
Has Neal Stephenson become too accessible?  - _kate_
http://www.salon.com/books/science_fiction_and_fantasy/index.html?story=/books/2011/09/18/stephenson_reamde
======
_delirium
The subtitle is a better way of framing it than the title, I think. Being
accessible, _all else being equal_ , isn't really inherently bad. For example,
you can increase the accessibility of a poorly written physics textbook by
just making the prose better.

The more interesting question they seem to be getting at is whether he's
sacrificed something that was interesting about his writing out of a desire to
increase accessibility. You could even just leave accessibility out of it and
ask: are Neal Stephenson's most recent novels as interesting as his older
ones, and if not, why not? I do think there's something to the hypothesis that
he used to build these intricate, complex worlds with a lot of depth to them,
and is doing so less in his more recent novels.

edit: Come to think of it, doing it accessibly sort of _is_ his thing to begin
with. I've heard _Snow Crash_ described as a more-accessible
reimagining/retelling of Gibson/Sterling style cyberpunk, which isn't too far
off.

~~~
sid0
Out of all his books I've read (Snow Crash, Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon), the
world in Anathem is by far his most complex.

~~~
bergie
All of these were great, but I think I enjoyed the Baroque Cycle the most.
Comes probably from the long-time passion of reading (and re-enacting)
history...

~~~
runevault
I haven't tried Anathem yet (though I have it) but I never got past the first
part of Baroque cycle, and I loved Snow Crash (probably my all time favorite
novel), Cryptonomicon, and even Diamond Age. I've heard once you make it past
the initial Wodehouse moment it gets better, but my god he bored me to tears
with that. Considering how much I ate up all the insanity in Snow Crash that's
saying a lot ;).

~~~
bergie
Baroque Cycle was probably helped a bit by the fact that I read it while on an
interrail train trip through the Europe. Lots of time to read when in train or
waiting for one :-)

------
wccrawford
And thus a new class of hipster was born.

Don't get mad that your favorite author produced a work that is 'more
accessible' or that it isn't what you wanted. Blindly buying because of brand
name has always been a bad idea.

~~~
tptacek
I don't think hipsters spend much time obsessing about the accessibility of
genre fiction authors. People call Stephenson "Pynchonian", but Pynchon wrote
a whole bunch of books --- is still writing them, in fact --- and just 2-3 of
those is a lifetime supply for any hipster.

------
CWuestefeld
I already thought that _Anathem_ was way more accessible than previous works.
I recall reading in _Cryptonomicon_ two pages of some strange event before
realizing he was showing us a different view of the Hindenburg disaster. I
can't think of any example in _Anathem_ where it wasn't immediately clear to
me what he was trying to show.

On the other hand, if Stephenson has a fault as a writer, it's the way he
writes books' endings. The ends of _Snow Crash_ or _Diamond Age_ were just a
mess. He skirted that in _Cryptonomicon_ by just not really having an ending.
I confess to not having been able to make it to the end of _The Baroque Cycle_
, so I can't say. But then _Anathem_ had a real, if rather out-of-left-field,
ending.

So I think that while he may be trending toward greater accessibility, he's
also trending to writing better endings.

~~~
joeyh
Anathem's first few chapters require the reader to learn about 100 made-up
words via immersion. Throughout the book major points hinge on various
scientific and philosophic theories, which are given different names (like
Hylaean Theoric World) than they are on earth. So no, not really that
accessible.

This review for REAMDE is the first Stephenson review I've seen that didn't
pan the climax, which might say something. BTW, did you notice that REAMDE is
designed to make unix people's eyes cross?

~~~
CWuestefeld
_Anathem's first few chapters require the reader to learn about 100 made-up
words via immersion._

True enough, but that's quite common in science fiction.

 _scientific and philosophic theories, which are given different names (like
Hylaean Theoric World)_

That's also true. But if you're already familiar with the concept, then the
nomenclature shouldn't bother you too much (it didn't me). If you're not
already familiar with it, then you won't know it's any different (until you're
at a dinner party trying to talk philosophy with someone, and are met with
blank stares).

------
henry501
I'm assuming there are many NS fans on HN, so I'll ask this here.

The only NS book I've read is Anathem, and while I enjoyed the story his
writing style seemed too self-indulgent for me to really get into.
Renaming/redescribing major mathematical and philosophical theories in a
parallel dimension? Look how smart NS is. Quantum monk space ninjas? Oh man
that's so cool can they be pirates too?

That being said, he's been lauded so consistently that I'd like to read more
of his work and figure out what I'm missing. What would HN'ers recommend?

~~~
elliottcarlson
The thing about Stephenson is that he takes a lot of time to do proper
research in to his topics, and with his parents both being in academia
(fathers side is electrical engineering with physics, and mothers side is
biochemistry) he has excellent knowledge sources as well as learned how to do
proper research (this is what he explained at a book signing for the Boroque
Cycle's first book), and it shows in all his work.

The problem, as I see it with Stephenson, is that he goes in to such detail
that he always needs to build up the world in such a depth that it can make
the opening to his books long winded. Any time I have recommended a Stephenson
book (and I've read them all, and recommend them all) I warn people to get
past page 100, because that's when you will get sucked in to the story. His
writing style can be a little unsettling until you get used to it (IMHO), but
once you are in there you won't want to put the book down.

As for recommendations - Cryptonomicon, Snowcrash, Diamond Age are all great -
the later two are far easier reading but still show the great depths of
knowledge and research put in to the books. And once done with those - read
the rest.

~~~
onosendai
That's Stephenson in a nutshell: long winded openings and abrupt endings. I
haven't read any of his stuff since Cryptonomicon (have them all lined up
though) but the single glaring flaw I always found in his books was how rushed
the endings were. I don't need all the loose ends neatly tied up, but always
got the feeling he was using some sort of lossy compression scheme for the
last few pages.

~~~
elliottcarlson
I think some of his books have had well rounded enough endings (for my tastes
at least) - but the long winded openings are my only complaint. If you can
make it past page 100, I have always enjoyed the rest of the book.

For those in NYC - he is making an appearance at the Barnes and Nobles in
Union Sq. on Friday from 7pm to 8pm. I went last time and it was a pleasure
hearing him talk about his methodologies behind his books - hoping this one
will be as good.

------
ZacharyPitts
I've read most of Reamde already (have an early access copy from a bookstore
book buyer friend). I'm nearly done (800 out of 980 pages). It simply is not a
good of a book as the Baroque Cycle volumes or Cryptinomicon. I actually did
not like Anathem all that much, as it felt too contrived.

That said, Reamde is a fun read. I suppose it could be put into the book
category of Thriller as the article suggests. I'd give it a 3/5 stars, as in,
I liked it, but won't bother reading it again. Which is how I feel about most
decent thrillers. But then again, it appears that it will have an actual
climactic ending to the story/book, which Stephenson has failed to do many
times as his other books just peter out without ending properly (Snow Crash,
Cryptinomicon, etc).

It _is_ more accessible. It is a thriller, and could be easily sold as airport
pulp. There's a few descriptions of unix commands that various hackers are
taking that would be skipped in a normal thriller, which does make it a
Stephenson book. But, I am glad that Stephenson is experimenting with writing
styles. Why would I want to read the same book over and over, just with
different characters (which is all too common for writers)?

------
ChrisBanner
>> "Reamde" is disposable Stephenson. I'll take disposable Stephenson over no
Stephenson at all.

------
betageek
what a hipster - "Yeah, he's ok but I prefer his early stuff"

Reamde seems like a trip back to the style of the Stephen Bury books he wrote
with his uncle, The Cobweb & Interface, both enjoyable reads.

------
TYPE_FASTER
"Snow Crash" and "Cryptonomicon" seemed pretty accessible to me, much more so
than "The Baroque Cycle." I think it's marketing aimed at getting readers who
were turned off by TBC to pick up the new book.

~~~
arethuza
I've found The Baroque Cycle to be an awful lot easier to get into through the
Audible audiobook version - they are unabridged so it's not that!

~~~
chris11
I'll try reading it then. I got the audio books, but only made it partly
through the first one.

------
anduril66
Yes; being the focus of a salon.com article is an indicator.

~~~
CWuestefeld
Speaking of being a salon.com article... what the heck did they do to the
behavior of the web site? It refused to let me read the whole article. Every
time I clicked (FF6) the "Continue reading" link, it expanded the text but
then immediately re-loaded the whole page. I had to quickly click the "Stop"
button before it could reload. This is an unfriendly feature.

~~~
mnutt
It's probably a javascript error. They probably have javascript that hides the
full article, but then adds a "Continue reading" link and attaches a click
handler to it. If the click handler throws an error and fails to stop event
propagation, it actually follows the link and reloads the page.

~~~
esrauch
It sounds like he was saying that reloading the page didn't have the new
content, which means it is what you are talking about but combined with a link
target that doesn't actually take you to a page with the continued text,
meaning someone with JS disabled wouldn't be able to read the full text.

I'm too lazy to check if thats actually the case though.

------
Apocryphon
Going by the summary of the plot, it seems like Gibson and Sterling,
Stephenson is also dipping into War on Terror as a setting.

