Anathem

[vimes]

The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory. [...] A bullet will bounce off its arachnofiber [...]. The punks in Gila Highlands weren't afraid of the gun, so the Deliverator was forced to use it. But swords need no demonstration.

The use of noun as titles, made up technical vocabulary and badass phrasing like that sound to me so self indulgent that it makes my flesh crawl. For similar reason, Metal Hurlant styled comics and a big part of Frazetta's work affect me similarly.

Still, a friend lent me The Diamond Age, so I'm giving it a try.

[brkl]

The Deliverator delivers pizza.

[vimes]

Ah, well. So this is self parody ?

I still don't like it.

[brkl]

Well, Diamond Age is totally different in any case.

[thl]

I haven't read Reamde yet but I was so taken with Anathem that I pushed it on several people who hadn't read any Stephenson and got universal praise from them. Other than that, I prefer Diamond Age to Snow Crash although I haven't read either in a long time. I'd place the Baroque Cycle books at the bottom just because it's such a trudge to get through. By the end, it's very rewarding but the journey can be problematic.

I also got a kick out of The Big U, in a first-novel kind of way.

[Chris]

I haven't read Reamde yet but I was so taken with Anathem that I pushed it on several people who hadn't read any Stephenson and got universal praise from them. Other than that, I prefer Diamond Age to Snow Crash although I haven't read either in a long time. I'd place the Baroque Cycle books at the bottom just because it's such a trudge to get through. By the end, it's very rewarding but the journey can be problematic.

I also got a kick out of The Big U, in a first-novel kind of way.

Oh man, I've read The Big U. I guess I have read one Stephenson book.

[brkl]

I haven't even heard of it.

EDIT: Ahahah.

By the time Snow Crash was published, The Big U was out of print, and Stephenson was content to leave it that way. When original editions began selling on eBay for hundreds of dollars, he relented and allowed it to be republished, saying that the only thing worse than people reading the book was paying that much to read it.

[Twig]

Haha that's pretty great.