Neal Stephenson

Is he any good? A friend has been recommending his work recently.

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Snow Crash was fucking insane. If you like discussions about Sumer and random conspiracy theories about language, It's pretty good.

Is it true he's an AnCap? R*ddit seems to think so.

> Is he any good?
Yes.

Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon are cool but avoid Seveneves.

cryptonomicon was good, easy to read and has its tense momens.

>too many words
>can't write endings
>if you have a STEM background you'll like it
>is he good?
short answer, yes

The Diamond Age is his best book.

Don't touch steampunk with a 20ft pole, user. All of it is worthless garbage. The culture, the "novels", the films, all of it.

when did Stephenson wrote steampunk?
Plenty of punk, but not a cloud of steam.

Anathem makes me happy.

This same thread (roughly) has been posted many times...
Yes, he's good. Snow Crash, Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and Zodiac are all favorites of mine. I keep meaning to try Reamde and Command Line. Tried the Baroque Cycle, just couldn't get through it.

Are you really going to take a guy seriously who dresses like that?

The Big U is better than he thinks it is.

He has his moments. Anathem is interesting. Better than Snow Crash.

I'm a big fan of The Diamond Age. I also liked Snow Crash for its over the top style.

Zodiac, Interface, and Cobweb were fun present day novels. I read half of Cryptonomicon (which is like a thousand pages) and enjoyed it but got distracted and didn't finish.

His endings are abrupt with almost no falling action. I think he hits deadlines and has to wrap things up asap.

if reddit thinks he is, then he isn't. that's the best way to understand that little situation.

I dropped Diamond age because I fucking hate steampunk and the book seemed to ironic. Did I do the wrong thing?

>infodumps guy
Most of his readers complain about how he drops this gigantic infodumps ib the middle of the plot, but for me those are the most interesting parts t bh

He works better as an essayist than novelist
see
wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/

“It’s, like, one of them drug dealer boats,” Vic says, looking through his magic sight. “Five guys on it. Headed our way.” He fires another round. “Correction. Four guys on it.” Boom. “Correction, they’re not headed our way anymore.” Boom. A fireball erupts from the ocean two hundred feet away. “Correction. No boat.”

How far did you get into it?

Cringe.
Which book is this from?

Sounds like SnowCrash, which is a parody of cyberpunk. Nice trips.

The Diamond Age is pretty ancap, gets referenced a lot in NRx writing.

I've read Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle. Meandering, but very fun. Digressions about neat topics, fun characters, cool historical settings.

Dunno about his other stuff.

Seveneves is the worst book I've ever read. In my life. I sold every book by him I owned as soon as I finished Seveneves. He's dead to me now.

Wew! This reeks of reddit

Snow Crash and The Diamond Age will show you how cool cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk became in the 90's, before it was beaten to death by the rise of reddit-tier neckbeardism and "Nerd Culture". (Funny, considering that Snow Crash was supposed to be a parody of cyberpunk)

Anathem is pretty amazing too.

>pure autism

Neal Stephenson wrote a book about Neil DeGrasse Tyson becoming fuhrer and decreeing that only atheist women are allowed to breed and I'm the autist?

I read a Dan Simmons piece about a man coming back in time to warn someone about the coming Islamic conquest of the world and will never be able to read Hyperion without thinking of it. Also I read Ilium and realized that the literary references in the Hyperion Cantos are really gimmicky and pretentious and basically just a way to shoehorn in literary merit without putting in serious effort.