
Neal Stephenson Interview - davidw
http://www.avclub.com/content/interview/neal_stephenson
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ctkrohn
I finished reading "Anathem" last weekend. I hate to be one of those fans who
always claims "the old stuff was better," but Stephenson's style of expounding
on cool ideas via novels works much better for shorter books like "Snow
Crash." It often seems like Stephenson considers character, setting, and plot
to be the unfortunate necessities of writing a novel. When reading "Anathem,"
"Quicksilver," and to a lesser extent "Cryptonomicon," I felt like Stephenson
wasn't really interested in writing the book -- what he really wanted to do
was sit down and have a dorm room-style brainstorming session where he and the
reader go back and forth about the uses of cryptography, what if the Roman
Catholic Church were based on math and science rather than religion, or how
Newtonian physics and calculus are really the fundamental principles defining
the modern era.

Somehow, "Snow Crash" was quick and funny enough that it didn't get bogged
down by Sumerian mythology, linguistics, the nature of post-governmental
society, etc. No single concept required elaborate exposition; Stephenson was
able lay out the world of the novel without devoting 200 pages to plot-less
description. If "Snow Crash" is close in spirit to "Neuromancer," "Anathem" is
way out near "Atlas Shrugged."

~~~
davidw
Hrm. De gustibus non disputandum est, as they say, but what I like about the
Baroque Cycle, for instance, was that there was a lot of material. Something
brief, say the last harry potter book, takes me a day or two to read. I could
see how something that long and wandering wouldn't be for everyone though. I
think his best is Cryptonomicon, which tells several good stories, is good sci
fi, but isn't too awfully long.

