I know music better than movies. Periodically, music all starts to sound the same, largely because it has become incestuously derivative. But whenever that happens, the music scene renews itself by returning to its roots. In America, that means the blues and British/Appalachian folk music.
George Martin and the Beatles introduced amazing new studio technology, which revolutionized music. It has now become normal and commonplace, and it no longer feels innovative. But other people continued performing and listening to blues and folk, so that reservoir of tradition was still there to draw on. I suspect that movies will be okay as long as somebody preserves and continues the older methods.
My friend Mike worked for years as a self-taught commercial artist, working for newspapers. Eventually, he went to college to study art formally. He experimented with old-fashioned techniques like egg tempera, casein, and natural pigments. His professors were curious and interested in what he was doing because they had never been taught any of that. Maybe it is possible to revive older artistic techniques even when they have passed out of common use, as long as they are well documented.
I loved Snow Crash (and Zodiac and some of his earlier stuff), but to me, he really hit his stride when he went to the long-format books. I think Anathem was the first of them, and I've read it several times, too. Diamond Age really never grabbed me, even tho it's the one everyone talks about. REAMDE is basically a running firefight for 800 pages, and is incredibly well done (and has a fair bit less of a sci-fi element to it, if that helps).
Cryptonomicon is amazing, I've read it multiple times. Snow Crash is of course incredible. The Baroque Cycle was... a slog. I bought and read them all, but couldn't tell you much about what happened. After that series, he never quite returned to the form he had in Anathem or REAMDE, both of which are incredible (for wildly different reasons). The Mongoliad was excellent, too, tho it was a collab effort. I love the premise and the first half of Seveneves, but the 2nd half falls down a bit (tho still worth a read). Haven't made it thru Termination Shock yet, but I'm gonna have to give it another go -- esp since he has a new book out now!
Funny that we disagree on Cryptonomicon, I am heavily involved in implementing cryptographic algorithms, I have two DRM patents from Microsoft (given their state, that should not be read as a boast). Yet the only thing I remember from the book is using the CapLock and NumLock lights to send Morse code.
Edit: I will NEVER put a penny into cryptocurrencies.
Yea, cryptocurrency is a ponzi scheme, by definition, so I'm not sinking money into that scam. My favourite bits of Cryptonomicon were the WWII Sgt Shaftoe chapters (tho the "modern day" trip into the jungle is epic and SO well written, esp the letter about driving behind the pig truck). Given, I probably don't have the technical knowledge of cryptography that you do, but I thought it was a good primer for it, esp the bits about Adam Turing and Bletchley Park.
I thought Seveneves was horrid. First of all, we never learned why the moon suddenly began to crumble, but it reminded me of a Paddy Chayevsky book e.g. Altered States or Network: good premise, great buildup, and then 2/3 of the way through it just falls apart and made me feel I'd wasted time I could've better spent reading something more educational. I would not consider reading it again. The title feels like an afterthought, as if he came up with the seven Eves wondering "how can I wrap this up."
I'll give this new one a shot. But if it turns out as disappointing as everything since DA, I won't slog through the series.
I love Seveneves, but it definitely feels like a 700-or-so-page prologue to a more interesting series about the evolution of humanity. I really hope he gets a chance to revisit that world in a sequel. Might take a successful TV adaptation to spark interest.
If you haven't finished (or even started) them, I can't recommend REAMDE and Anathem highly enough. Neither feels like 800 pages, since he is (was) so good at keeping things moving (The Baroque Cycle notwithstanding lol).
Anathem, I found unreadable. Intellectual cock-polishing; it felt like Stephenson has had too many people tell him how smart he is.
I just read about README as I bought the new book (yay Kindle) and, sorry, but I have no interest in games, none have ever held my interest.
I have a long time friend who has been in the game industry most of his life who tells me that the big game companies hire psychologists specializing in addiction to adjust the reward intervals in their products to entice kids to keep playing, I foresee VR games where kids wet themselves and forget to eat.
In general, I'm not drawn to entertainment, I have not watched TV in 40 years and when I do read fiction I want it to stimulate my mind, not just burn up time, something that is running out for me.
If I was reading README I would be struggling with my disdain for gams the entire time.
None of which interest me in the slightest. I have had a life goal for years, to read and understand Gravitation by Misner Thorne and Wheeler (http://bit.ly/3BSQk6h) the authoritative tome on general relativity, and far over my head; I thought I had many years left but suddenly I don't; a sequel to a book I found so disappointing is not in the stars, sorry.
I know music better than movies. Periodically, music all starts to sound the same, largely because it has become incestuously derivative. But whenever that happens, the music scene renews itself by returning to its roots. In America, that means the blues and British/Appalachian folk music.
George Martin and the Beatles introduced amazing new studio technology, which revolutionized music. It has now become normal and commonplace, and it no longer feels innovative. But other people continued performing and listening to blues and folk, so that reservoir of tradition was still there to draw on. I suspect that movies will be okay as long as somebody preserves and continues the older methods.
My friend Mike worked for years as a self-taught commercial artist, working for newspapers. Eventually, he went to college to study art formally. He experimented with old-fashioned techniques like egg tempera, casein, and natural pigments. His professors were curious and interested in what he was doing because they had never been taught any of that. Maybe it is possible to revive older artistic techniques even when they have passed out of common use, as long as they are well documented.
I love Neal, but his last couple outings have left me kind of meh. Hopefully this will signal a return to his incredible form from Reamde and Anathem.
I couldn’t get fifty pages into Anathem. I can’t remember a word and it hadn’t crossed my mind since, until I read your mention.
His quote from Diamond Age about education versus intelligence is probably my favorite ever, I cherish it, but nothing since DA has held my interest.
I loved Snow Crash (and Zodiac and some of his earlier stuff), but to me, he really hit his stride when he went to the long-format books. I think Anathem was the first of them, and I've read it several times, too. Diamond Age really never grabbed me, even tho it's the one everyone talks about. REAMDE is basically a running firefight for 800 pages, and is incredibly well done (and has a fair bit less of a sci-fi element to it, if that helps).
I also have Atmosphaera Incognita, which isn't quite... anything but a collector's item.
Stephenson bears the distinction of becoming less interesting with each book, even as his brilliance becomes more evident.
I read Snow Crash a dozen times; The Diamond Age half as many I struggled to finish Cryptonomicon. I didn’t even start on the Baroque Cycle.
Still, the topic of this emerging series is one dear to my heart, Bohr and Dirac are my heroes, we shall see.
Cryptonomicon is amazing, I've read it multiple times. Snow Crash is of course incredible. The Baroque Cycle was... a slog. I bought and read them all, but couldn't tell you much about what happened. After that series, he never quite returned to the form he had in Anathem or REAMDE, both of which are incredible (for wildly different reasons). The Mongoliad was excellent, too, tho it was a collab effort. I love the premise and the first half of Seveneves, but the 2nd half falls down a bit (tho still worth a read). Haven't made it thru Termination Shock yet, but I'm gonna have to give it another go -- esp since he has a new book out now!
Funny that we disagree on Cryptonomicon, I am heavily involved in implementing cryptographic algorithms, I have two DRM patents from Microsoft (given their state, that should not be read as a boast). Yet the only thing I remember from the book is using the CapLock and NumLock lights to send Morse code.
Edit: I will NEVER put a penny into cryptocurrencies.
Yea, cryptocurrency is a ponzi scheme, by definition, so I'm not sinking money into that scam. My favourite bits of Cryptonomicon were the WWII Sgt Shaftoe chapters (tho the "modern day" trip into the jungle is epic and SO well written, esp the letter about driving behind the pig truck). Given, I probably don't have the technical knowledge of cryptography that you do, but I thought it was a good primer for it, esp the bits about Adam Turing and Bletchley Park.
I thought Seveneves was horrid. First of all, we never learned why the moon suddenly began to crumble, but it reminded me of a Paddy Chayevsky book e.g. Altered States or Network: good premise, great buildup, and then 2/3 of the way through it just falls apart and made me feel I'd wasted time I could've better spent reading something more educational. I would not consider reading it again. The title feels like an afterthought, as if he came up with the seven Eves wondering "how can I wrap this up."
I'll give this new one a shot. But if it turns out as disappointing as everything since DA, I won't slog through the series.
I love Seveneves, but it definitely feels like a 700-or-so-page prologue to a more interesting series about the evolution of humanity. I really hope he gets a chance to revisit that world in a sequel. Might take a successful TV adaptation to spark interest.
If you haven't finished (or even started) them, I can't recommend REAMDE and Anathem highly enough. Neither feels like 800 pages, since he is (was) so good at keeping things moving (The Baroque Cycle notwithstanding lol).
Anathem, I found unreadable. Intellectual cock-polishing; it felt like Stephenson has had too many people tell him how smart he is.
I just read about README as I bought the new book (yay Kindle) and, sorry, but I have no interest in games, none have ever held my interest.
I have a long time friend who has been in the game industry most of his life who tells me that the big game companies hire psychologists specializing in addiction to adjust the reward intervals in their products to entice kids to keep playing, I foresee VR games where kids wet themselves and forget to eat.
In general, I'm not drawn to entertainment, I have not watched TV in 40 years and when I do read fiction I want it to stimulate my mind, not just burn up time, something that is running out for me.
If I was reading README I would be struggling with my disdain for gams the entire time.
I love REAMDE and it's only nominally about "video games"; really, it's about money and finances and the internationalization of commerce.
None of which interest me in the slightest. I have had a life goal for years, to read and understand Gravitation by Misner Thorne and Wheeler (http://bit.ly/3BSQk6h) the authoritative tome on general relativity, and far over my head; I thought I had many years left but suddenly I don't; a sequel to a book I found so disappointing is not in the stars, sorry.