Neal Stephenson's Next Book
Mike Ralls
going to be about? Has anyone heard anything about it? Anyone want to
make completly unsubstantiated statements about how it will suck or rule?
--
Mike Ralls
Andrew Wheeler
_Quicksilver_. April of '03 in the US. (Amazon UK still lists an earlier
date, but this is probably just an updating issue.) According to
_Locus_, he turned it in, so this is probably real.
Early word was that it was related to _Cryptonomicon_ (though possibly
set earlier in time).
It will be the greatest thing since sliced cheese.
--
Andrew Wheeler
--
"The world is quiet here."
-V.F.D.
Jaquandor
>> going to be about? Has anyone heard anything about it? Anyone want
>> to make completly unsubstantiated statements about how it will suck
>> or rule?
>
>_Quicksilver_. April of '03 in the US. (Amazon UK still lists an earlier
>date, but this is probably just an updating issue.) According to
>_Locus_, he turned it in, so this is probably real.
>
>Early word was that it was related to _Cryptonomicon_ (though possibly
>set earlier in time).
>
>It will be the greatest thing since sliced cheese.
We know *that*. How will it compare, though, with cheese in an aerosol can?
--
-Jaquandor
byzantiumshores.blogspot.com
"Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music."
--George Carlin
Eric Lee Green
> _Quicksilver_. April of '03 in the US. (Amazon UK still lists an earlier
> date, but this is probably just an updating issue.) According to
> _Locus_, he turned it in, so this is probably real.
> It will be the greatest thing since sliced cheese.
But will it have an ending that makes sense?
--
Eric Lee Green er...@badtux.org http://badtux.org
GnuPG public key at http://badtux.org/eric/eric.gpg
Steve Coltrin
> But will it have an ending that makes sense?
Not all of Stephenson's books have endings that don't make sense. Many
of them don't have endings at all; they just _stop_.
--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org
I am not interested in things getting better; what I want is more:
more human beings, more dreams, more history, more consciousness,
more suffering, more joy, more disease, more agony, more rapture,
more evolution, more life. -- from the _Meditations_ of Jin Zenimura
James Angove
> >It will be the greatest thing since sliced cheese.
>
> We know *that*. How will it compare, though, with cheese in an aerosol can?
It will, of course, be vastly inferior to cheese in an aerosol can.
But what isn't? Cheese in an aerosol can is the greatest advance in
technology since fire. Or possibly even before.
James
Mike Ralls
Jaquandor
I heard that Spam Whiz, Asparagus Whiz, and Scrambled Egg Whiz all failed to
impress during their test-marketing runs.
how...@brazee.net
On 15-Jun-2002, jaqu...@aol.comsinatra (Jaquandor) wrote:
> >I wonder if Cheeze is the only food that will ever come in Whiz format?
>
> I heard that Spam Whiz, Asparagus Whiz, and Scrambled Egg Whiz all failed
> to impress during their test-marketing runs.
But people do stop by the refrigerator for a shot of (generic) Cream Whiz.
Richard Shewmaker
With regard to Stephenson's books, everything I've read has been an
intellectual, not gastronomical, pleasure, and I've liked them all quite
a bit. I pre-ordered the upcoming book from Amazon.uk just in case it
comes out earlier there.
John Schilling
>In article <3D0A8D58...@optonline.com>, Andrew Wheeler ruminated:
>> _Quicksilver_. April of '03 in the US. (Amazon UK still lists an earlier
>> date, but this is probably just an updating issue.) According to
>> _Locus_, he turned it in, so this is probably real.
>> It will be the greatest thing since sliced cheese.
>But will it have an ending that makes sense?
That would require that it have an ending, so
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Steve Taylor
> It will be the greatest thing since sliced cheese.
Faint praise indeed!
Looking forward to it, though a bit scared of how large it might be.
I'd actually be very happy to see another "Stephen Bury" book - they're
not life changing, but the two so far have been good fun.
> Andrew Wheeler
Steve
Steve Taylor
> It will, of course, be vastly inferior to cheese in an aerosol can.
> But what isn't? Cheese in an aerosol can is the greatest advance in
> technology since fire.
Cheese in an aerosol can *with flammable propellant* would allow the
invention of spray-on toasted cheese, and render all previous inventions
obsolete.
> James
Steve
Htn963
One of my favorite dessert is creme bulee, a custard with a burnt and
crusty sugar top. One can only produce that effect with a blowtorch. A
blowtorch is indeed a useful kitchen utensil. Hmm, but what about just
holding a match in front of any aerosol can?
--
Ht
|Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore
never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
--John Donne, "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions"|
Steve Taylor
> One of my favorite dessert is creme bulee, a custard with a burnt and
> crusty sugar top. One can only produce that effect with a blowtorch. A
> blowtorch is indeed a useful kitchen utensil.
I've been wanting a little blowtorch for teh kitchen for a while now.
Fun tool.
> Hmm, but what about just
> holding a match in front of any aerosol can?
Well, as my childhood experiments showed, this works just fine with
flyspray. However, flyspray doesn't fit into any of the four major
foodgroups.
> Ht
Steve
James Angove
Mr. Taylor, you are my hero. I am stealing that and making it my new
.sig (not, alas, here as I use google, but still). Thank you. You
have brought joy to my otherwise bleak and meaningless existance.
James
Steve Taylor
>> Cheese in an aerosol can *with flammable propellant* would allow the
>> invention of spray-on toasted cheese, and render all previous inventions
>> obsolete.
> Mr. Taylor, you are my hero. I am stealing that and making it my new
> .sig (not, alas, here as I use google, but still). Thank you. You
> have brought joy to my otherwise bleak and meaningless existance.
Why bless you! And that wasn't even one of the good inventions. You
should see the windup perpetual motion machine I have in the garage.
> James
Steve
Robert Sneddon
<sm...@ozemail.com.au> writes
>
>Cheese in an aerosol can *with flammable propellant* would allow the
>invention of spray-on toasted cheese, and render all previous inventions
>obsolete.
I just had a James Nicolls moment when reading this...
--
Robert Sneddon nojay (at) nojay (dot) fsnet (dot) co (dot) uk
greymaus
> In article <3D0A8D58...@optonline.com>, Andrew Wheeler ruminated:
>> _Quicksilver_. April of '03 in the US. (Amazon UK still lists an earlier
>> date, but this is probably just an updating issue.) According to
>> _Locus_, he turned it in, so this is probably real.
> ...
>> It will be the greatest thing since sliced cheese.
>
> But will it have an ending that makes sense?
>
This is 2002 , does anyone still believe in endings that make sense ?
--
Greymaus;
Follow up , don't e-mail , my killfile is savage ;
Next Year In , well , wherever ;
Thomas Yan
> _Quicksilver_. April of '03 in the US. (Amazon UK still lists an earlier
> date, but this is probably just an updating issue.) According to
> _Locus_, he turned it in, so this is probably real.
>
> Early word was that it was related to _Cryptonomicon_ (though possibly
> set earlier in time).
There was a recent spoiler-filled (for Crypto) discussion here about
those books and, um, let's say Harry Potter. Here's a nice website
someone told me about that has helpful page numbers (why, no, even
with Bill Snyder's pointers, I didn't want to try to flip through the
book to find relevant passages; thanks for asking):
David Tate
> In article <slrnagll9...@badtux.org>, Eric Lee Green wrote:
> > In article <3D0A8D58...@optonline.com>, Andrew Wheeler ruminated:
> >> _Quicksilver_. April of '03 in the US.
> > But will it have an ending that makes sense?
> This is 2002 , does anyone still believe in endings that make sense ?
Yes, there are still a few of us geezers left, just as there are a few
of us who still think the best music involves melody, harmony, etc.
David Tate
Bill Snyder
I didn't realize the lack of page numbers would be so intimidating.
And there's a couple of things, one of which IMO is *highly*
significant, that aren't on said site, so . . .
[SPOILER WARNING]
Let's see . . . <flip, flip> around the middle of page 456, Bobby's
thinking that he should have died on Guadalcanal with his buddies, and
that his survival since is "sort of an extra bonus life . . . . like
Jesus after the resurrection." That could be ordinary survivor's
guilt and post-traumatic blahblah, BUT --
p. 542, Bobby prepares to leave after witnessing Root's death(?) and
the hooded figure sneaking out afterward with Rudy:
"'Later today I'm gonna get into that fucking Mercedes and drive into
Stockholm like a fucking bat out of hell,' Shaftoe says. Though the
Finns will never appreciate it, he has chosen the 'bat out of hell'
phrase for a good reason. He understands, now, why he has thought of
himself as a dead man ever since Guadalcanal."
I read that last sentence, particularly in connection with the earlier
passage, as confirming both the actuality of Enoch's death and the
power of the McGuffin in the cigar box. Not only did it bring Enoch
back from the dead, but Bobby himself died on Guadalcanal, as he now
realizes, and Enoch resurrected him.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Jay E. Morris
> In article <3D0BE5B0...@ozemail.com.au>, Steve Taylor
> <sm...@ozemail.com.au> writes
>
>>Cheese in an aerosol can *with flammable propellant* would allow the
>>invention of spray-on toasted cheese, and render all previous inventions
>>obsolete.
>
>
> I just had a James Nicolls moment when reading this...
The world ended not with a bang, nor a whimper, but buried in spray-on
toasted cheese.
--
Jay E. Morris
Epsilon 3 Productions
j...@epsilon3.com
ANYA: I found one of those 24-hour places for coffee. Remember that
bookstore? Well they became one of those books-and-coffee places, and
now they're just coffee. It's like evolution, only without the
getting-better part.
-----------
Steve Taylor
> Yes, there are still a few of us geezers left, just as there are a few
> of us who still think the best music involves melody, harmony, etc.
And distortion. Don't forget distortion!
> David Tate
Steve
SkyeFire
<sm...@ozemail.com.au> writes:
>
>I've been wanting a little blowtorch for teh kitchen for a while now.
>Fun tool.
How little? Radio Shack sells one about the size of a small cellphone for
under $20. Runs on Lighter Fluid (butane).
SkyeFire
<no...@nospam.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
>>Cheese in an aerosol can *with flammable propellant* would allow the
>>invention of spray-on toasted cheese, and render all previous inventions
>>obsolete.
>
> I just had a James Nicolls moment when reading this...
AOL
Thomas Yan
> On 16 Jun 2002 14:24:18 -0400, Thomas Yan <ty...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>
> >There was a recent spoiler-filled (for Crypto) discussion here about
> >those books and, um, let's say Harry Potter. Here's a nice website
> >someone told me about that has helpful page numbers (why, no, even
> >with Bill Snyder's pointers, I didn't want to try to flip through the
> >book to find relevant passages; thanks for asking):
> >
> > http://www.ibiblio.org/javafaq/cryptonomicon.html
>
> I didn't realize the lack of page numbers would be so intimidating.
It's a very, very good book, but it is also very, very big, and it's
been a while since I read it, so I was leery of trying to find them.
(A few days ago I tried to find something in Cyteen. I was pretty
sure it was in the first 2/3 of the book, which I had just finished
rereading. I kept flipping through the book and not seeing it. It
took me 4 or 5 tries before I finally found the paragraph. Grr.)
For example, when you said something about the [spoiler] death scene,
I didn't immediately have any idea what you were talking about.
> And there's a couple of things, one of which IMO is *highly*
> significant, that aren't on said site, so . . .
[snip additional stuff, with page numbers]
Thanks! Much appreciated. That, along with the site above, have me
convinced that you're definitely on to something, and even if you
haven't correctly identified the, um, "Harry Potter connection", at
least there is strong evidence for that hypothesis.
Andrew Wheeler
>
> Mike Ralls wrote:
> >
> > When is Neal Stephenson's next book going to be out, and what is it
> > going to be about? Has anyone heard anything about it? Anyone
> > want to make completly unsubstantiated statements about how it will
> > suck or rule?
>
> earlier date, but this is probably just an updating issue.) According
> to _Locus_, he turned it in, so this is probably real.
>
> Early word was that it was related to _Cryptonomicon_ (though
> possibly set earlier in time).
>
_Locus_ reports, in passing (it was an article about editor Jennifer
Hershey jumping from HarperCollins to Penguin Putnam) about Stephenson's
progress in the June issue.
What Locus said is that Stephenson had completed "a full first draft of
the first book in his three-volume novel," which makes it sound like the
early word may not be correct (or the tale grew in the telling, or
something like that).
--
Andrew Wheeler
--
"The world is quiet here."
-V.F.D.
jere7my tho?rpe
Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
> What Locus said is that Stephenson had completed "a full first draft of
> the first book in his three-volume novel," which makes it sound like the
> early word may not be correct (or the tale grew in the telling, or
> something like that).
Not necessarily -- _Cryptonomicon_ may be the second book in the
three-volume novel, and _Quicksilver_ the first.
----j7y
--
*************************************************************************
jere7my tho?rpe / 734-769-0913 "Homo sum: humani nihil a me
http://homepage.mac.com/jere7my alienum puto." ---Terentius
William December Starr
Steve Taylor <sm...@ozemail.com.au> said:
>> Hmm, but what about just
>> holding a match in front of any aerosol can?
>
> Well, as my childhood experiments showed, this works just fine with
> flyspray. However, flyspray doesn't fit into any of the four major
> foodgroups.
Does WD40 still make for a great flamethrower, or have they gone
non-flammable since my college days in the mid-1970s? (Room 511
of Baker House at MIT may still have scorch marks on some of the
bricks...)
-- William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
DaveMoore
Starr) wrote:
Ooohhhh Yeahh. My office can still has the "FLAMMABLE" label,
and my test last year was very satisfactory.
Still, I don't think WD-40 is all that great tasting either.
Maybe ethanol in one of those refillable spray bottles would
work, although it seems to me that various fire-breathing FAQs
advise against using it because it tends to, er, flare a bit
more than you might like. "Paraffin", which I think means
additive-free kerosene, is preferred, but it still tastes nasty.
--
Dave Moore == djm...@uh.edu == I speak for me.
In the wrong hands, sanity is a dangerous weapon.
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
Bah. Give me a band that relies on feedback, samples, distortion, and
a drum machine any day.
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"No one is safe. We will print no letters to the editor. We will give no
space to opposing points of view. They are wrong. The Underground Grammarian
is at war and will give the enemy nothing but battle." -TUG, v1n1
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> Robert Sneddon wrote:
>> In article <3D0BE5B0...@ozemail.com.au>, Steve Taylor
>> <sm...@ozemail.com.au> writes
>>>Cheese in an aerosol can *with flammable propellant* would allow the
>>>invention of spray-on toasted cheese, and render all previous inventions
>>>obsolete.
>> I just had a James Nicolls moment when reading this...
> The world ended not with a bang, nor a whimper, but buried in spray-on
> toasted cheese.
_How to Mutate and Take Over the World_, by R.U. Sirius (of Mondo 2000
infamy), ends with <spoiler>
anabgrpu-cebqhprq yrzba zrevathr cvr svyyvat tbvat ehanjnl naq
pbairegvat rirelguvat va gur jbeyq vagb yrzba zrevathr cvr.
</spoiler>
I'm not sure if I recommend it, but it's certainly a warning of some
kind.
David Cowie
>> Yes, there are still a few of us geezers left, just as there are a
>> few of us who still think the best music involves melody, harmony,
>> etc.
>
> Bah. Give me a band that relies on feedback, samples, distortion,
> and
> a drum machine any day.
>
Well, the drum machine takes care of rhythm, now all one has to do is
organise the feedback and samples in a tuneful way, and slap in some
distortion when dramatically appropriate.
--
David Cowie david_cowie at lineone dot net
So high, so low, so many things to know.
Simon van Dongen
>In article <3D0A8D58...@optonline.com>, Andrew Wheeler ruminated:
>> _Quicksilver_. April of '03 in the US. (Amazon UK still lists an earlier
>> date, but this is probably just an updating issue.) According to
>> _Locus_, he turned it in, so this is probably real.
>...
>> It will be the greatest thing since sliced cheese.
>
>But will it have an ending that makes sense?
>
It won't have an ending at all. That's where the sliced cheese comes
in. It doesn't have an end, a whatchamacallit, crust, rind, whatever.
Or at least, they don't sell it to you.
Simon
--
Simon van Dongen <sg...@xs4all.nl> Rotterdam, The Netherlands
'Bear courteous greetings to the accomplished musician outside our
gate, [...] and convince him - by means of a heavily-weighted club
if necessary - that the situation he has taken up is quite unworthy
of his incomparable efforts.' -Bramah, 'Kai Lung's Golden Hours'