Poll: What do you like to read?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Snow Crash ended the same way (in the same manner, I mean).

I don't get that. The endings are the most fun to write!

[Vitriola]

Snow Crash rules, and I think of it every day when i'm faced with the option of moving into my own storage locker.

Anyway, Diamond Age was just, I mean, imagine if you were making cereal in the morning, and you pour out your Cocoa Puffs of whatever you eat in the morning that makes you the spaz you are, and then you go to pour out the milk, and it's pouring, and it's white, and you're thinking 'yummy', and then the milk turns pink, then red, and a severed kitten head comes out of the milk opening and lands right on top of your nicely mounded pile of Cocoa Puffs. That's Diamond Age.

Anyone read Richard Calder's trilogy? I started that, and my dreams have never been the same. Also reading Pat Cadigan's 'Mindplayers'.

[looper]

Re: Diamond Age (& also P.K. Dick)

man, my ISP sucks...I'm at a library now for internet access *sniff*

I can see why people would think the Diamond Age's ending was too sudden...but I hadn't heard the sentiment till I read this thread...I thought it was a nice ending because, like (warning, minor to middlin' spoilers), it seemed to be a surprise ending: the reader's thinking, "Sh*t, how is she going to get out of this? Man, everything's f*cked", and then, BAM!, she pulls it all together and surprises everyone. That's what I thought anyway. Plus, I thought it was neat how, one theme of the whole book was being an orphan, being motherless and fatherless, and then...you know. I'm easy to please, though :)

I've read Snow Crash too and I prefer Diamond Age. Haven't read Cryptonomicon though.

...Androids and Ubik are both real nice, Jonesey. Although I had to grit my teeth for the first 30 pages or so of Ubik...it was just tough to hang in there till I got past that.

[looper]

I've read a bit of Beagle, though not <i>The Innkeeper's Song</i>. Specifically, <i>The Last Unicorn</i>, <i>A Fine and Private Place</i>, and <i>I See By My Outfit</i>.

Cool...yeah, Beagle just hasn't written a whole lot (last I checked). But I highly recommend The Innkeeper's Song. I've read it, The Last Unicorn, and A Fine and Private Place, and neither of those last two compared to Innkeeper's Song. I've read it repeatedly. I consider it to be fairly innovative, too, at least for the author...everything is told in the first person, but each chapter is told from a different character's perspective. One of the characters is not really human, more of a...erm, fox...and it really makes for some enjoyable reading.

[Protagonist X]

What didn't you like about the Diamond Age? I don't know anything about it except what's being said in this thread.

I liked it right up until the end, when Stephenson's editor apparently called him up and said, "Hey, that's 75,000 words. You can quit now."

Bruce

All his stuff ends like that, it's true. The most satisfying final paragraph I think he's written was at the end of In the Beginning Was the Command Line, which is (of all things) a nonfiction essay. I take that back: Zodiac actually coasts to a stop over the course of a few pages, instead of his customary "OK, all the plot threads are tied up, let's hit the brakes hard at the end of... hmm... this paragraph I'm typing right here."

[Cue SFX: screeching metal of beautiful train braking to zero mph in an absurdly brief timeframe.]

There was a maxim a screenwriting prof of mine had. Given the choice between ending the story (A) too soon, (B) too late, and (C) at the exact right time, which should you choose? His answer was that (A) and (C) are the same; you should always leave the audience wanting more.

When I ended Snow Crash, I wondered if Stephenson had had similar advice in the past and gone a little too aggressively with it. Still, he's one of my favorite living authors, and I loved all of his books (Diamond Age and even The Big U included) despite the endings. And I indeed wanted more when I was done with his books.

Anyway, Diamond Age was just, I mean, imagine if you were making cereal in the morning, and you pour out your Cocoa Puffs of whatever you eat in the morning that makes you the spaz you are, and then you go to pour out the milk, and it's pouring, and it's white, and you're thinking 'yummy', and then the milk turns pink, then red, and a severed kitten head comes out of the milk opening and lands right on top of your nicely mounded pile of Cocoa Puffs. That's Diamond Age.

Sorry, I'm not following you, other than that there was something other than the ending that really failed to light your fire?

[Protagonist X]

On a related tangent:

Since interest in Neal Stephenson seems to be a common theme around here, I thought I'd mention that he's giving a live talk this Thursday (May 01 2003) at CMU, 4:30 pm EDT. Even better, though: it's being webcast.

Link: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~streaming/


You apparently need quicktime plus a special, Carnegie-Mellon-specific plugin --> http://infocom.cmcl.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin- ... .cgi?uid=4


They mention support for Windows, and some flavors of Debian and Redhat (I don't know what distro Bruce and the other Linux users favor).

[Protagonist X]

Work in Progress by Neal Stephenson
<<< Cancelled >>>


Description:

We are sorry that Neal Stephenson has
great concerns about live broadcasting
the lecture over the internet. So we will
not be able to broadcast this one to you.

Do you hear that noise? That is the sound of my fucking heart breaking.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Great concerns?! The guy wrote a cyberpunk novel and is too much of a pussy to allow his visage to be broadcast over the Internet?

Well, that will just about do it for me and reading books.

[Protagonist X]

See, he's always struck me as a really bright guy, so maybe he actually has a good reason for this. I just can't imagine what it is.

Maybe he's worried that CMU's webcasting server being slashdotted will screw up University research? I dunno.