/lit/ - Literature

He did not

>>3135683

Oh, that was not clear to me.
What do you think of the book and the other works of the author?

Read his other books, OP.

>>3135794
In this order, IMO.

Cryptonomicon
Baroque Cycle
Anathem
Reamde
Diamond Age

Snow Crash was definitely his best page turner. Cryptonomicon is his best melding of a a compelling plot with big ideas. Many of his other books get a little bloated and bogged down by the ridiculous amount of information they contain and try to convey, but all are worthwhile reads except, IMO, Diamond Age. That one didn't do it for me.

>>3135848
It seems some people didn't even like the parts in Snow Crash where he explained the linguistics stuff.
These were the best parts, IMO.
So if his other books are like that, I'm all for it.

I love well researched sci-fi.

>>3135848
Personally, I think stuff like this article about how Nell's Primer was the influence for an experiment using OLPC
> http://dvice.com/archives/2012/10/ethiopian-kids.php
makes Diamond Age a worthwhile read anyway, even if in a strictly literary sense it might not be the most well-polished. Stephenson is an okay, and sometimes really good fiction author, but I where he really shines is as a writer on futurism and technology in general. I like his essays more than I like his fiction.

>>3135930
Great article.

>>3135855
The worst part about Snow Crash is that some parts are so obviously Stephenson showing off what he has read about mythology that it is really hard to chalk off the really dumb parts concerning cognition, computation, hackers, and visual information, as ironic/camp. It's just a weird mixture for me. Most of the plot and the action are so comically overblown, I feel that anything 'well researched' just creates a jarring effect here. There is something I feel is the unsavoury, immature kind of nerdy about simultaneously slathering rule of cool all over your novel and still going off on long asides about this cool thing X you have read so much about.

I recently read Snow Crash and disliked it a lot. Perhaps I missed the irony or something. I couldn't decide if a grown man genuinely thinks a sword fighting pizza delivery guy who is also an super hacker is a cool thing to be or if he was patronising the teenagers the book was presumably aimed at. I also thought the general quality of the writing was dreadful and found a certain sentence construction he frequently utilised particularly grating. Also, the action parts were unfollowable or a chore to read at the very least.

Scathing but entertaining audio review of Snow Crash here: http://www.sfbrp.com/archives/33

>>3136153
I almost take that as a mark of Stephenson's writing at this point, this kind of nerdy jarring dispensing of information. It's not subtle, and it often disrupts the flow of the book, but it's kind of endearing. It doesn't feel to me like he's "showing off" so much as he's really passionately interested in whatever academic niche non sequitur he's going on about, and that it's going to be important to the story. It's not subtle, not by any means, but I think it usually works. Especially if you happen to be a person who is interested in the thing he's talking about.

>>3136211
I think it's not like he thinks this is all "so cool". My impression is just that he likes the absurdity of some things, a little bit like Douglas Adams.

I didn't like it. I didn't like it and I'm simply surprised that you people have EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT creating a thread about shit literature on my /lit/. Where are the janitors, I wonder?

>>3136534
Get back to one of your 37 writing threads then, faggot.

Also, no one's recommended Neuromancer by William Gibson, so there.

>>3136548
Which post did you want to quote?

>>3136278
I liked the parts about mythology, I just don't think it goes well with the cartoony/self-ironic 80s action movie parody. I really dislike it when people interested in technology have overly powerful awesome cool hacker protagonists, it's almost like Snow Crash contains the poison seed that would grow into the cultural phenomenon that includes things like Cory Doctorow's Little Brother and Makers.

>>3136153
I think I agree with this guy. The linguistics stuff seemed to clash a bit with the campy Mafia-that-has-a-pizza-delivery-monopoly kind of thing.

>>3137220
I liked the contrast.

fucking pisses me off. Stephenson writes a sex scene between Raven and YT, who is a fifteen year old girl, and he doesn't get arrested. fucker.

>>3136278
I invite you to read Neal Stephenson's essay "In the beginning was the command line", where he basically shits on anyone who isn't an engineer. he may be a cool guy in person, but he projects this arrogant facade. he wrote an article for Wired, back when it was only a paper journal, and the sidebar which usually has the author's contact details had a few words about him, with ".. and he doesn't particularly care to hear from you."

>>3139364

Are you that fucking prude? He is writing about a different society.
YT can risk her life as a kourier and you don't give a shit about her age.

>>3136153
>The worst part about Snow Crash is that some parts are so obviously Stephenson showing off what he has read about mythology that it is really hard to chalk off the really dumb parts concerning cognition, computation, hackers, and visual information, as ironic/camp.

Trust me, the bits about mythology and linguistics are just as cringe-inducingly stupid as the bits about 'hackers' and computation.

There is nothing well-researched in 'Snow Crash'. It is simply an enormously (Dan-Brown-tier) stupid book.

>>3139377
Why do you say the parts about linguistics are not well researched?

Regarding Snowcrash its very much a book of its time. When it was written there was no web and the internet was tiny and hardly used, in fact i bet not one of you was old enough to read it when it was published.

To me it was mind blowing at the time, the ideas were so far ahead of everything else it was almost sexy. The idea of a sword wielding pizza guy was actually very funny and worked well then, nowadays with your tastes overstimulated and jaded from the net its not so awesome.

The worst part about Snow Crash was the entire thing. I'll stick to Gibson.

>>3139385
Not him, but the whole thing kind of strikes me as "fantasy linguistics," the kind of stuff that linguistics might be if it weren't so mundane and boring and full of post-structuralist philosophizing on the nature of meaning rather than actually doing anything worthwhile. It's less about actual linguistics, and more about "what if linguistics weren't such a shitty and useless academic field," it felt like a mish-mash of Sapir-Whorf and a conflated UG, the kind of ideas that normal people who don't know anything about linguistics find appealing but which are for all intents and purposes dead theories in the academic world.

Though for what it's worth, I'm pretty sure Snow Crash was what ultimately set me down the path of studying linguistics seriously, and I've never been unhappy about that choice.

>>3139389
I was old enough to have read it when it was published, although I didn't find it until some years later. But you're right, I never really thought about that aspect of it.

>>3139432
>a mish-mash of Sapir-Whorf and a conflated UG, the kind of ideas that normal people who don't know anything about linguistics find appealing but which are for all intents and purposes dead theories in the academic world.

This. Also, 'dead theories' is lightly put; 'discredited batshit crackpottery' is a more honest way of putting it. His ruminations on language are 'alien-giants-built-the-pyramids'-tier as far as scientific validity goes.

>Reading a book of Science FICTION and getting your panties in a bunch when the author extrapolates an academic field in a way that is less accurate but more entertaining.
>You're doing it wrong.

>>3139393
I HEAR YOU, BROTHER

>>3139462
who are you quoting?

>>3139432
Well, since you are a scholar in the field, the book is too shallow or even wrong in your eyes. For a person like me, who doesnt know shit about linguistics, it was very interesting.
Keep in mind that linguistics is not a subject people even think about in their lives.

>>3139491
> For a person like me, who doesnt know shit about linguistics, it was very interesting.
> Keep in mind that linguistics is not a subject people even think about in their lives.

"For a person like me, who doesn't know shit about history, the book about dinosaur-riding ninjas who battled ancient aliens for control of Stonehenge was very interesting. Keep in mind that history is not a subject people even think about in their lives".

I think you accidentally the wrong board, my retarded fucktard buddy. Go back to reddit.

gifromo >>3139505 I dont know where the fuck you live, but in my country everybody is taught history. I cant say the same about linguistics. Also, why are you

>>3139745
still, you can't credit a book with being well researched when you're a lay person in that field just because the author seems to know what he's talking about

it's fine if you enjoyed it ( I GUESS ) but to say it is well researched or informs readers on the topic is wrong
finally, why are you reading neal stephenson? it is popcorn fiction however you spin it. you don't have much time. read real books - good books. or don't and read page turning new generation airport fiction. just don't come posting about it.

>>3139803
and i love scifi. neal is just a bunch of shit. he's like that kingkiller chronicles motherfucker version of scifi