Locus Interviews Neal Stephenson

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.

Comments

Baroque Cycle

[JTWYO]

I've really enjoyed Neal's previous books, but I find the Baroque Cycle books to be a little too long-winded and exposition-heavy. It's almost like he suffered through all this research to write the books, so now he's going to make the reader suffer through it too. I just didn't find the first one to move very well under the weight of all that explaining.

I still consider Snow Crash to be a classic, though, precisely for how light on it's proverbial feet it is.

Good author

[bgackle]

I think I'd read anything by a guy that is able to make a mathematical plot out of the main character's labido.

SF needs to relearn brevity

[rhysweatherley]

I loved Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, but the Baroque Cycle ... got 2/3rds into Quicksilver and put it away. I liked the story in the abstract and where he was going with it, but it was *way* too long at getting to the point.

I'm seeing more and more of this in SF - three and four part stories, each part longer than a novel used to be. Huge world-building sure. But do we really need to know about the characters every bowel movement? Move it along people!

I blame the book shops in part for this: they make more money off trilogies than standalone novels. But I fear that it is destroying the art of good storytelling. Snow Crash (a single novel) was intense. Quicksilver was glacial.

Heres a Copy (albeit a bad one)

[matz62]

August 2004

Neal Stephenson grew up in Iowa and graduated from Boston University in 1981 majoring in geography with a minor in physics. His first published novel The Big U, a college thriller with SF elements, appeared in 1984, followed by Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller (1988). Snow Crash (1992), a cyberpunk classic, made him a star in the SF field. He wrote two thrillers in collaboration with his uncle, George Jewsbury, under the name "Stephen Bury": Interface (1994) and Cobweb (1996), and published solo novel The Diamond Age, winner of the Hugo and Locus Awards, in 1995. Cryptonomicon followed in 1999; also a Locus Award winner, this massive, Pynchonesque novel of history and cryptography proved tremendously popular with SF fans. Later that year he
Photo by Charles N. Brown

www.nealstephenson.com published In the Beginning...Was the Command Line, a non-fiction commentary on computers and culture. The past seven years were spent on the vast three-volume "Baroque Cycle", beginning with Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Quicksilver (2003) and followed by The Confusion (2004) and The System of the World (2004). These books, set in the 17th century and featuring historical characters like Leibniz and Newton along with the ancestors of characters from Cryptonomicon, are Stephenson's latest attempt to push the boundaries of SF. Stephenson lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife (married 1985) and their two children.

Excerpts from the interview:

"One of the defining characteristics of SF is that it's about worlds. You create a world first, and then you tell one or more stories in that world. That's why so frequently in SF, people will go back again and again to the same world and tell additional tales. That's kind of what's going on here. 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. For me, the world-building process is part and parcel of writing. It's the only way I really know how to play this game. I guess that's why I feel so firmly that I'm in the SF camp, no matter where my work is set.

"I had been working on a future storyline connected to Cryptonomicon, but in attempting to write it I realized I needed to go back instead. So I did that, and it ended up taking seven years! The 'Baroque Cycle' project was never envisioned to be as big and long as it turned out to be. There's a line from Tolkien where he says, 'This tale grew in the telling.' I'm reluctant to quote that directly because it sounds like I'm copping an attitude, but that's what happened with this: it started out smaller and got bigger. I never slogged. I enjoyed every minute of writing it. Of course, I badly wanted to get to the end, but when I did, I was sad it was over. At various points along the line, I tried various superstitious tactics; at one point I said, 'I'm not gonna cut my hair until this thing is done.' I finally wound up on Christmas Eve 2003. A couple of weeks later I felt this overpowering need to have short hair again, so I just kept whacking until there was nothing left. And I plan to keep it that way."

*

"People keep asking me why I think of the 'Cycle' as science fiction. When I was a kid I used to read these huge anthologies of science fiction stories, and there would always be some oddball stories that were set during the Crusades, or with cave men, or what have you. They weren't overtly science fiction, but there didn't seem to be any doubt in anyone's mind that they belonged. I ma

Add one pre-order

[Karellen !-P]

I just finished the second installment and was left wanting more. It may be somewhat long winded but, for the history-loving geek in me, there is no better. This is the first time I ever pre-ordered a book before it's release. Now I'm gonna wait it out by playing Europa Universalis II :-P

Re:If you said, "Who?"

[damiangerous]

For those who, like me, hadn't heard of this guy

Hey, welcome to your first day at Slashdot!

The meaning of "baroque"

[Scrameustache]

I loved Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, but the Baroque Cycle ... got 2/3rds into Quicksilver and put it away. I liked the story in the abstract and where he was going with it, but it was *way* too long at getting to the point.

Its not like he didn't warn you.
If the fact that it was a 900+ page "volume one of three" was clue one.
Naming the trilogy "baroque" was clue 2.

Main Entry: 1baroque
Pronunciation: b&-'rOk, ba-, -'räk, -'rok
Function: adjective
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: French, from Middle French barroque irregularly shaped (of a pearl), from Portuguese barroco irregularly shaped pearl
1 : of, relating to, or having the characteristics of a style of artistic expression prevalent especially in the 17th century that is marked generally by use of complex forms, bold ornamentation, and the juxtaposition of contrasting elements often conveying a sense of drama, movement, and tension
2 : characterized by grotesqueness, extravagance, complexity, or flamboyance

It was really long.
Instead of complaining that it is very long, you should not buy very long books. I complain that it was a bit drawn out too, but I finished it, and the second one, and I'm waiting for the third one. I feel I'm getting my mony's worth, personally.
: )

In the Beginning...

[FiloEleven]

...was the Command Line has got to be one of the best informative essays I have read. Nominally he's talking about operating systems, but he manages to throw in Batmobiles, Disney World, quake-proofing San Fran, and the venerable Hole Hawg drill. Quite entertaining even if you've already got the knowledge.

See? Now I'm reading it again instead of sleeping.

Stephenson and Pynchon

[stevemm81]

I keep thinking there's an amazing parallel between Neal Stephenson and Thomas Pynchon. Both wrote a couple of fairly easy to read, shorter humorous novels (OK, Stephenson's are much easier to read than Pynchon's, but you get the point...)Then, they both wrote long but excellent novels involving math, sex, World War II and a million other things; obviously, Cryptonomicon was influenced by Gravity's Rainbow.

But then, they both started writing long, excessively cute historical/science fiction about the Enlightenment. Pynchon had Mason&Dixon, which, for those who haven't read it, featured Vladimir&Estragon versions of the surveyors, in addition to every historical figure from that era, some anachronisms and other weirdness (a talking dog, a Feng Shui master...) a "Reverend Cherrycoke" and some other not-so-funny jokes like that.

Similarly, Quicksilver, which I could not even begin to penetrate, makes the mistake of being too cute, yet simultaneously dry, with all the Harvard/MIT references and every possible plot from the era (Leibniz/Newton, pirates, Ben Franklin, puritanism, etc.) I think I might have been able to finish it if it weren't for all those references to the "Massachusetts Institute of Technickal Arts."