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Stephenson On His Novel In Progress
Nathaniel Wice writes: "The latest newsstand issue of TIME Digital includes a Lev Grossman interview with Neal Stephenson but the full text is online. Lev tries to push Stephenson on how he feels about the sci-fi ghetto, yielding my favorite line: Stephenson says the best-selling Cryptonomicon was 'an experiment... Can you make a Unix systems administrator into a fictional character who people will find compelling?' There's also some hints about his 'related' follow-up, Quicksilver."
Can you make a Unix systems administrator into a fictional character who people will find compelling?
Sure you can, make it
1) a good looking women Unix systems administrator
2) the server room is hot, really hot, she has to take her shirt off just to work on the cluster
3) see kills the evil bad guys (ie: suits) with heavy machine guns and high explosives
4) To relax at the end of the day she has multi good looking women freinds join her naked in the hot tub.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week." The Unix System Administrator took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it, and returned it to the pocket.
The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do anything you want." Again, the Unix System Administrator took the frog out, smiled at it, and put it back into his pocket.
Finally, the frog asked, "What's the matter? I've told you that I'm a beautiful princess, that I'll stay with you for a week, and that I'll do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The Unix System Administrator said, "Look, I'm an Unix System Administrator. I don't have time for a girlfriend; but a talking frog, now that's cool!"
When you are dancing with wolves, never limp
that's why!
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
It's like when JWZ said "Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing."
I have always hated that quote for a bunch reasons:
1) It completely ignores the difference between "free"="libre" and "free"="gratis", which is an important one. More importantly, however...
2) It leads the uncritical observer to conclude that only linux suffers from this problem -- it is just as true that a "retail value $99" piece of closed-source software costs $99 only if your time is worth nothing because...
3) Both closed-source and open-source software alike require upkeep by the user; and in fact, since there often aren't as many bugs, open-source software requires less maintenance. Which is made worse by the fact that...
4) When an open-source program needs maintenance in order to work properly, the solution is usually to fix it directly in the source, in which case the problem is solved permanently and the time spent coding has actually generated something of value that remains with the user thereafter (and usually is given back to the community). In contrast, tending software like Windows is like throwing money into a hole in the ground, since the problem is usually never truly solved and will require an equivalent amount of work in the future. And don't forget that closed-source bugfixes are often charged for and encourage endless upgrade cycles.
I could go on, but hopefully you see the point.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Cryptonomicon had a great ending. The others I'm not so sold on, but they aren't as bad as the majority of drivel that makes its way into a hard binding.
The ending to Cryptonomicon was subtle.. moreover, it emphasized the continuation of the characters life, rather than the standard "and everyone lived either happily ever after, or in an appropriately fitting physio-emotional state congruent to the moral lesson of this text; thank you for reading, and for your $24.99". (As a humorous bonus, Randy throws in a few lines about how he doesn't really like the looks of his future; and he'd prefer a 'happy-ever-after' himself)
Doug's resolution was great too, what with his fragmented tale of his father being appropriately broken up by helicopter noise; and I sort of got the point that he never knew his dad, and he followed his own path, but just the same he's going to try to tie the lessons from his father into his own great achievements, eg, Golgotha.
The book was great, and how would you have ended it? It felt kind of like reading a history book, what with the hordes of people dying and information lost, for usually no good reason.
So I dug the quiet moment at the end, where Randy sees the stream of gold; it made me sort of subjective to all the characters who were involved in Golgotha, whose stories we read, but IRL, no one would.
I dunno, you can read the ending several ways; which these days is how I define good fiction. (of course, you can read most tech documentation several ways; that is obviously a Bad Thing.)
I've ranted enough for now, but it seems most readers have something against non-conclusive fiction. So I draw from the film library to give a memorable example:
It's too bad she won't live -- but then again, who does...
(WARNING: I am holding back nothing...not even major plot spoilers)
> a) Can't write a sex scene well at all (yet
> insists on doint it)
Well certainly Henry Miller he aint. However, I think he gets the point across, even if they arn't the most uhm "intgeresting"...tho you will notice none of his book shave bare chested men on the front either.
> b) Has so much trouble with the end on his
> stories.
Here I definitly agree. I read both Snow Crash and cryptonomicon (not in that order) and really enjoyed both books, but the endings really sucked.
In fact, I noticed around page 600 that the ending wasn't going to be very good. 2/3rds of the book were gone and some major pieces of plot development hadn't even happened yet. It was obvious that they would be very rushed and underdeveloped.
I do see what he was doing, contrasting the life of the characters ancestors with them, as the stories of their lives converge into one story. It was very clever (if not totally original, its a theme that has been used before...tho what hasn't?). However, this format really makes the book lengthen...and that made it obvious that 300 pages wasn't going to be enough to wrap the book up, and it wasn't.
I really would have liked to see more development and detail on Randy's relationship with Amy. (which was obviously comming from their first meeting). Also the ending itself....they melt the gold....it seems like he just said "Oh, time to end it now....quick and dirty solution".
SNow crash had some of the same problems...lots of buildup and doing this and that....all to a big fizzle. The ending just left me saying "Yea and?"
Other than the endings, I have really enjoyed his books. They are entertaining and thought provoking, he does know how to get a story started off and going. My favorite so far has to be the begining of Snow Crash with the "Delivorator"....that was just great.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
From the interview:
Vernor Vinge leaps to mind...who else? Surely most of the physicists who've written SF (Brin, Sagan, Benford, et. al.) probably at least cobbled together a few lines of FORTRAN over the years.Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I think that while _Snow Crash_ and _Diamond Age_ are great novels just could use a better endings. Cryptonomicom was interesting but the ending after 900 pages was the worst ever written, there was no ending it just kinda stopped. His other books actually have endings and are much more of a fun read namely _Zodiac_ and _Interface_ (which is my personal favorite, ghost written as Stephen Bury) are absolutely fantasic novels with good endings that are even exciting and related to the story. _Zodiac_ is about an ecologist that tools around Boston Harbour is a Zodiac (rubber raft) the tech is bio-chem which I don't have much ionterest in but he makes it fun end exciting and way funny. In the back it claims that he went to U Michigan to study Physics, this book proves that it was really Boston University and chemistry. _Interface_ which he supposedly wrote with his uncle last name Jewsbury (or something like that) so they named the authour as Stephen Bury is possible his best book although not widely read. Its about a plot by some ILLUMINATI type characters who use a nueral network to cure a state governor after a stroke with the addition of a radio receiver so they can rewrite his political speeches in real-time as he runs for US president, absolutely fantastic ending which in more than you can say about his more famous books, the tech parts are quite as numerous by the sections about developing the neural network chip are pretty cool and there is plenty of action. The first thirty pages just describe an office and are every bit as interesting as the 5 page diatribe about the perfect bowl of Captin Crunch.
It's important to remember that the viewpoint of characters in a novel is *not* always the viewpoint of the author. If you've read Zodiac, do you think Stephenson's a left-wing eco-terrorist as well as a right-wing dittohead?
Secondly, in regard to WWII Japan, I don't think you can find much that wasn't true in Cryptonomicon. Rape, murder, and slave labor were all par for the course in the Japanese Empire. If I were a member of that culture, I could only hope I'd have the strength to reject it. (More likely, I'd simply try to ignore the evil around me and go about my business like everyone else, though)
By the way - I never heard anything about sales figures for Cryptonomicon or snow crash OR the diamond age. Were they pretty well accepted? Does anybody know if they were successful, or "mainstream" successful?
I've read them all except the diamond age, and they kick ass. His writing has matured quite a bit through the progression of books.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Mercury also directly relates to cryptography 300 years ago because of John Wilkins' 1694 book on the subject "Mercury or the Secret and Swift Messenger".
In the middle of the interview, he says "The single most useful thing about the Internet is that it facilitates using Linux. To use Linux, you need so much goddamn technical information that if you don't have a really good source of technical support, you're just screwed."
This kind of puts Linux in a bad light, don't you think? Here all these distributions are trying to make it look easy, and he's saying it takes an army of nerds to keep a system running. I think Stephenson's great as an author, but I think he's been ever so slightly off on his portrayal of computing, i.e. Linux as a tank in "In the beginning was the command line" essay.
I'm Peggy.
The pain text version of this posted there is plainful. Go read the full HTML/CSS version here.
---
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
This is truly a scifi story for geeks... What other tale in the world has had it's own Encryption Algorithym created just to lend plausability to the story?
Stephenson has been criticized by some for getting to deep into the trivial details in his fiction, but personally that's why I read it.
-Tommy
P.S. It's good to see this story is back.
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
I actually like his endings. they leave me with a sense that the characters' lives are going to continue past what we've just read. All the loose endings aren't tied up, but they aren't tied up in real life either. There's always something to worry about. There's always the next project. Besides, if all the loose endings are tied up what happens if you want to write a sequel?
What I see that people don't like is that if Neal's books were like songs they wouldn't fade out in a refrain. They'd abruptly stop with a loud beat. Just BLAM!
And I, for one, like it. It leaves you wanting more.
Yes, I read it and I think that its quite funny. Of course spending a lot of time at big research universities helps to get some of the inside jokes.
I had the get the book from inter-library loan, since Stephenson refuses to let it be re-print. It was worth the effort, though.
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
I know this has been posted to previous N.S. threads, but check out this Stephenson article titled "In the Beginning was the Command Line". It gives a little more background on his thought process for a few of the things in this interview.
Anyone whose read Cryptonomicon knows that 'quicksilver' (otherwise known as mercury) played a very interesting role in the plot.
I find it curious that he's using this as the title for his next book, which is apparently going to be about Enoch Root and his Sect, pre-modern age. Still on the subject of cryptography, though...
(Note, I haven't read the interview with Neal S. yet - just curious if anyone sees the significance in the title)...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
It was almost an experiment, to see if it was theoretically possible: Can you make a Unix systems administrator into a fictional character who people will find compelling?
I enjoyed Cryptonomicon in spite of Randy Waterhouse, not because of him. Randy's grandfather, Lawrence, is a compelling character. Bobby Shaftoe, Gunter Bischoff, et al are compelling characters.
Randy, on the other hand, is a bland little fellow who could be redeemed only through death or excruciatingly painful torture. The Jar Jar Binks of Cryptonomicon...
Using a standalone PC is like riding a tricycle around the backyard, compared to connecting to a network (driving on the freeway).
I don't think you'd expect a six year old kid to be able to drive a car. Likewise, some things about computing are Just Plain Hard.
Programming, network management, security, protecting kids from <insert demon here>. These things are Hard Problems, and no amount of "Teach Yourself X in 24 hours for Anencephalic Walrusus" books can make it easy.
The whole concept of "computers should be made easy" is bogus. Wiring your eletricity should be easy? Anyone should be able to drive a car without needing lessons? Organ Transplants For Dummies? Learn to diagnose your child's illness in 24 hours?
Using computers can be made easier. Management and installation issues, very much less so.
-- veni vidi nuclei deceri --- I came, I saw, I dumped core.
"Most of it's written, I just have to finish it.
While you're at it, go back and finish all the others, too.
--
Wanna hook MAPI clients to your Tru64/AIX/Linux server?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
He's been asked this. I had the opportunity to see him in Boston when he was hawking the book (which I'd already read, but got autographed)
IIRC it's because if he had had the characters use Linux, PGP, etc. then he'd have to describe them accurately. He gained more freedom in his writing (while still letting everyone who knew what they were know that he knows too) by having Finux, Ordo, ETC, etc.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The Answer is 'yes'. Ever heard of the BOFH? 'nuff said :-)
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
as easily as she can use Windows?
I think that is the point Stephenson is making, and I agree with him.
The distros are trying to make it easier, but it's not there yet, and you shouldn't deny it.
George
And you know what: That posting did *not* deserve to be pounded down. I said two things of substance, which I'd be glad to defend if discussions on slashdot were capable of lasting longer than two rounds: (1) Time magazine's characterization of "Snow Crash" as "prescient" is ridiculous... maybe it'll turn out that way, but writing about computer networks before everyone got into Netscape doesn't count as "prescient" (2) The book itself doesn't say much about the net that wasn't said by Gibson.
I would also be willing to defend the point that the book is slanted at the slash-baby crowd. Where Gibson borrowed riffs from noir-fiction, Stephenson worked from video games and comic books.
I make the further point that slashdot moderators are *awful*: moderators are *not* supposed to pound something down just because they disagree with it.
And more specifically, didn't he read The Diamond Age?? If this wasn't Historical Fiction on exponential levels, I don't know what is ....
Then again, seems like Neal himself forgot he wrote Diamon ... too bad -- still borderline-essential Sci-Fi reading ....
"He who questions training trains himself at asking questions." - The Sphinx, Mystery Men (1999)
Sure you can. The problem with the sci-fi / cyberpunk (sciberpunk?) scene is that, with notable exceptions such as Stephenson's Snow Crash, too much emphasis is put on the technology.
It's like those Harlequin novels - it's cyber hokey, the scene generally lacks dimension. The same problem plagues the romantic novel genre, and especially adult entertainment. The same thing can be found in 'action' films. All guns and explosions, and little of anything else. One-dimensional stories suck, no matter what - even sciberpunk stories.
As for the question, well, now that I've provided my own version of a solution, let me give you a scenario as an example of how to apply it (hey I'm starting to sound like a real blowhard here, hehe):
Let's say this sytsem administrator's life revolves around computers. Why not explore what got him into computers? You'd have to look into his heart and see what enamored him to this hobby, people do this in stories all the time, it adds dimension to the character. Maybe he admires the consistent behavior of computers, maybe he is avoiding the treacherous pit of snakes that is what we call the 'modern American social life'. Maybe he's about to learn some social skills and come out of his shell - or maybe he is about to open someone's eyes to the 'romance' and excitement he enjoys in pursuit of his work. Explore that. Or why not make this guy a well-rounded character? Think outside the one-dimensional box. That would grab people's attention.
Why not put this Unix systems administrator in a whole new world that you've built? Or in a version of this world? Paint some elaborate scenery around him - throw in culture, religion, politics, and social issues. Don't just trap him in front of a keyboard and base a story on the premise that he is saving the world in 101 keys or less.
I think Neal Stephenson's writings represent a good example of an affirmative answer to that question. Snow Crash's Hiro Protagonist, and especially his partners in crime Juanita and YT, were multi dimensional characters. Juanita, heck, she was an expert on religion and Sumerian culture.
BTW: Who else besides me was wowed by that Snowcrash line "Jack the sound barrier. Bring the noise" ?
(Now all the Neal Stephenson haters are gonna kill me. Hooboy. Fan wars. I'm outta here. Ciao!)
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
And make money fast while you do it!
:). Oh, and I was lying about the money.
Actually, I'm not done with it yet, but what I have done is posted on the web.
My guess is that a lot of the people reading this thread are into sci-fi/cyberpunk, and I'd be curious to see what you guys think (Keep in mind that it's a rough draft). I only have about 20 pages or so written, but most of the people who've read it said it was ok, or at least, not that bad.
I hope this isn't entirely offtopic, at least
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Bobby Shaftoe = Marine Raider nerd
"Marine Raider nerd"?? WTH????
The closest thing to a Marine Raider nerd I've ever seen is William Manchester -- maybe.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->