
An Interview with Neal Stephenson - Thevet
http://electricliterature.com/the-people-who-survive-an-interview-with-neal-stephenson-author-of-seveneves/
======
aaronbrethorst

        SP: Two-thirds of the way into your novel,
        Seveneves – in fact, on page 569 – you do
        something kind of crazy. The story suddenly
        skips ahead 5,000 years. What’s the idea here?
    

It took me maybe a week to read the first 2/3's of the book, and about three
weeks to read the last 1/3\. In many ways, these two parts feel like
completely different books, one of which is significantly better than the
other.

Also, I was occasionally distracted at the beginning when snippets of dialog
from _Anathem_ were reused in the form of exposition in _Seveneves_.

But, that said, I think the book is worth reading, especially the first 2/3's.

My personal, quick, rough ranking of Stephenson's bibliography:

    
    
        * Anathem
        * Snow Crash
        * The Diamond Age
        * Seveneves
        * Cryptonomicon
        * The Baroque Cycle
        * Zodiac
        * Reamde
        * The Interface
        * The Big U
    
    

Haven't Read

    
    
        * The Cobweb
        * The Mongoliad

~~~
CodeMage
I haven't read Reamde, yet. I've read lots of complaints about it on
Goodreads, so I'm kind of on the fence about getting it.

In your opinion, how was Reamde compared to works like Anathem, Snow Crash,
Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon? I'm asking because I like your ranking :)

~~~
devindotcom
Reamde was just bad. Not even on the charts. It's extremely tedious and
narratively preposterous.

[http://coldewey.cc/post/26464791525/reamde-neal-
stephenson-2...](http://coldewey.cc/post/26464791525/reamde-neal-
stephenson-2011)

I'm going to read a few reviews of Seveneves before I read it, Reamde burned
me so bad. Although now that I know this huge plot point (spoiler
warning!?!?).... I don't know which way that tips the scales.

~~~
rosser
I genuinely don't understand it when people talk about their experience of a
work as if their opinions are somehow objective facts. "It was bad" vs. "I
didn't like it", for example. That just doesn't make sense to me.

I'm sorry you didn't like it, but that has no bearing whatsoever on the
material, itself, or anyone else's experiences of it.

~~~
ibash
I think that is just a quirk of the English language...

For what it's worth, I also didn't like it - I thought the characters were dry
and cliche. Multiple times I caught myself thinking "that makes no sense"...

------
beambot
I still can't believe he willingly worked at Intellectual Ventures -- largely
considered the most egregious (successful?) patent troll. I still purchase,
read, and enjoy each of his books... but I feel a small pang of guilt knowing
that some of his ideas may have originated from a shady organization.

Neal, if you're reading... perhaps you could shed some light and assuage our
misgivings?

~~~
searine
Also ripping off all his fans (including myself) on his failed kickstarter.

Stick to books Neal.

~~~
IvyMike
I know a lot of people feel ripped off, but as a funder, I think it was a
genuine, if failed, experiment, and I was glad to fund the attempt.

Pre-kickstarter: "They told us a true-to-life sword-based simulation wouldn't
be any fun. Help us make one and prove them wrong"

Post-kickstarter: "They were right"

------
basseq
I'm just getting into Neal's work. I saw _Snow Crash_ on a list of best sci-fi
(maybe via HN) and started there. I then read _Diamond Age_ and just finished
_Cryptonomicon_ (which I really liked—probably my favorite of the three).

I started reading _Anathem_ , which I know is seen as his "seminal work" but
it's been a slow start for me: all the made-up vocabulary combined with
strange names makes it a very disjointed reading experience.

I read the first chapter of _Seveneves_ back in May, so that one is on the
list, as is _The Baroque Cycle_.

~~~
jon_dahl
I had the same experience with Anathem. It is a little hard to get in at
first. But about 200 pages in, it really starts rolling. Great mix of world,
plot, characters, and ideas. (Ultimately, it is a mashup of Plato and quantum
mechanics.)

~~~
basseq
That was my sense as well, so trying to gut through it. I had a similar
problem with _Infinite Jest_ (i.e., getting into it), but know the payoff is
well worth it.

~~~
jkestner
Yeah, long-timescale math monasteries just seemed like an attempt to bore me
to death. There's no initial event, no mystery to grab you — but when that
does kick in, you're firmly grounded in this world. Then it's a great story,
until that ending, which takes it even another step further out.

------
gary_
FYI ... we've posted some behind the scenes video as well as some
illustrations at Neal's site --
[http://seveneves.lithive.com](http://seveneves.lithive.com) and will be
sharing some beautiful illustrations of some of the vehicles in the next day
or so.

~~~
hoopdr
video is interesting. thanks.

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jwr
Neal Stephenson is my favorite contemporary writer. I really think he stands
apart — his ideas are big, varied, and interesting, and he doesn't limit
himself to one particular corner of fiction. Definitely worth checking out, if
you haven't read his work.

I'd especially recommend "The Diamond Age" to start with.

~~~
chaosphere2112
Snow Crash is much lighter fare, and my usual suggestion for people who want
to try Neil Stephenson. Though with the audience here, Cryptonomicon is
probably a good bet.

~~~
DanBC
Zodiac is fun and lighter than Snow Crash.

~~~
jere
Indeed. It's got some really great one liners, the kind of stuff that is a bit
lower brow, but makes me so giddy I have to read it aloud. If you don't
believe me:

[http://soquoted.blogspot.com/2006/04/neal-stephenson-
zodiac....](http://soquoted.blogspot.com/2006/04/neal-stephenson-zodiac.html)

~~~
chaosphere2112
Absolutely, Zodiac was excellent. I feel like Snow Crash is slightly more
representative, though I guess his range is pretty huge at this point; the
difference between, say, Big U and Anathem is cavernous.

------
clavalle
I really hope _Seveneves_ is the first of a series. It left a few seemingly
important dangling questions and teasers.

Also, I wonder if he's angling for an RPG spinoff. Not to give too much of the
last third up but the character types felt very 'rpg class-ish' to me at the
end complete with complementary factions.

------
davidw
I would pretty much buy anything Stephenson writes, but I wasn't all that
happy with this book. It's very depressing in that you get a look at the
deaths of billions of people, something they all know about well ahead of
time. I found myself reading it the same way Cory Doctorow describes here:
[http://boingboing.net/2015/06/03/neal-stephensons-
seveneves....](http://boingboing.net/2015/06/03/neal-stephensons-
seveneves.html)

> Stephenson builds up a sense of brutal inevitability, of humanity's
> insignificance in the cosmos that had me putting the book down for hours at
> a time, unable to read on (but my curiosity always overcame my sorrow).

The final (future) part of the book was more fun; I could have gone for just
that with some references to what happened in the past. Indeed, there were
various things that didn't feel wrapped up at the end, and I wonder if there's
a sequel coming or he's just going to leave it like that.

Perhaps because I didn't care much for the first part, I found myself more
critical of some of the science fiction too.

------
EdwardCoffin
I just finished reading Seveneves (his latest book, which this interview is
mostly about), and quite liked it. It is quite depressing though.

~~~
ipsin
I'm sort of curious how you set up "and then the moon explodes".

Is this the sort of event that has a theoretical foundation in astronomy or
physics?

~~~
T-A
Sorta-kinda-not-really. The closest thing to an explanation in the public
excerpt [1] goes like this:

The most generally accepted theory was that the puff of dust observed by the
Utah astronomer was caused by an impact. That the Agent, in other words, came
from outside the moon, pierced its surface, burrowed deep into its center, and
then released its energy. Or that it simply kept on going out the other side,
depositing enough energy en route to break up the moon. Another hypothesis
stated that the Agent was a device buried in the moon by aliens during
primordial times, set to detonate when certain conditions were met.

[1] [http://www.nealstephenson.com/news/2015/04/13/seveneves-
exce...](http://www.nealstephenson.com/news/2015/04/13/seveneves-excerpt/)

------
contingencies
_for the last few decades, the kinds of really smart geeks who in the 50s and
60s would have been building rockets or something have been moving to Silicon
Valley and creating startups to make little apps._

Ouch! So close to home. So true. But now we've automated the process -
[http://tiffzhang.com/startup/](http://tiffzhang.com/startup/) \- those people
can get back to something more useful, like finally learning IPv6 to allow us
to build mesh networks for swarming spacecraft to evade inbound asteroids.

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Hominem
I'm almost done with seveneves and the thing that gets me is how defensive his
wrighting has become.

He explains every semi-technical concept in excruciating detail as if he
expects an army of angry nerds to tear the book to shreds if he doesn't
explain early research into how whips work or the theoretic underpinnings of
how swarming algorithms work.

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fromtheoutside
Oh, Neal Stephenson, ins't that the guy from this one sword fighting game on
kickstarter?

~~~
rosser
This is sort of like saying, "Oh, Richard Stallman. Isn't that the guy who
sings Hungarian folk songs?"

