Next Neal Stephenson?
Ilya the Recusant
Ilya the Recusant
-----------------
"Asshole" has a special place in my childhood, the point at which I
first learned that typical Americans were assholes.
- C&J
----
www.livejournal.com/users/ohilya
Charlie Stross
as <q...@deadspam.net> declared:
> Has there been any news (at all) regarding Stephenson's next novel?
>
Not that I'm aware of.
Idle speculation: either he's stopped writing for a few years to pursue
other interests, or his next book is going to be big, for values of
Cryptonomicon scale bigness. (It took him seven years to write the
Baroque Cycle. It's already been a couple of years since "The System of
the World" came out. Therefore, if he's not taking time out, he's had
sufficient time to emit another wrist-breaker.
One thing I will say: On the basis of his interviews and public
statements, I have no reason to believe that he next novel will be a
slim, 150 page long volume that is free of digressions, curlicues,
diverticulae, lacunae, footnotes, appendices (veriform and otherwise),
endnotes, illuminating codicils, cryptograms, caveats, perambulations on
foot through the Black Forest while meditating upon the impact of 16th
century silver-working techniques on biodiversity west of the Urals,
gothick embelishments, whoopee cushions, monologues, flights of fancy,
barock excrescenses, meditations upon the manifest evils of Livejournal,
dialogues upon the nature of True Love meandering betwixt pillar and
post while the disputants duel with grenade-carrying carrier pigeons,
exploding cigars, maps of uncharted territories, and divers alarums and
excursions.
-- Charlie
Ilya the Recusant
Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
>as <q...@deadspam.net> declared:
>
>> Has there been any news (at all) regarding Stephenson's next novel?
>>
>
>Not that I'm aware of.
>
>Idle speculation: either he's stopped writing for a few years to pursue
>other interests, or his next book is going to be big, for values of
>Cryptonomicon scale bigness. (It took him seven years to write the
>Baroque Cycle. It's already been a couple of years since "The System of
>the World" came out. Therefore, if he's not taking time out, he's had
>sufficient time to emit another wrist-breaker.
Aside from the Baroque Cycle, there seems to be a common four-year
span between novels.
>One thing I will say: On the basis of his interviews and public
>statements, I have no reason to believe that he next novel will be a
>slim, 150 page long volume that is free of digressions, curlicues,
>diverticulae, lacunae, footnotes, appendices (veriform and otherwise),
>endnotes, illuminating codicils, cryptograms, caveats, perambulations on
>foot through the Black Forest while meditating upon the impact of 16th
>century silver-working techniques on biodiversity west of the Urals,
>gothick embelishments, whoopee cushions, monologues, flights of fancy,
>barock excrescenses, meditations upon the manifest evils of Livejournal,
>dialogues upon the nature of True Love meandering betwixt pillar and
>post while the disputants duel with grenade-carrying carrier pigeons,
>exploding cigars, maps of uncharted territories, and divers alarums and
>excursions.
Gah.
That was poet, beautiful, and frightening.
>-- Charlie
Anthony Cerrato
"Charlie Stross" <cha...@antipope.org> wrote in message
news:43f1jaF...@individual.net...
I suspect you are right and I dunno if I ever wanna read him
again if he does. IMO, he has ruined his career with that
last monstrosity. (Note: I just loved his Snow Crash and
Diamond Age books!) ...tonyC
> -- Charlie
Phillip SanMiguel
[...]
>
> One thing I will say: On the basis of his interviews and public
> statements, I have no reason to believe that he next novel will be a
> slim, 150 page long volume that is free of digressions, curlicues,
> diverticulae, lacunae, footnotes, appendices (veriform and otherwise),
> endnotes, illuminating codicils, cryptograms, caveats, perambulations on
> foot through the Black Forest while meditating upon the impact of 16th
> century silver-working techniques on biodiversity west of the Urals,
> gothick embelishments, whoopee cushions, monologues, flights of fancy,
> barock excrescenses, meditations upon the manifest evils of Livejournal,
> dialogues upon the nature of True Love meandering betwixt pillar and
> post while the disputants duel with grenade-carrying carrier pigeons,
> exploding cigars, maps of uncharted territories, and divers alarums and
> excursions.
>
>
> -- Charlie
So that's Charlie channeling Stephenson, channeling Pynchon. Is Pynchon
the founder of this device?
Wim Lewis
Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
> ... appendices (veriform and otherwise), ...
I am amusing myself by trying to decide whether that's a typo,
or a clever coinage to describe the nonfiction (truthful) appendices
to a fiction book. And if it is a typo, is it a typo for "vermiform"
or for "verbiform"?
Does anyone know how The Baroque Cycle has affected Stephenson's
popularity with publishers? Plus or minus? I get the impression it
didn't sell as well as was hoped. (Which is a pity; it's an interesting
series of books, just ... not quite interesting enough to *me*.
I'm still intending to continue reading it someday...)
--
Wim Lewis <wi...@hhhh.org>, Seattle, WA, USA. PGP keyID 27F772C1
junior-kun
Ilya the Recusant
I thought that was technically Laurence Sterne, who was then channeled
by Herman Melville, who was then upped again by James Joyce, who was
channeling Melville channeling Sterne. Until Pynchon, who channeled
Joyce, who ... and finally, of course Stephenson.
And Charlie.
But let us not consider such a monstrous concept. It makes the soul
heavy with grief.
ke...@kmsi.net
>I suspect you are right and I dunno if I ever wanna read him
>again if he does. IMO, he has ruined his career with that
>last monstrosity. (Note: I just loved his Snow Crash and
>Diamond Age books!)
Interesting. I read all three volumes of the "monstrosity" and enjoyed
them immensely. Didn't expect to (I have little time for historicals and
fantasy), still don't know exactly _why_ I enjoyed them -- but I find
myself thinking of them often. A fascinating story of the origins of
modern science (loved the early chemistry), with plenty of sf-style
swashbuckling. Permanently changed my view on that time in history.
Kind of like cyberpunk in reverse, perhaps.
Stephenson is one of my all-time favorite writers, and the Cycle only
reinforced that.
/kenw
Ken Wallewein
K&M Systems Integration
Phone (403)274-7848
Fax (403)275-4535
ke...@kmsi.net
www.kmsi.net
David A Molnar
> Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
> as <q...@deadspam.net> declared:
>> Has there been any news (at all) regarding Stephenson's next novel?
>>
> Not that I'm aware of.
> Idle speculation: either he's stopped writing for a few years to pursue
> other interests, or his next book is going to be big, for values of
> Cryptonomicon scale bigness. (It took him seven years to write the
I saw a reading in 2003 at Cody's in Berkeley. He made an offhand remark
about wanting to do a shorter novel as a "palate cleanser." No telling
if that will actually pan out, or if it will expand as you say...
-David Molnar
Ilya the Recusant
>"Anthony Cerrato" <tcer...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>>I suspect you are right and I dunno if I ever wanna read him
>>again if he does. IMO, he has ruined his career with that
>>last monstrosity. (Note: I just loved his Snow Crash and
>>Diamond Age books!)
>
>Interesting. I read all three volumes of the "monstrosity" and enjoyed
>them immensely. Didn't expect to (I have little time for historicals and
>fantasy), still don't know exactly _why_ I enjoyed them -- but I find
>myself thinking of them often. A fascinating story of the origins of
>modern science (loved the early chemistry), with plenty of sf-style
>swashbuckling. Permanently changed my view on that time in history.
The blatantly anachronistic dialogue and behaviour didn't frustrate
you?
I tried so hard to get through Quicksilver, and it just drove me mad.
Endless regressions are okay in my book (I had no problem with
anything yet published by Pynchon), but mother of saints, the
characters just never grabbed me.
>Kind of like cyberpunk in reverse, perhaps.
Or post-cyberpunk in reverse. Or science-fiction in reverse?
>Stephenson is one of my all-time favorite writers, and the Cycle only
>reinforced that.
Ditto. Cryptonomicon made me swoon with praise, love and rock candy
for him.
>/kenw
>Ken Wallewein
>K&M Systems Integration
>Phone (403)274-7848
>Fax (403)275-4535
>ke...@kmsi.net
>www.kmsi.net
Phillip SanMiguel
> In a not so bright galaxy nowhere near intelligent space,
> ke...@kmsi.net wrote:
>
>>"Anthony Cerrato" <tcer...@optonline.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I suspect you are right and I dunno if I ever wanna read him
>>>again if he does. IMO, he has ruined his career with that
>>>last monstrosity. (Note: I just loved his Snow Crash and
>>>Diamond Age books!)
>>
>>Interesting. I read all three volumes of the "monstrosity" and enjoyed
>>them immensely. Didn't expect to (I have little time for historicals and
>>fantasy), still don't know exactly _why_ I enjoyed them -- but I find
>>myself thinking of them often. A fascinating story of the origins of
>>modern science (loved the early chemistry), with plenty of sf-style
>>swashbuckling. Permanently changed my view on that time in history.
>
>
> The blatantly anachronistic dialogue and behaviour didn't frustrate
> you?
>
> I tried so hard to get through Quicksilver, and it just drove me mad.
> Endless regressions are okay in my book (I had no problem with
> anything yet published by Pynchon), but mother of saints, the
> characters just never grabbed me.
>
No problem with _Mason & Dixon_? I've yet to get through it. All
Pynchon's other stuff I got through. But I fall asleep in those long
sentences in _Mason & Dixon_.
Ilya the Recusant
I don't tend to have problems with Pynchon. And at least the language
is (more or less) consistent. Which is one of the reasons why I find
the BC so turgid and aggrivating - the whiplashing back and forth of
modern/17th century speak is maddening to me. Also - a Rev.Cherrycoke?
Amusing!
Huw.H...@gmail.com
excerpt on an interview with NS explaingin this:
"NS: A person writing a historical, swashbuckler, potboiler epic in
2003 can't pretend that this is the first such book that's ever been
written. People have been writing such books for hundreds of years. The
classic example would be the works of Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo,
The Three Musketeers, and so on. If you go back and look at those
books, you can see that they are partly historically correct, or as
close as one can come to that. But they are also partly a product of
their times. When you read a Victorian swashbuckler novel set 200 years
earlier, you can tell that it's a Victorian novel. It's got all this
stuff in there that only Victorians would have put in. The literary
style is Victorian, the diction is Victorian. And that's true, mutatis
mutandis, for any historical novel written in any period.
I never tried to entertain the illusion that I was going to write
something that had no trace of the 20th century or the 21st century in
it. It's a given that a book is going to reflect the time in which it
is written. I didn't feel a strong compulsion to avoid such
anachronisms, and if something came up that I thought might be funny,
or that might work, I would just go ahead and slap it in there."
Ilya the Recusant
>Re "The blatantly anachronistic dialogue and behaviour" here is an
>excerpt on an interview with NS explaingin this:
In effect: I gots my Artistic Literary License, punk.
Yes yes, that is all well and good. And it would not have been so
utterly annoying as it already is that he would insert excessively
jarring 20th century phrases ("location location location!"? Gah). But
it's one thing if it's the saying it, it's another if it's the
characters saying it. But his argument of "just 'cause the other kids
did it, so I'm gonna do the same" isn't the mightiest of
legitimizations (not that I think he actually needs one).
However, when Byatt or Pynchon (recalling two writers whose works I've
read recently) write historical-fiction, an attempt is made at a
greater sense of, let's say, consistency, for a lack of a better word.
The characters behave as they might have in the 19th century, in
Possession, just as their 20th century counter-parts behave in manners
that are a reflection of the epoch in which they live.
Yet Eliza is a 21st century gal in a 17th century kind of world, and
my reaction is one of having my suspending of disbelief annulled. And
while Charlie's comment - that the reader can use her as a means to
contrast contemporary behaviour with ealry modern behaviour - is a
fair and legitimate one, that is not the only legitimate analysis of
the text. Another would be that without a signifier dictating or
pointing out that she is in fact meant to function as Charlie
suggests, Liza appears to some (such as myself) rather as a completely
implausible character.
Mind you, none of this is meant to slander those readers who actually
enjoyed the B.C., these are just the criticisms and observations that
came to mind as I struggled through the first novel. This after having
been utterly floored by the prosaic hilarity of Snow Crash and
Cryptonomicon.
ke...@kmsi.net
>The blatantly anachronistic dialogue and behaviour didn't frustrate
>you?
Actually, no. I found it playful, and sometimes made me stop and ponder on
the evolution of the ideas expressed -- whether any real people of that
time would have expressed related concepts, or concepts that led to them.
Invariably, they were important.
I didn't think of the books as purely historical drama. They were
explorations of the evolution of the concepts upon which modern science and
civilization are based.
>I tried so hard to get through Quicksilver, and it just drove me mad.
>Endless regressions are okay in my book (I had no problem with
>anything yet published by Pynchon), but mother of saints, the
>characters just never grabbed me.
Not sure what you mean about regressions -- maybe they just come naturally
to me. And I'm not a person who gets all wrapped up in characters and
their emotions. I focus more on ideas. But I definitely did get involved
with the characters, and still think back on them.
>>Kind of like cyberpunk in reverse, perhaps.
>
>Or post-cyberpunk in reverse. Or science-fiction in reverse?
Whatever. But as cyberpunk-type stories try to project current day
sociological/technical trends, NS was showing where today came from.
Ilya the Recusant
>
>>The blatantly anachronistic dialogue and behaviour didn't frustrate
>>you?
>
>Actually, no. I found it playful, and sometimes made me stop and ponder on
>the evolution of the ideas expressed -- whether any real people of that
>time would have expressed related concepts, or concepts that led to them.
>Invariably, they were important.
*blink*
Your patience for info-dumps amazes me.
>>I tried so hard to get through Quicksilver, and it just drove me mad.
>>Endless regressions are okay in my book (I had no problem with
>>anything yet published by Pynchon), but mother of saints, the
>>characters just never grabbed me.
>
>Not sure what you mean about regressions -- maybe they just come naturally
>to me. And I'm not a person who gets all wrapped up in characters and
>their emotions. I focus more on ideas. But I definitely did get involved
>with the characters, and still think back on them.
Regressions in so much that development halts, in favour of
pontificating upon something to the point that it's no longer
interesting, beyond any tolerable limit.
>>>Kind of like cyberpunk in reverse, perhaps.
>>
>>Or post-cyberpunk in reverse. Or science-fiction in reverse?
>
>Whatever. But as cyberpunk-type stories try to project current day
>sociological/technical trends, NS was showing where today came from.
This seems to be what many say.
I'm not inclined to disagree.
>/kenw
>Ken Wallewein
>K&M Systems Integration
>Phone (403)274-7848
>Fax (403)275-4535
>ke...@kmsi.net
>www.kmsi.net
Michael Hellwig
> Regressions in so much that development halts, in favour of
> pontificating upon something to the point that it's no longer
> interesting, beyond any tolerable limit.
>
Interesting. To me, that is exactly the point why I _do_ love reading
stuff by Stephenson. The way I see it, the story exists as an excuse for
cool infodumps.
--
Michael Hellwig aka The Eye olymp.idle.at admin
to contact me via email, use michael...@uni-ulm.de
don't hesitate to look at http://laerm.or.at
bigwave
> stuff by Stephenson. The way I see it, the story exists as an excuse for
> cool infodumps.
I tend to agree. For me, Stephenson has only gotten better with time. I
eagerly await whatever he is working on.
Speaking of the Baroque Cycle reminds me that I saw the first
mass-market volume yesterday. It is entitled Quicksilver but it is not
the same as the trade or hardcover editions of Quicksilver. In
fact, as far as I could tell, it is only the first part (of three) of
the previously released editions of Quicksilver. Does anyone know how
many books there will be total in the mass-market version of the
Baroque Cycle?
-Dave
Ilya the Recusant
Presumably all nine(?) books.
>-Dave
Dave Ondegrande
> In a not so bright galaxy nowhere near intelligent space, "bigwave"
> <dsd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Interesting. To me, that is exactly the point why I _do_ love reading
> >> stuff by Stephenson. The way I see it, the story exists as an excuse for
> >> cool infodumps.
> >
> >I tend to agree. For me, Stephenson has only gotten better with time. I
> >eagerly await whatever he is working on.
> >
> >Speaking of the Baroque Cycle reminds me that I saw the first
> >mass-market volume yesterday. It is entitled Quicksilver but it is not
> >the same as the trade or hardcover editions of Quicksilver. In
> >fact, as far as I could tell, it is only the first part (of three) of
> >the previously released editions of Quicksilver. Does anyone know how
> >many books there will be total in the mass-market version of the
> >Baroque Cycle?
>
> Presumably all nine(?) books.
Actually it looks like it will be a total of eight. Three for
"Quicksilver", two for "The Confusion", and three for "The System of
the World".
-dave
Thomas Womack
I wonder whether the two books of "The Confusion" will be the first
and second halves of the published hardback, being _Bonanza_ and
_Juncto_ con-fused, or will be _Bonanza_ and _Juncto_ themselves?
I'm not sure it would be a fatal change to the pacing, but it would
definitely be a change.
Tom
Eudaemonic Plague
Matters not to me...I have them in hardcover, and wouldn't trade for
Trade, or mass-market editions at any price...just wish I could figure a
way to carry them around without damage.
David Cowie
>>Speaking of the Baroque Cycle reminds me that I saw the first
>>mass-market volume yesterday. It is entitled Quicksilver but it is not
>>the same as the trade or hardcover editions of Quicksilver. In
>>fact, as far as I could tell, it is only the first part (of three) of
>>the previously released editions of Quicksilver. Does anyone know how
>>many books there will be total in the mass-market version of the
>>Baroque Cycle?
>
Only the first part of _Quicksilver_? You seem to be living in the wrong
country :)
Amazon.co.uk has _Quicksilver_ in paperback in one volume. We don't have
the US trade/mass market division, but it's 926 pages for GBP 8.99, which
suggests that it's in "B" format (one inch taller and wider than a
standard PB).
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0099410680/
--
David Cowie
Containment Failure + 20348:06
Dave Ondegrande
> >>Speaking of the Baroque Cycle reminds me that I saw the first
> >>mass-market volume yesterday. It is entitled Quicksilver but it is not
> >>the same as the trade or hardcover editions of Quicksilver. In
> >>fact, as far as I could tell, it is only the first part (of three) of
> >>the previously released editions of Quicksilver. Does anyone know how
> >>many books there will be total in the mass-market version of the
> >>Baroque Cycle?
> >
>
> Only the first part of _Quicksilver_? You seem to be living in the wrong
> country :)
> Amazon.co.uk has _Quicksilver_ in paperback in one volume. We don't have
> the US trade/mass market division, but it's 926 pages for GBP 8.99, which
> suggests that it's in "B" format (one inch taller and wider than a
> standard PB).
Well... yes and no. The trade-paperback editions here (all of which
have been published) were the same as the hardcover editions.... 3
books total. The mass market editions are being done differently.
Quicksilver in 3 books, The Confusion in 2 books, and The System of the
World in 3 books. Having seen the mass market edition of Cryptonomicon
I can understand to a degree why they are doing this.
Dave
p.s. to answer someone else's question/query/comment somewhere
cross-thread it seems that The Confusion will be just published as
Confusion I and Confusion II and not as Bonanza con-fused and Juncto
con-fused...