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Salon Interviews Neal Stephenson
edibleplastic writes "Salon has a great interview with Neal Stephenson, author of such science fiction favorites as Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and Quicksilver. He discusses his views on the scientific community (both past and present), the world of science fiction, and writing in general. "I think there are common threads between writing and programming... All I'm saying is that the thing you're making -- the novel or the computer program -- has got a very complicated and finely wrought hierarchical structure to it. The structure has to work right or the whole thing fails. But the only way you can work on it is by hitting one character at a time...""
Neal Stephenson rocks. Seriously. If you haven't already, read Snow Crash. You'll be glad you did.
Now that the fawning and praise and adoration is out of the way... He did an interesting essay a while back called In the Beginning was the Command Line. It's a good read.
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
Some of it was dull, yes.
I liked the description of naval tactics as they were trying to escape the pirates.
I also liked the fact that he has a Waterhouse founding MIT.
go and read:
:)
Greg Bear
William Gibson (you already knew that)
Terry Pratchett (more humorous, but nice)
"the light of other days" (forgot the author)
there's some really good stuff in there.
A friend and I trade our 'best sf' books, fortunately fair use still allows that (but I'm beginning to wonder for how long). If the goons get their way fair use on other media could go out the window too, let's see:
This book is sold under the following EULA:
You may read this book *once*. Upon reading the last page of the book you agree to destroy it. You may not discuss the contents of this book in private or in public, nor shall you lend it to someone else or give it away, other than unopened and unread.
MP3 Search Engine
Where have you been? It's been out for ~ 2 weeks, /. even had an article. Me? Page 76.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I'm sure he means Douglas Coupland, author of Microserfs and several other works.
----
WWJD...For a Klondike Bar?
Metaweb - A wiki about the Cryptonomicon/Quicksilver Universe, with contributions fro Mr. Stephenson
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
Snow Crash, OK. Diamond Age, yes yes. But Cryptonomicon is not very science fiction-y. It's more Tom Clancy than SF--I mean these are computer scientists and all, but they aren't neutronic worms living on the surface of a star. And I just know the librarians are going to toss Quicksilver over there once it's off the "New" shelf. This book is historical fiction-- albeit about nerds, but it's "HF" none the less. (I can't wait for the next Con! Ye Olde Renaissance Faire!).
When's this guy going to get some credit for moving on?
blarg.
Perhaps I should have said "best known for a work of SF," rather than "primarily an SF writer." In any case, 1984 is SF by any reasonable definition of the term; it is set in a (then) future world which has been drastically altered from the one in which the author lived. (And Big Brother does use some high-tech gizmos to keep any eye on his people, but that's not all that relevant.) Animal Farm, probably his second-best-known work, is unequivocally fantasy. You may persist in moving the goalposts to justify your genre prejudices if you wish, but understand that that's what you're doing.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I actually found the "boring banking parts", the scenes at the Royal Society, etc, more interesting than the sometimes-overblown "adventure" parts of Quicksilver
Cryptonomicon is not very science fiction-y. It's more Tom Clancy than SF--I mean these are computer scientists and all, but they aren't neutronic worms living on the surface of a star. And I just know the librarians are going to toss Quicksilver over there once it's off the "New" shelf. This book is historical fiction-- albeit about nerds, but it's "HF" none the less.
I've found that my local librarians are responsive -- indeed, grateful -- when I tell that a book published as "science fiction" is actually a solid work of historical fiction. (I'm thinking here of the novel "Byzantium", which isn't SF in the least -- fine historical fiction, and nothing but.)
We probably can't integrate the SF ghetto with general fiction on a large scale, but making a case-by-case arguments for outstanding books can get results.
-kgj
-kgj