Let’s just agree that the fact that an author can produce an oeuvre that is so varied that it has people agreeing he’s great, but disagreeing vehemently on which of his books are treasure or trash, is pretty impressive. For my part, DA suffers the most from NS’ “awesome premise, rushed ending” tendency. Seveneves (who doesn’t love a pali…
Let’s just agree that the fact that an author can produce an oeuvre that is so varied that it has people agreeing he’s great, but disagreeing vehemently on which of his books are treasure or trash, is pretty impressive. For my part, DA suffers the most from NS’ “awesome premise, rushed ending” tendency. Seveneves (who doesn’t love a palindrome?!?) and Anathem are favorites. Fall… and Termination Shock are probably the biggest misses, though even the latter has some interesting ideas.
This veers perilously close to a "subjective" argument, which I want even less than an argument in general.
The first half dozen or so books by Greg Egan are among my favorite science fiction ever, up there with Pohl and Cherryh. Then his interesting dalliance with speculative physics (Schild's Ladder) advanced to unreadable tedium, worsened by his new fascination with Iranian culture, and I put Zendegi and Clockwork Rocket into a trash bin.
Yet once in a while he does a short story every bit as good as Distress or Permutation City.
Just as all my favorite progressive bands went pop or just lost it, I can't expect a writer to maintain the same quality all his life.
Let’s just agree that the fact that an author can produce an oeuvre that is so varied that it has people agreeing he’s great, but disagreeing vehemently on which of his books are treasure or trash, is pretty impressive. For my part, DA suffers the most from NS’ “awesome premise, rushed ending” tendency. Seveneves (who doesn’t love a palindrome?!?) and Anathem are favorites. Fall… and Termination Shock are probably the biggest misses, though even the latter has some interesting ideas.
This veers perilously close to a "subjective" argument, which I want even less than an argument in general.
The first half dozen or so books by Greg Egan are among my favorite science fiction ever, up there with Pohl and Cherryh. Then his interesting dalliance with speculative physics (Schild's Ladder) advanced to unreadable tedium, worsened by his new fascination with Iranian culture, and I put Zendegi and Clockwork Rocket into a trash bin.
Yet once in a while he does a short story every bit as good as Distress or Permutation City.
Just as all my favorite progressive bands went pop or just lost it, I can't expect a writer to maintain the same quality all his life.