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Locus Interviews Neal Stephenson

Posted by timothy on from the bold-new-do-for-the-greatest-living-writer dept.

Embedded Geek writes "Locus, the trade magazine of Science Fiction, has an interview with Neal Stephenson in their August issue. Excerpts can be found here. A teaser: 'The world of the 'Baroque Cycle' happens to be 99% factual history, or as close as I can come to it, but what readers of this kind of fiction are looking for is the ability to become immersed in a different world. That's why there is a big crossover between historical fiction and SF.' An interesting read for his long time fans or anyone just wondering what all the fuss is about." So this is a teaser for a teaser, but this makes me want to shell out the $8.

1 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Re:stick with it by Jerf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am a very patient reader.

    But I don't think it is too much to ask that by page 500, something happen.

    I'm not referring specifically to Neal here, though I will refer specifically to the Cryptonomicon. (Please don't try to "correct" me; up to that point in the Cryptonomicon, as far as I'm concerned all that had occured was a belabored explanation of several concepts I had learned about in more detail several years ago in school and that opinion of mine isn't about to change.)

    But there is an opportunity cost here; 500 pages is several hours and if you're still building up, I have to ask myself whether my time is better spent on something that may pay off a little faster. Books are not a scarce resource, and while I don't demand wham-bang-boom by page 3, how much do you expect me to wade through?

    My point here, I guess, is that I can't really find it in myself to care whether "The Confusion" is any good, if I have to wade through an entire bloated dull book to get there. I don't want to say everybody should feel that way (unfortunately I can think of no clear way in English to express this; it is the nature of a declatory sentence to sound like, well, a declaration of fact), but it is a viewpoint I think authors should consider. If you're going too slow for me, who considers a 600 page, densely printed book like "A Deepness in the Sky" to be "a bit on the short side", you really need to consider getting your ass into gear and letting the editor do a bit more cutting.