Anybody read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson? I've almost

>>7626656
It was of note of its time. Have you read Neuromancer?

It's fast paced until the painfully slow infodump in the library.
There are some good ideas but a lot of it is cringe-inducing nerd garbage.
Read Gibson and PKD instead.

zodiac is a much better book

Reading it now its shit

>it reads like a nerdy wet dream
Sounds about right to me. Stephenson has problems with pacing, the same is true of Cryptonomicon.

>>7626739
I'd say it's more about lack of quality prose or depth of characters or well thematic depth. It reads like a good 80s action movie, but that doesn't make a good novel

>>7626752
In Snow Crash that's true but Crytonomicon is better in that respect, it's just lacking in pacing and plot.

>>7626656
It's supposed to be halfway between a parody of the genre and a serious attempt to remind you of all the cool things about cyberpunk. Either it works for you or it doesn't.

Is Miéville any better?

The setting was amusing as a parody of the typical cyberpunk dystopia, but the two main characters were pretty flat and the plot didn't grab me.

Uncle Enzo was great, though.

Didn't like it too much either. Yea I get he's trying to make it an absurd parody but it just comes off as hokey and dated. It's unbearably cringe worthy especially if you have any knowledge of computer science

>>7626656
First chapter is actually really fun, the rest is fairly entertaining pulp, but the Sumerian info dump chapters are painful.
Neuromancer is better even with it's pacing issues and underdeveloped characters.

>>7626656
I liked it, and thought it was great. The prose and his lack of talent to end books are the downside, but overall, it was a great book.
There is a sort of negative bias toward it lately, mainly because Snow Crash had some influence upon sci fi literature and movies, so its elements have been reused so much that now it seems trashy. RPO is an example of this, a children's book that's pretty much watered-down Snow Crash.

>>7628824

I do have to hand it to Stephenson, the setting of an America balkanized by corporate enclaves on a block-by-block basis was a stroke of genius.

>>7627454
>especially if you have any knowledge of computer science

Explain please?

What's your personal view of virtual reality?

Why didn't you people like the Sumerian bits? I thought the idea of a linguistically transmitted consciousness-virus was fantastic.

>>7628824

No, it seems trashy because it's trash, it's genre shit, leave the fucking board.

>>7630566

I liked that even better when William S. Burroughs came up with it thirty years earlier.

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>>7630284
I don't think the problem is virtual reality alone. The use he makes of technology is almost magical, in a way that is hard to take as anything but a joke.
In his defense, he wrote Snow Crash in 1992, when no one but sci fi writers thought about those technological matters.

>>7630576
>it's genre shit
>leave the fucking board
Look, a snob on /lit/. Who would have expected it?
Get a gf anon, it's better than shitposting to kill time.

>>7630566
Because it read like some really lame guy trying to force a meme by splitting his own perspective into two clashing ones and reducing it to a wacky, hip banter-sesh where something not very interesting is explained as though it's super profound. Thinking about it the whole book is such a mess. I can't believe it's so popular. I'm like 50 pages from the end and Hiro has just killed like 30 people with his Kitana and cut his way out of an inflateable mall and is now trying to stop the flotilla or whatever. If it's "ironically bad" then really why write it?

>>7630608

/lit/ is for literature, not this.

>>7630606
Mind telling what book specifically he did that in? Finished Naked Lunch, Queer, and just started The Soft Machine, so I'm relatively interested

>>7631026

In all the Nova Trilogy he explores the idea of language as a virus.

Ok, so i liked Snow Crash but the thing that bugged me was that near the end of the book, Stephenson just pulls that whole "I snuck into the cult and got all their secrets" with the female character. All he had to do was add a chapter from her perspective showing how, but no, she just appears out of nowhere and provides the key to saving the day. That struck me as really weak writing and really out of character with the rest of the book.
Also his books have the weirdest endings. I know its just a really short falling action but there's something about it that just sticks with me as unique and odd. It's in all the books I've read by him.(snow crash, diamond age, seveneves)
Anyone else notice any of this?

>>7632121
He famously can't write endings. He has actually dressed this and said "my endings are great", but it was less than convincing.

>>7632121
>Anyone else notice any of this?
See >>7628824

His books never end, they just stop being written.

I bought Diamond Age instead of OP. I'm reading it in a few days.

>>7630608
>muh realism
it's science fiction

>>7626752
Uh fuck you yes it does

On the subject of Stephenson, has anyone read Seveneves? It sounds promising.

>>7630611
Sounds like you don't "get it"
Different strokes m8

>>7626656
Blindsight, by Peter Watts:

http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

>>7626656
how's the croat life going, bro?

I kinda liked Anathem. Anyone else read it?

One time at a reading he did I asked him why he chooses to end his works so abruptly.

He was not amused.

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>>7626656
>sort of like Ready Player One.
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
GET THE FUCK OUT NORMIE GOD FUCKING DAMNIT
READY PLAYER ONE IS YOUNG ADULT GARBAGE
SNOWCRASH IS A CYBERPUNK MASTERPIECE

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>>7635352
>>7633400

No, but I read a synopsis and saved myself the headache.

And this is from someone whose favorite book is Snow Crash. inb4 hate mob. #YTforjailbaitofthecenturyaward

>>7632121
He does this with all of his endings. In seveneves he has an abrupt ending 2/3 of the way through the book, then keeps going until he just ends abruptly again.

His next book will probably be a short story collection, each story in which will end abruptly when he gets bored writing it.

>>7633400
>has anyone read Seveneves?
On top of having two Neal Stephenson endings, it also is very obviously his failed idea for an MMO, down to having a Red and Blue faction and various races to play as.

His Baroque Cycle books are some of my favorites though, and they end somewhat less abruptly than any of his other stuff.

>>7630611
hiro is the hero, he can do whatever he wants. you seem to hate things not completely grounded in reality but some people like fun

Stephenson is obviously not good literature. It reads like plots from nerd-pandering action movies with occasionally brilliant sf-ideas mixed in.

But it is good entertainment if you can drop your pretensions. I've read all of his books except Sevenes and Zodiac and I appreciate all of them.

>>7635352
Anathem is his most demanding and therefore under rated work.

>>7626656
Neuromancer is better
Diamond Age is a better work of his own

But given that both of the stephenson books i've read feature young female characters being raped I don't think i'll bother with any more

>>7637409
nobody gets raped in snow crash

>>7637725
Well that one girl is reluctant when that bad guy fucks her. Girl had some protection system in her vagina, right? It's been like ten years when I read this so cant recall

>>7637993
she has an anti-rape system but she is so horny and wants him to fuck her so badly that she forgets about it, so his dick gets inyected with something that makes him sleep.

it didn't matter to her because she cummed in 5 seconds or so

>>7638139
Dude, spoilers

>>7633400
just finished it. it passed the time but nothing to rave about.
>>7636178
>the two endings thing is spot on

>>7636178
>Seveneves
I wasn't hugely impressed by most of the story, but the part where the world's ending and they're listening to orchestras all over the world playing until they're wiped out really struck a chord with me.

>>7626726
>cringe-inducing nerd garbage
>Read PKD instead
PKD --is-- cringe-inducing nerd garbage though. Him being on speed doesn't make it any better.

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>>7626656
>sort of like Ready Player One

>>7638853
But drugs are cool, anon. Didn't you know that?

>>7632121
I felt oddly depressed after finishing it, especially given how thrilling I had found the rest of the story. Letting it sink in, it seemed more that Stephenson was trying to build a world that was, like someone else implied, "a nerds wet dream", the ending of which is him abruptly taking you out of it to meet a suddenly void reality, which is in a way the most "postmodern" aspect of the novel.
The same with Diamond Age; the ending I thought was beautiful and alleviating, but also a refutation of pretty much the entire world building Stephenson had done to that point. For the most part his endings are shit, but I think their calculated shit done with the intention of, again, taking you out of the cyberpunk dream he's dissecting and poking fun at while indulging in to the fullest extent.

>>7633400
The first part about human survival aboard the ISS was really interesting. Characters and plot were interesting enough too, I suppose.

There's a timeskip for the latter part of the book, and that was so shitty I couldn't help but put it down

>>7626656
>>7626731
>>7626753
>>7636633
Diamond Age is better.

>>7627410
Worse