.

    • Re:Good author (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 23, 2004 @08:08PM (#10052022)
      the main character's labido

      Is that a Freudian mix of labia and libido?

    • Re:Good author (Score:5, Informative)

      by freshmkr ( 132808 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @10:03PM (#10052733) Homepage
      I think I'd read anything by a guy that is able to make a mathematical plot out of the main character's labido. (sic.)

      Something Thomas Pynchon also did in Gravity's Rainbow [hyperarts.com]. (Scroll to "Poisson Distribution"). Also google for "slothrop poisson" (no quotes). Pynchon is worthwhile reading, IMHO, though a little bit harder to get through than anything Stevenson wrote...

      --Tom
      • Holy Crap dude!

        Gravity's Rainbow is the hardest book in modern literature.

        It's geeky yes, but it's not geek friendly.

        • Gravity's Rainbow is the hardest book in modern literature.

          I'd hold off on that judgement until you've looked at Finnegans Wake. At least Gravity's Rainbow is written in a recognisable human language!

  • Spam spam spam! (Score:5, Funny)

    by spellraiser ( 764337 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @08:00PM (#10051961) Journal
    Says Mr. Stephenson:

    Spam is another thing kind of like the electric guitar, though it's much darker, less palatable. Clearly the people who originated the technology never in their wildest dreams could have imagined that everyone on Earth who has e-mail would get 30 penis enlargement advertisements a day!

    30? Everyone? Hah! I don't get nearly that much spam to my brand-new gmail account, spellraiser@gmail.com ...

    ...

    Oh crap!

    • Re:Spam spam spam! (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I bet the guys who invented the internet would have never predicted karma whoring either ;)

      /good-natured dig in the rib

  • That is a great article.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by joeldg ( 518249 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @08:05PM (#10051995) Homepage
    I think my favorite part of that article was this:

    The analogy (which I've used a lot before) is to the electric guitar. Thomas Edison made electricity into a consumer product and developed the light bulb, probably anticipated washing machines and stuff, but he sure didn't anticipate the electric guitar! That was far too weird of an idea. No one could have predicted that the descendants of slaves could have adopted this and come up with what would become the dominant form of popular music in the whole world. That's the kind of thing real societies do with real technology. One of the things Gibson has achieved is that he put some of that into his world. We've got information technology. How is it going to be used, not just by engineers who design products but by regular people who pick this stuff up and turn it to their own weird ends? Spam is another thing kind of like the electric guitar, though it's much darker, less palatable. Clearly the people who originated the technology never in their wildest dreams could have imagined that everyone on Earth who has e-mail would get 30 penis enlargement advertisements a day!

    From my HA profile here [historyagent.com]

    great stuff..

    • Thomas Edison didn't do dick because he was a Direct Current freak, Tesla was the man.

      Such an apalling and fundamental error tells you everything you need to know about stephenson's ability as an SF writer.

      • Whoa, there, pardner!

        Read what he said again. He didn't claim that Edison invented anything. He said: "Thomas Edison made electricity into a consumer product and developed the light bulb [...]"

        If you will just tie your knee down a second to stop it jerking, you'll see that he actually agrees with you that "Edison didn't do dick"... at least not in the way engineers think of accomplishments.

        However, what Stephenson said was accurate: Edison did have a huge influence on the widespread acceptance of electri
        • Edison was a P T Barnum IMHO, he wasn't fit to sweep the workshop floor of a man like Tesla, and from all accounts both of them knew this too, hence the mutual emnity.

          • Edison was a P T Barnum IMHO, he wasn't fit to sweep the workshop floor of a man like Tesla [...]

            Yes, that's probably true.

            It is also true that P. T. Barnum was a smashing success as a promoter. You'll note that he died 113 years ago, and he still is the archetypal huckster. It's a truly dubious brand of success, but it still counts. :-)

            I wonder if, in a hundred years, Bill Gates will be remembered as the popularizer of personal computers and the internet, even if the computers of that era descend from

  • SF needs to relearn brevity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rhysweatherley ( 193588 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @08:07PM (#10052011)
    I loved Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, but the Baroque Cycle ... got 2/3rds into Quicksilver and put it away. I liked the story in the abstract and where he was going with it, but it was *way* too long at getting to the point.

    I'm seeing more and more of this in SF - three and four part stories, each part longer than a novel used to be. Huge world-building sure. But do we really need to know about the characters every bowel movement? Move it along people!

    I blame the book shops in part for this: they make more money off trilogies than standalone novels. But I fear that it is destroying the art of good storytelling. Snow Crash (a single novel) was intense. Quicksilver was glacial.

    • Don't publishers and authors also benefit from more books? And why would a trilogy bulk up the individual books of the series?

    • stick with it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by k2enemy ( 555744 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @08:43PM (#10052220)
      i didn't enjoy "quicksilver" for the same reason, but i did finish it and went on to read "the confusion". the second volume is much, much more exciting than the first. in my opinion, the reward contained in "the confusion" is more than worth suffering through "quicksilver". hopefully "the system of the world" will continue on "the confusion's" success.

      • Re:stick with it (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @12:13AM (#10053320) Journal
        I am a very patient reader.

        But I don't think it is too much to ask that by page 500, something happen.

        I'm not referring specifically to Neal here, though I will refer specifically to the Cryptonomicon. (Please don't try to "correct" me; up to that point in the Cryptonomicon, as far as I'm concerned all that had occured was a belabored explanation of several concepts I had learned about in more detail several years ago in school and that opinion of mine isn't about to change.)

        But there is an opportunity cost here; 500 pages is several hours and if you're still building up, I have to ask myself whether my time is better spent on something that may pay off a little faster. Books are not a scarce resource, and while I don't demand wham-bang-boom by page 3, how much do you expect me to wade through?

        My point here, I guess, is that I can't really find it in myself to care whether "The Confusion" is any good, if I have to wade through an entire bloated dull book to get there. I don't want to say everybody should feel that way (unfortunately I can think of no clear way in English to express this; it is the nature of a declatory sentence to sound like, well, a declaration of fact), but it is a viewpoint I think authors should consider. If you're going too slow for me, who considers a 600 page, densely printed book like "A Deepness in the Sky" to be "a bit on the short side", you really need to consider getting your ass into gear and letting the editor do a bit more cutting.
        • But I don't think it is too much to ask that by page 500, something happen.

          I'm not referring specifically to Neal here, though I will refer specifically to the Cryptonomicon.

          What!? You must have missed the chapter about eating a bowl of Captain Crunch.
          • Ugh! Why do people constantly point to that section as a paragon of literary triumph? The main character likes a certain cereal, and he describes it like ANY OTHER PERSON WHO LIKES SOMETHING DOES. He just wrote it down. There were so many more interesting things he could've done with a love of cereal, yet he takes the most pedestrian route possible. If you don't know what I mean, read some Borges. Or Pinchon. Or even Virginia Woolf! Jesus, even DAVE EGGERS did it better!

        • I am a very patient reader.

          But there is an opportunity cost here; 500 pages is several hours and if you're still building up, I have to ask myself whether my time is better spent on something that may pay off a little faster. Books are not a scarce resource, and while I don't demand wham-bang-boom by page 3, how much do you expect me to wade through?

          You can read 500 pages in three hours?

          Anyway, for being such patient a patient reader, your tastes are much more geared to Hollywood movies. The formula ther

          • You can read 500 pages in three hours?

            More like 5, unless they are really sparse. A lot of hardcovers are getting that way; soon large print editions will be redundant.

            Anyway, for being such patient a patient reader, your tastes are much more geared to Hollywood movies.

            Oh fuck off. 4 or 5 hours is plenty of time to give a guy (or girl) to do something. If you can't make something happen by then you're a hack. Or you're editor is a hack.

            I think you misunderstand. I'm not asking for the story to be res
            • I'm surprised you see it that way. The storylines that follow Sgt. Shaftoe and Lt. Goto seemed to me to have a good bit of motion in them from the start. The Waterhouse storylines were slower, and the modern Waterhouse story was definitely the slowest.

              I'm not sure that it's really correct to think of Randy Waterhouse as the main character. It's more of an ensemble of several characters who are followed in distinct stories which are woven together. Or, more accurately, one story which has been unraveled int

    • The meaning of "baroque" (Score:5, Informative)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @10:00PM (#10052715) Homepage Journal
      I loved Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, but the Baroque Cycle ... got 2/3rds into Quicksilver and put it away. I liked the story in the abstract and where he was going with it, but it was *way* too long at getting to the point.

      Its not like he didn't warn you.
      If the fact that it was a 900+ page "volume one of three" was clue one.
      Naming the trilogy "baroque" was clue 2.

      Main Entry: 1baroque

      Pronunciation: b&-'rOk, ba-, -'räk, -'rok
      Function: adjective
      Usage: often capitalized
      Etymology: French, from Middle French barroque irregularly shaped (of a pearl), from Portuguese barroco irregularly shaped pearl
      1 : of, relating to, or having the characteristics of a style of artistic expression prevalent especially in the 17th century that is marked generally by use of complex forms, bold ornamentation, and the juxtaposition of contrasting elements often conveying a sense of drama, movement, and tension
      2 : characterized by grotesqueness, extravagance, complexity, or flamboyance


      It was really long.
      Instead of complaining that it is very long, you should not buy very long books. I complain that it was a bit drawn out too, but I finished it, and the second one, and I'm waiting for the third one. I feel I'm getting my mony's worth, personally.
      : )
      • Naming the trilogy "baroque" was clue 2.

        ROTFLMAO

        I slugged my way through the last third of Quicksilver too. The Confusion was definately better, and I'm glad I didn't give up. Definately worth the read. While I'm sure it could be written in a lighter, faster style, it wouldn't really match the the subject, and well, it wouldn't really be Neal Stephenson.

      • Just because a book has a huge amount of pages doesn't mean it has to be "long". Long, in this context, means arduous and painful. There are plenty of long volumes (page count wise) that don't feel long (arduous and painful).

        In other words, what the grandparent is saying is that the book was written like crap by an author who is in love with his supposed wittiness (which doesn't show itself as much as he thinks it does). I'd have to agree.
    • Not that you're wrong--and not that I'm interested in the bowel movements of characters, either--but I don't think the situation is all that bad. Some people write long, some write short.

      However, maybe hard numbers would be more helpful than subjective opinions. Anybody have a little time on their hands? You could get the list of the 10 or 20 best-selling SF novels for, say, 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993, and 2003, and tally up how many pages they each have. Do averages and deviation, and let's examine the da
    • I think Snow Crash and Zodiac show that he can write concisely. But in the Baroque Cycle, he has definitely chosen not to.

      I just finished The Confusion last week. Quicksilver was an awfully slow read, but it was also packed with information. It turns out that a great deal of the apparently-irrelevant exposition in Quicksilver is necessary context for the second volume. I expect even more of it will become relevant in the third volume.

      He could surely have told a more brief or lively tale, but I don't think
    • I loved Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and Quicksilver - my only complaint is that I can't read novels that size on the train because they're too heavy to comfortably carry around ;)

      Yes, Snow Crash is faster paced - but it's a much simpler story, with fewer characters and developments. I enjoy that, but I also enjoy it when an author takes more space to explore the story. And don't forget, it covers an entire lifetime!

  • Heres a Copy (albeit a bad one) (Score:5, Informative)

    by matz62 ( 74523 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @08:07PM (#10052014)
    August 2004

    Neal Stephenson grew up in Iowa and graduated from Boston University in 1981 majoring in geography with a minor in physics. His first published novel The Big U, a college thriller with SF elements, appeared in 1984, followed by Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller (1988). Snow Crash (1992), a cyberpunk classic, made him a star in the SF field. He wrote two thrillers in collaboration with his uncle, George Jewsbury, under the name "Stephen Bury": Interface (1994) and Cobweb (1996), and published solo novel The Diamond Age, winner of the Hugo and Locus Awards, in 1995. Cryptonomicon followed in 1999; also a Locus Award winner, this massive, Pynchonesque novel of history and cryptography proved tremendously popular with SF fans. Later that year he
    Photo by Charles N. Brown

    www.nealstephenson.com [nealstephenson.com] published In the Beginning...Was the Command Line, a non-fiction commentary on computers and culture. The past seven years were spent on the vast three-volume "Baroque Cycle", beginning with Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Quicksilver (2003) and followed by The Confusion (2004) and The System of the World (2004). These books, set in the 17th century and featuring historical characters like Leibniz and Newton along with the ancestors of characters from Cryptonomicon, are Stephenson's latest attempt to push the boundaries of SF. Stephenson lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife (married 1985) and their two children.

    Excerpts from the interview:

    "One of the defining characteristics of SF is that it's about worlds. You create a world first, and then you tell one or more stories in that world. That's why so frequently in SF, people will go back again and again to the same world and tell additional tales. That's kind of what's going on here. The world of the 'Baroque Cycle' happens to be 99% factual history, or as close as I can come to it, but what readers of this kind of fiction are looking for is the ability to become immersed in a different world. That's why there is a big crossover between historical fiction and SF. For me, the world-building process is part and parcel of writing. It's the only way I really know how to play this game. I guess that's why I feel so firmly that I'm in the SF camp, no matter where my work is set.

    [amazon.com] "I had been working on a future storyline connected to Cryptonomicon, but in attempting to write it I realized I needed to go back instead. So I did that, and it ended up taking seven years! The 'Baroque Cycle' project was never envisioned to be as big and long as it turned out to be. There's a line from Tolkien where he says, 'This tale grew in the telling.' I'm reluctant to quote that directly because it sounds like I'm copping an attitude, but that's what happened with this: it started out smaller and got bigger. I never slogged. I enjoyed every minute of writing it. Of course, I badly wanted to get to the end, but when I did, I was sad it was over. At various points along the line, I tried various superstitious tactics; at one point I said, 'I'm not gonna cut my hair until this thing is done.' I finally wound up on Christmas Eve 2003. A couple of weeks later I felt this overpowering need to have short hair again, so I just kept whacking until there was nothing left. And I plan to keep it that way."

    *

    [amazon.com] "People keep asking me why I think of the 'Cycle' as science fiction. When I was a kid I used to read these huge anthologies of science fiction stories, and there would always be some oddball stories that were set during the Crusades, or with cave men, or what have you. They weren't overtly science fiction, but there didn't seem to be any doubt in anyone's mind that they belonged. I ma

  • Add one pre-order (Score:5, Informative)

    by Karellen !-P ( 717831 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @08:09PM (#10052026) Homepage
    I just finished the second installment and was left wanting more. It may be somewhat long winded but, for the history-loving geek in me, there is no better. This is the first time I ever pre-ordered a book before it's release. Now I'm gonna wait it out by playing Europa Universalis II :-P

    • Re:Add one pre-order (Score:3, Informative)

      by jea6 ( 117959 )
      I bought "The System of the World" on eBay [ebay.com]. So far (200 pages in) it's been well worth the premium (paid <$40). Of course, I liked Quicksilver and loved The Confusion so I'm fairly (unfairly?) biased. Don't worry: I'll be buying the hardcover in October to make sure Mr. Stephenson earns his royalties from me.
      • I didn't realize that publishers let these advance copies out. The book doesn't hit bookstores until mid-September. How are the eBay sellers getting this ahead of time? And is it the book in it's final form?

        bhj

        • Advance Reader Copies (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Publishers hand out dozens of Advance Reader Copies or ARCs to industry insiders, other authors who might be willing to write a blurb, booksellers who have to decide if a book is worth stocking and in what numbers, and finally, perhaps most importantly, to book reviewers. Reviewers need to publish a review on or near the date of release so publishers will give them an advance copy.

          So, any one of the aforementioned parties can put an ARC on ebay for a tidy profit.
        • Mine was a trade paperback with no internal artwork (the maps were handy in The Confusion).

  • Even if you liked Snow Crash... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lpontiac ( 173839 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @08:53PM (#10052278)
    I think people feel a need to be either "a Stephenson fan" or "not a Stephenson fan," and those in the former group (try to) read his entire catalogue.

    Quicksilver and Confusion are very, very different books to Snow Crash and The Big U. Rather than assuming that if you liked Snow Crash, you should like this, and if not there's something wrong with it, some people would be better off realising that regardless of authorship Quicksilver simply isn't to their taste, and they should just not pay it any attention.
    • Every stephenson book is pretty different from snow crash, and the big U. Snow crash is probably most like Zodiac, even though the settings of the two books are entirely different. The Diamond Age is of course pretty highly related to Snow Crash (even apparently containing at least one character in common) but written in a very different style. Naturally the books more similar to one another are the members of the baroque cycle, and cryptonomicon, which I seem to recall isn't strictly part of the cycle, but
    • Good point. I loved reading "In the beginning was the command line" but right now I'm slogging through Cryptonomicon. The former was fun, the latter is a soulless stroll through the grimness that is history. Come to think of it, the modern parts are the same way. I only keep reading because of the occasional mathematical and cryptographic discussions.

  • Neal Stephenson is a lot of fun to read, but greatest living writer? I think even Neal (no, not Cowboy) would take issue with that statement.

  • In the Beginning... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FiloEleven ( 602040 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @10:17PM (#10052807)
    ...was the Command Line [cryptonomicon.com] has got to be one of the best informative essays I have read. Nominally he's talking about operating systems, but he manages to throw in Batmobiles, Disney World, quake-proofing San Fran, and the venerable Hole Hawg drill. Quite entertaining even if you've already got the knowledge.

    See? Now I'm reading it again instead of sleeping.
    • ITBWTCL very nearly made me not want to read anything by Stephenson ever again. I enjoyed the books I'd read up to then, but IMO his whole line of reasoning in ITB was Just Plain Wrong. How someone who can write Cryptonomicon can lose the plot so completely is beyond me. It reads like he swapped sanity for zealotry in anger over his Powerbook crashing.

  • Another opinion piece (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Calroth ( 310516 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @11:07PM (#10053028)
    I've always thought of The Baroque Cycle as Stephenson's masterpiece. Much like other masterpieces, it's long, inscrutable, and not meant to be read by mere mortals (insofar as a mass-market novel can be). It's long-winded, but if you can slow down and relax enough to read it, it's rewarding. However, readers of Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon have reflexes of lightning (as do Slashdotters), which is why they don't tend to like it.

    As some sort of thought experiment, I gave Quicksilver to one of my friends, with the intention of giving her Cryptonomicon later (since most people have read them the other way around). She got bored and gave up on it.

    I found Quicksilver to be long and tedious, but The Confusion lifted things; Stephenson even wrote a half-decent ending! So here's hoping that The System of the World is as good or better.

  • He's Evolved a Good Deal... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Blic ( 672552 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @11:22PM (#10053095)
    I find it quite common that people that really liked Snow Crash dislike his current work, especially the Baroque Cycle.

    Conversely, from someone who doesn't read much Sci-Fi, I found Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle much more interesting than Snow Crash which seems such a bit of Cyberpunk fluff.

    While he still has technology and its role in history and human lives as a pervading theme, he's pretty much stopped writing Sci-Fi in the narrowest definition.

    Though it's a tough transition - Sci-Fi fans dislike his current work, and yet he still has to shed that pulpy Sci-Fi stigma that would keep his books from reaching a larger audience - i.e. in most bookstores he's still in the Sci-Fi section...

  • Stephenson and Pynchon (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stevemm81 ( 203868 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @11:27PM (#10053118) Homepage
    I keep thinking there's an amazing parallel between Neal Stephenson and Thomas Pynchon. Both wrote a couple of fairly easy to read, shorter humorous novels (OK, Stephenson's are much easier to read than Pynchon's, but you get the point...)Then, they both wrote long but excellent novels involving math, sex, World War II and a million other things; obviously, Cryptonomicon was influenced by Gravity's Rainbow.

    But then, they both started writing long, excessively cute historical/science fiction about the Enlightenment. Pynchon had Mason&Dixon, which, for those who haven't read it, featured Vladimir&Estragon versions of the surveyors, in addition to every historical figure from that era, some anachronisms and other weirdness (a talking dog, a Feng Shui master...) a "Reverend Cherrycoke" and some other not-so-funny jokes like that.

    Similarly, Quicksilver, which I could not even begin to penetrate, makes the mistake of being too cute, yet simultaneously dry, with all the Harvard/MIT references and every possible plot from the era (Leibniz/Newton, pirates, Ben Franklin, puritanism, etc.) I think I might have been able to finish it if it weren't for all those references to the "Massachusetts Institute of Technickal Arts."
    • I think I might have been able to finish it if it weren't for all those references to the "Massachusetts Institute of Technickal Arts."
      Those only last about 100 pages. Somehow, if that's all you could stomach, I don't think you could finish it even if he'd called the school CalTech.

  • Is it Jazz, or is it Memorex? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bild ( 32863 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @12:14AM (#10053324) Homepage

    There's a particular aesthetic impression you get from jazz that you can identify and recognize right away. It's the same with SF -- once you get used to it, you just know.
    - Neal Stephenson, 2004
    I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it.
    - Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, 1964
    I guess I'm not entirely satisfied with the 'know it if you see it' argument ... certainly, the aesthetic he carries from earlier work is present in Quicksilver, but that could simply be his writing style, showing through.

    If Quicksilver can be described as SciFi, it's definitely an outlier in the category. It is obviously fiction, of a historical bent, and it has a lot of science in it, but one could imagine writing imaginary conversations between Newton and Liebnitz, for example, without it being considered Science Fiction.

    For inspiration I think of Walter Murphey's 1976 disco classic 'A Fifth of Beethoven'. This reworking of an historical classic is disco for recognizable reasons: the beat, the instrumentation, the structural changes, its length, etc. Similarly, Quicksilver can be seen as a SciFi riff on a historical material for recognizable reasons. Later in the article, he articulates one of those reasons:

    How is it going to be used, not just by engineers who design products but by regular people who pick this stuff up and turn it to their own weird ends?
    So, science fiction could perhaps be described as speculative writing in which science/technology plays a central role, and in which characters in the story turn the science to their own ends.
  • Cryptonomicon was fantastic, but I couldn't get halfway through Quicksilver. The characters are inconsistent and incoherent, particularly the protagonist - who only remembers his religious views when it's convenient for the plot, but otherwise is just a random dude meeting famous peoplem having deep conversations with them and never expresses his own opinions. The view of european history presented is also a caricature, extremely americanised and at times very silly. In addition, alhtough interesting, Steph
    • As someone who's just finished reading Quicksilver (and thoroughly enjoyed it BTW) I'm intrigued by some of your criticisms. I know a fair bit about the Smoke (and been living here for a while) and I thought he got the London bits down very well, especially for a non-native and a foreigner, but I don't know that much about Cambridge (neither Cantab. or Mass.) - could you give a bit more detail on how he got Cambridge/Trinity wrong IYO?

      Also which bits of the history were especially Americanised or silly? I'
    • The characters are inconsistent and incoherent

      Yeah, that guy with syphilis who's drugged without his knowledge sure is inconsistent and incoherent...

      I couldn't get halfway through Quicksilver [..] 99% crap. Big disappointment.

      Something you have not seen the half of is, in your opinion, 99% crap? Really? You're a master of extrapolation.
  • I enjoyed parts of Quicksilver, but a lot of it was slow, still a very good book. Ah, but "the Confusion," this was the first book that I have ever read that trully had me rivited to my seat. It trully has parts in it that make me think it is one of the best books I've ever read. The scene where they are feeling across the Mediterranean is both an amazing chase as well as grotesquely beautiful prose at times.
  • I get about 30 penis enlargement spam per day, I'd say that is a pretty accurate number for this week. Stephenson has a finger on the pulse of technology all right. (the other 60 were for misc discount drugs and cracked microsoft products)

    I'm on the second chapter of 'Confusion' after just having read 'Quicksilver'. I will put these up there with some of the best fiction I've ever read. And it's a great deal more informative than most of them, which is a plus. I find accurate and interesting historical r

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