Slashdot Mirror
'Quicksilver' Website and Release Date
EvilBastard writes "Neil Stephenson's next book in the Baroque Cycle, Quicksilver, now has a publishing date of the 23rd of September, 2003. This book appears to follow the Shaftoe, Waterhouse and Root family line back to the early 18th Century. You can find a short extract online."
What's with the two topic icons?
A little indecisive this morning, 'eh boys?
Neal Stephenson, At least according to the linked website :)
ìì!
Yup, y'ar. Maybe a little. Stevenson wrote Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, and In The Beginning Was The Command Line, and others. All highly recommended.
The website says that the Baroque Cycle is about to begin... how is this the "next book"?
sure seems to like the name Enoch.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
He wrote:
Snow Crash
Diamond Age
Crytptonomicon
In the Beginning was the Command Line
Zodiac plus two more books under a pen name.
Great author of a few geek clasics, with great insight into modern issues.
Reality is that which refuses to go away when I stop believing in it. --Phillip K. Dick (remove SPAM to email)
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Signal to Noise by Eric S. Nylund
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
I heard Stephenson give a lecture at Carnegie Mellon University on Thursday of last week, where he discussed this novel. It sounded very interesting, albeit a departure from his normal science fiction type novels. He discussed what he considered to be the "soap opera" of the Newton-Leibniz controversy regarding the invention of calculus, which spread to other areas. Eventually this led up to a description of Leibniz's ideas metaphysics, which he regards as highly relevant in regards to computer science, cellular automata, and quantum physics. His descriptions of these events were slightly convoluted but that was part of their charm, and while I expected some type of discussion of technology or Snow Crash / Cryptonomicon type topics, I was pleasantly surprised to hear his 18th century tangent. He's a very talented and fascinating man.
On a side note, he mentioned that he only speaks about once every five years and that he's very anti-social. He said his books are not a social process and come entirely from him, as opposed to including feedback from others. Still, I'm glad to have this man off in his little corner of the world thinking and researching about fascinating topics, broadcasting his findings to the rest of us.
I hadn't heard of him until I picked up Cryptonomicon on a whim. (Borders was running it for 20% off once upon a time) I got it for a trip I took with my girlfriend to California, and I was laughing out loud so much she complained repeatedly. The fact that we were sitting in seats next to the plane's engine at the time should be noted here to give you an idea of just how loud I was laughing. Of his books that I've read, I think Cryptonomicon was his best, followed by Snow Crash, The Diamond Age and Zodiac. They're all worth checking out, and probably owning. They're exceptionally geek-friendly.
Dare to Hope. Prepare to be Disappointed.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Neal Stephenson, of Cryptonomicon fame. Yes, you are supposed to be able to identify this guy as the author of that book, as well as identify Waterhouse as Lawrence Pritchard (sp?) Waterhouse, crytanalyst during WWII, who stood behind unit 2702, of which Shaftoe and Root were part. You are further suppoed to identify Stephenson as the author of Snow Crash, were you'll find a description of the Metaverse and where you'll learn to fear the pizza delivery boy. Further, you are supposed to identify him as the author of in the begining there was the command line, which according to legend is a book that sprang to life on this very forum.
It doesn't sound too good, does it? 'Magnificent historical epic'? I hope it doesn't end up like the literary equivalent of a Kevin Costner movie.
In Snow Crash, The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon there was a sense of something epic building all the way through that didn't really pay off. More of shame because he spins such an excellent yarn, and his writing is very engaging. But don't (please) pop the balloon just to bring the book to a conclusion.
IMHO one of the few authors bothering (or able) to extrapolate cutting edge technology and concepts.
-------------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
I don't expect much in the way of correct spelling, good grammar, and typos here on slashdot, and I make plenty of these mistakes myself. But when I'm paying north of $20 for a hardback book, like Cryptonomicon, I really expect to see the work of a professional editor. This book was filled with typos and even spell-checker kinds of errors (e.g. cannon vs canon). Never mind the perl code in the book which lost all newlines. It appeared that the manuscript had just been run through a spell checker, then sent to the printer. Can we expect better for this go around?
Even in the the 1700s the Shaftoes were some bad mutha-
Vote for global prefs bug
It's probably because of things like this (excerpt from the linked website):
just the imagine of this guy, who is friends with Newton or Leibniz (or like his grandfather, who is friends with Turing and von Hacklheber), and telling turning events of history from his point of view. Stephenson delivered a great performance on Cryptonomicon and I'll itching to get my hands on Quicksilver...
Paul Bowles
Kobo Abe
William Gaddis
Vladimir Nabokov
Herman Melville
E.A. Poe
At least that way you don't wake up the next
morning not remembering anything and feeling
dirty...
yes, it's called _A Signal Shattered_, and it was jus as good if not better. wish he'd do another..
Sorry, but in this crowd, Neal Stephenson is just as big, if not bigger, than Star Trek or The Matrix.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I alternated between laughing "I know that guy" and shivering "I am that guy".
MORTAR COMBAT!
Things shouldn't have to be 'People Magazine' big before its safe to assume that thay can be mentioned on Slashdot w/ out a preamble. As far as current sci-fi or techie writers go, NS is huge. He may not be William Gibson, but he's certainly not obscure.
Given the tools available to you, there isn't really room to complain about not having heard of someone or something.
It is better to be silent, and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
or bill and ted's excellent adventure....
In case you're interested, I've also got a page up of Neal Stephenson's short work, fiction and non-fiction.
BTW, this book is the first book of three in Baroque Cycle, and they'll be released at six month intervals. So says HarperCollins.
but overpriced for what they are, and don't wanna be a wicked cool skata boy that bad.
I'm smarter than the average bear.
Try trying "Neal Stephenson" in that search box thingie at http://www.google.com/ (a search engine, just in case you haven't heard of it either). You might be surprised at the result.
fyi, he's speaking at the Usenix Technical Conference on June 12th as the keynote speaker. he's going to talk about this new book and some other things. luckily, i'll be there =)
Three thoughts:
1. The "period-ness" of the novel may surpass the "geek-ness." This is a tad disappointing.
2. I'm rather indifferent to the genealogical links between these characters and Cryptonomicon's. I mean, the characters in Cryptonomicon were pretty good, but it's not as if they were so fabulously conceived that I said "Goddamn, I wish I could read an entire cycle of books about their ancestors!" But Stephenson obviously has affection for them, so whatever helps him write is okay by me.
3. I also suspect the idea of a "cycle" of books arose from his experience writing (and attempting to end) Cryptonomicon. I suppose it's easier to write an ending if it needn't be the ultimate ending. And also, if he found himself generating more than a thousand pages once again, it was probably better to partition them into several volumes and write as much as wanted, rather than form the immense tome that Cryptonomicon became and be forced to cut the story off somewhat abrupty.
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
My question is, is Idoru considered to be among Gibson's best work? If not, what's the best introduction to his style?
Dune has been out for ~40 years now, and they still havent bothered to correct the typos, repeated lines, and FONT SIZE CHANGES in it. The repeated line has been in every printing Ive ever seen, with the 2 lines in different font sizes in every one of the printings.
There is a Larry Niven novel (I think A Gift from Earth but it could be a different one) where a character's name changes for a couple of paragraphs. Very confusing. I assume he changed the name and didnt catch all of the uses.
OMFG, the /. editors let a misspelling of NEAL Stephenson through.
Heresy!
jack's bicycle is music to my ears
This obviously isn't as "big," so what the hell is this about and why should I care.
Have you ever heard of this little thing called Google? You can type in phrases and stuff and they will (usually) bring back a list of websites about that phrase. You should try it sometimes. For those of us who know who he is and love all of his works, this was great news and I'm really happy that I didn't also have to read a short history of his works
In Cryptonomicon, Bobby Shaftoe was the fucking man! I think my favorite part of the book was after Shaftoe was injured on one of the beaches in the Pacific, and he was being interviewed by Ronald Reagan after receiving a medal (this is from memory so be gentle):
Reagan: So do you have any advice for young Marines who might want to follow in your footsteps?
Shaftoe: Yeah, always kill the guy with the sword first.
Reagan: Ah, because they're the officers!!
Shaftoe: No, YOU KILL THEM BECAUSE THEY HAVE FUCKING SWORDS! Have you every had somebody charge at you with a sword?!
And he then starts mumbling something about the giant lizards that attacked the Japanese soldiers.
Stephenson has a great mind, no doubt. The mind is backed by a tremendous ego. This is important for a writer, otherwise they become too hash of a self critic and no book ever sees the press. However, and editor is usually the devil's advocate against the writer's ego, challenging and filtering concepts so what comes out the end doesn't seem like a long UseNet pos. I don't know who is doing Stephenson's editing, but they need to be a bit more foreceful with him: for one, cutting out more. How many pages were spent describing breakfast cereal in Cryptonomicon? This is up there with John Galt's forty page speech in Atlas Shrugged, in terms of Too Much. It's a difficult task, writing less, it is like writing really tight, optimized code. It's a skill that Stephenson, or his editors, need to acquire. Along with better proofreaders for spelling and grammar.
In spite of all this criticism, I do enjoy his works.
The question is not whether you know this guy but why are you too stupid to just go to Amazon or Google and look him up. Typically when I don't know something being discussed I go look it up or keep my mouth shut instead of sounding like an idiot
Don't forget the two books he wrote under the pen name Stephen Bury:
The Cobweb
Interface
Both well worth checking out.
Where would we be if Wheel had hid her round rock in a cave instead of showing everyone how it rolls?
..Neil Stephenson's next book in the Baroque Cycle...
And here I sit, out of Monet.
Baroque of course, from trying to keep up with all the excellent books by David Drake (Hammers Slammers fame)
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Also Zodiac, which was one of his earliest. Not quite as polished, as funny, and more irreverent than Snow Crash.
He seems to like dry humor, irony, mystical experiences, sex , and underdogs.
Not necessarily in that order.
Searching for Truth, Justice, and the Guy Who Boosted My Wallet a Few Weeks Back....
Yeah, he's pretty obscure:
Number of Linux users as of today (source: the Linux counter, http://counter.li.org/): 134107
Sales figures of Cryptonomicon, as of 3/19/01 (source Publisher's Weekly (http://publishersweekly.reviewsnews.com), sorry figures are so old, I don't have time to search for new ones):116,330
Yep. I agree. We ought to cover Star Trek and The Matrix, and not obscure stuff like Linux and Neal Stephenson. That stuff is for nerds!
I almost thought there was a story about surfing on /.
http://www.quiksilver.com/
You know, water, sand, sun and all that outdoors stuff.
Brought to you by the author of such childrens' classics as "Some Kittens can Fly!" and "All Dogs go to Hell."
Neal's a pretty sharp guy but he outsources a lot of his research to proffesionals (makes sense) and has several staff people help him put the pieces together, as it were.
I offered my services as part of the FTEST (final tech editing service team) but Neal didn't want a computer pundit as much as he was looking for science pundits. Ah well, at least now I'm in his rolodex and hopefully I'll get more chances to work with him.
Warmest regards,
--Jack
Wagner LLC Consulting Co. - Getting it right the first time
I don't expect much in the way of correct spelling, good grammar, and typos here on slashdot, and I make plenty of these mistakes myself. But when I'm paying north of $20 for a hardback book, like Cryptonomicon, I really expect to see the work of a professional editor. This book was filled with typos and even spell-checker kinds of errors (e.g. cannon vs canon).
Its rare to find a book without at least half a dozen typos, spelling errors or bad typesetting. And yet for all the years I've been reading, I've never bothered to make a note of where and what and send it to the publishers. We moan about the lack of accuracy but how many of us actually try and improve later editions? Like all the postings about how many eyes make bugs shallow, maybe we should submit corrections to the publishers a little more often... At least then the next printing stands some chance of improvement.
Has anyone sent corrections to a publisher? Were they well received? Did they get applied?
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
The first time I read "Cryptonomicon", I was slightly put out by how long and drawn out many of the passages and descriptions were. So I ended up reading the whole thing but sort of skimming over some of what I thought was less important stuff.
Imagine my suprise when, two year later, I picked up the book and decided to read through it again. I can't believe how much I missed the first time through. Sure, not all of it has everything to do with the storyline, but it's all entertaining, and quite funny in many places.
The best example I can (sorta) remember is when the younger Waterhouse is at the estate of his newly deceased grandmother, and all the relatives are trying madly to get the best inheritance. Waterhouse devises a formula that gets him what he wants. The whole scene had very little to do with the storyline, but it was great to read, and I'm glad he put it in there.
If you want short and to the point, go see a movie. Also, you dont know long and drawn out unless you've read the unabridged "Les Miserables."
I have to agree, I found Snow Crash and Diamond Age hard to put down, but Cryptonomicon hard to pick back up.
I actually abandoned it about 3/4 of the way through, finding it, as you said, just too long for the content and a little silly.
One of my biggest complaints about SnowCrash and Diamond Age is that he starts with great characters and premises and then crashes them into these global apocalyptic endings that are a bit ludicrous.
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
You mean we won't see anymore plots of people's productivity in relation to the last time they had an orgasm? Doooh.
I'm sure I'm not the only person for whom ITBWTCL catalysed our interest in Linux.
Ceci n'est pas une
Anyone decrypt the message on the flash intro yet?
I hope that you're not just baiting me.
W Gibson is credited w/ describing/definig a great deal of the characteristics of cyberpunk. He's written a number of books, with Neuromancer generally considered the most important. If you like sci-fi or just technology, check his stuff out. Get Neuromancer and read it and keep reminding yourself that he wrote it 20 years ago.
Google turned up this academic jewel.
I really really enjoyed Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon so I'm anxious to get my hands on it. I'll admit the description doesn't sound as appealing as the others, but I've gotta' read it anyway.
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it." -Voltaire
Neal Stephenson's writing style apes Thomas Pynchon quite a bit. Pynchon's last book was Mason & Dixon, which took place in the 1700's and was written in a faux-18th century style of writing. Neal's author biography on the Quicksilver website is written in a similar style.
Fortunately, the preview of the book isn't written like that. Last thing I want to do is slug through another 800 pages of "picnicks" and other arbitrary 18th century capitalization and spelling choices. At least Pynchon didn't also use those archaic "f"'s instead of "s"'s. (yes, I know they aren't really f's but that key isn't on my keyboard)
Good thing too. Given his style of writing and geeky subject matters, Stephenson has often been accused of writing like Pynchon a little too much....
The 'I did something famous for someone famous and have an opinion about it' troll is back.
but the cryptonomicon was a good story. His writing style made it almost painful to read but the story kept me suffering through his vernacular till the end. Success of one book sometimes brings out the worst in an author so I am avoiding quicksilver. Sadly Scott Card and Frank Herbert had the same effect on me in their later books. The ego of their writing so overtook the story that it became hard to see past.
He also wrote a book back in the early 80's called The Big U. An unbelievable stinker; if you can get your hands on a copy, buy it and burn it. Imagine a combination of the bad parts of PCU and Animal House written by Stephenson while badly hung over.
That's one of the problems I have with slashdot, anyone with mod points and an agenda can trash someones hitory.
I enjoy his books, but his tendancy to "accelerate" makes me think that he gets bored with them far sooner than I do.
Lasers Controlled Games!
If Cryptonomicon as any indication, I'll probably need to work out to hold the book up.
I'm about 200 pages from the end of Cyrptonomicon and have really enjoyed it. I was surprised at first at the lack of sci-fi stuff, but Neal is such a good writer I don't miss it at all.
A pitty Gen. D McArthur won't be in the new one - I love the way his character is written.
'New Rose Hotel', also a story from BC, was also movified. Don't waste the rental fee.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
I would imagine, too, that at about the 80% point he just started making shit up so that he could in some way wrap that puppy up. Not that I don't love his books, but they just do not end (as stroies) very well...
A spell checker would not catch that error. "Cannon" and "canon" are both legitimate English words. Read more here.
___
Cognitive Overflow
more than yo
it was a lot better the second time around because I had a better memory of who the different characters were and who did what and why. You just have to read it really slowly (with a dictionary at hand, preferably), and probably several times through. On the first read it was tough to pick out the narrative threads that advance the story and seperate them from the passages that just sort of describe wartime/aftermath conditions in general. Also, the jumps between storylines and descriptions and thoughts of the characters are fairly abrupt so it takes a while to figure out what you're reading. There are like 27 different narrative threads that don't seem related at all but they do interact, sort of like sine waves at 27 different frequencies sometimes having zero-points together.
Your mind is squeezed by a blast of pain!
Well I for one would like to see a full scholarly treatment of the four books: Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and Mason & Dixon vs. Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Quicksilver .
The parallels are more than skin deep, and Stephenson takes many of Pynchon's more interesting ideas further and on related-but-different topics. This serves serves to highlight some of the underlying ideas in the two Pynchon books, and provides a fascinating but slightly off key to decode the Pynchon. I've re-read them interleaved over the years, exceping Quicksilver of course.
Stephenson's is a masterful trope .
to crap out yet another never-ending load of increasingly pungent sequels. RIP baby.
Sorry, I just had to...its Friday.
Relive the BBS Past - One Byte at a Time! www.ssabbs.com
I'm looking forward to this one.
When NS is on a roll, he's in the same league with Mark Twain, and that's saying something.
Example - his chapter in Crypto regarding the Vickers gun and the huge buzz saw.
HOWEVER - his endings blow, and some plot threads don't stand up.
Example - Diamond Age where the engineer writes/creates the computer book to train little girls. Where'd HE get the writing power to do that? Also, political correctness is evident, where's the book to train little boys?
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Rather poor troll.
That whole bridge trilogy is rubbish. The first one -- Virtual Light, seems to literally be a rip-off of Snow Crash; funky bike messenger helps civilization progress. Stay away from Gibson, -1 Overrated.
The best solution is to fire back with your own mod points or if you don't have any try to attach a comment that will reference the original so that people will still notice it. It's a democracy so everybody has their chance to make the place work or suck. If you use your mod points well meta moderation will eventually give you more chances to moderate. I actually think Slashdot has a pretty good system if more people would just use it. :)
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Bobby Shaftoe went to sea,
Silver buckles on his knee,
He'll come back and marry me,
Pretty Bobby Shaftoe.
Bobby Shaftoe's fine and fair,
Combing down his auburn hair,
He's my friend for ever more,
Pretty Bobby Shaftoe.
Old nursery rhyme - my mother (b. 1945) is familiar with it, but I was not until I did a little digging.
Well, the author does ^_^
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I have read everything by Neal except Cryptonomicon and the Bury stuff. I love his style, and he has great characters, albeit too many of them at times.
But the reason I haven't been able to bring myself to pick up Cryptonomicon is the horror of having Neal teach me cryptography the way he decided to teach me Sumerian mythology and Turing machines (I thank God everytime I pick up _Diamond Age_ that he didn't try to explain NP-completeness, too.)
To me, the effort he expends on these interludes contributes less to the story than to a feeling that Neal is demonstrating what a smart guy he is. I admit, it is Classicly Geek, but to me, these are the truly worthless pieces of his novels. It's perfectly admirable to wish to educate someone, and perhaps even to do it via a fictional route, but the clever way, or elegant way to do this is to reference the items such that those with an interest will do the research themselves. Instead of straitjacketing the reader into a chair and forcing it down their gullet.
The soliloquies I actually enjoy, he is a witty guy with an incisive eye, and where he expresses opinion, either his own or a character's, that's 'legitimate' if you will - because I can't determine someone's opinion from reading a 1965 National Geographic as I can the details of the religious practices in Sumer c. 4000 B.C.
Although at the rate he's sliding into historical fiction, I may soon get an entire 1500 page "cycle" set in ancient Sumeria. On the plus side, we may get some good bodice-ripping at last with this upcoming opus.