neal stephenson books

[rmd]

i finally finished "system of the world" the other day (the third of the brick-like baroque cycle trilogy).

then i had to go skim through "cryptonomicon" again, because several of the really peculiar things in cryptonomicon are explained or at least informed by the baroque books.

overall, a fun set of books. i was loving the random historical cruft, so i didn't mind that stephenson seems to have tried to shoehorn all the historical trivia into the books.

Comments

[coraline]

how did i manage to not even hear about this coming out?

[rmd.livejournal.com]

it was a big conspiracy. but now i've gone and told you.

[tinlail.livejournal.com]

I got the second book but didn't read it cause I didn't feel like carrying around that much state information, waiting for the third. All I need now is enough time, and back strenght to read all three in a row.

[waysofseeing.livejournal.com]

I've often described Stephenson as a frustrated technical writer. The plots of his books are generally incredibly straightforward, but he'll bring the whole book to a screeching halt for 20 pages while he goes off on a rant about #TOPIC.

Love Cryptonomicon. Haven't read any of the Baroque Cycle; I don't have six months to spare.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

the baroque books do explain what the gold punchcards in the submarine in cryptonomicon are. :-)

[tcb.livejournal.com]

I just finished Declare by Tim Powers.. it felt very similar to Stephenson and Cryptonomicon in a lot of ways, but completely fun in its own right. plus, he put in an explanatory epilogue that talked about all of his sources :)