Neal Stephenson

[Josh]

I just finished reading The Diamond Age, the sci-fi epic from cyberpunk author Neal Stephenson.

I remember a long time ago when Vlad! made the observation that Dune author Frank Herbert was on serious crack. Well if that's true then Stephenson must literally have opium coursing through his veins instead of blood. This guy is mad. I've never read such a ridiculously big, sprawling, complicated work of science fiction. Or one that was so difficult to make any sense of.

Not that I disliked it. The story is actually quite compelling, if you have the patience to wade through all the technobabble to get to it. And there's a lot of clever, subversive literary trickery going on, as Stephenson turns the Victorian novel and the cyberpunk rhetoric upside down.

So is anyone here a Stephenson fan? I know some of you have read Snow Crash, which I am now interested in getting my hands on. Anyone read this book?

[Vlad!]

I just finished reading The Diamong Age, the sci-fi epic from cyberpunk author Neal Stephenson.

Diamong sounds like a cross between a gemstone and a monster from Star Wars

To be honest, while it's been on my to-read list for a while, I have not read The Diamond Age. I read Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, but that's about it for my Stephenson experiences. One criticism of him I have from my limited readings is that he seems to have trouble ending a book. Both Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon felt like movies that go on just a bit too long and end up losing their magic by the time you hit the finale. Maybe once I've gotten free from the pre-Thanksgiving-holiday crunch I can grab this from the library and give it a read.

[Josh]

Agreed on Stephenson's endings, at least as far as Diamond Age goes. That book just drags on and on in the final stretch. (Just call him the sci-fi Spielberg. Or... Miyazaki?)

Fixed my typo, by the way... what can I say, the d and g keys are, um, kinda close...

[Vlad!]

I have noticed that tendency in Miyazaki's films, with the (IMO) exception of Nausica.

How is the book explicit-content-wise? Both SC and Cryptonomicon had a couple places where he describes sexual encounters in relatively graphic detail. While I'm not particularly offended by them, neither do I think they add anything to the book.  

[Josh]

I have noticed that tendency in Miyazaki's films, with the (IMO) exception of Nausica.

How is the book explicit-content-wise? Both SC and Cryptonomicon had a couple places where he describes sexual encounters in relatively graphic detail. While I'm not particularly offended by them, neither do I think they add anything to the book.

There is one scene that depicts a vaguely sexual ritual of a certain tribe-- it's somewhat graphic, but not in a sensual way so much as a scientific way. There's a similar scene later in the book that is quite a bit more explicitly sexual.

Those are the only ones that come to mind, though.