An Interview with Neal Stephenson

http://electricliterature.com/the-people-who-survive-an-interview-with-neal-stephenson-author-of-seveneves/

by Thevet • 11 years ago

109 89 11 years ago

I just finished reading Seveneves (his latest book, which this interview is mostly about), and quite liked it. It is quite depressing though.

surge• 11 years ago

Good to hear, I've been looking for another hard science fiction book since The Martian.

dcre• 11 years ago

It's actually a lot more like The Martian than you might think. Most of the book is about how hard it is to live in space.

rs2322• 11 years ago

It definitely tickled some of the same parts of my curiosity. Grinding hard sci fi.

quickpost• 11 years ago

Seconded! I really enjoyed it - fun hard scifi and almost like two different books (and sets of characters) in one!

ipsin• 11 years ago

I'm sort of curious how you set up "and then the moon explodes".

Is this the sort of event that has a theoretical foundation in astronomy or physics?

zwily• 11 years ago

Something hits the moon with enough force to cause it to break apart. He doesn't speculate at all what it might have been. I think he'd say it doesn't really matter - It happened, now what?

EdwardCoffin6• 11 years ago

In the book the initial assumption was that it was hit by a tiny primordial fast-moving black hole. They never really follow-up on it, being distracted by issues of survival.

T-A• 11 years ago

Sorta-kinda-not-really. The closest thing to an explanation in the public excerpt [1] goes like this:

The most generally accepted theory was that the puff of dust observed by the Utah astronomer was caused by an impact. That the Agent, in other words, came from outside the moon, pierced its surface, burrowed deep into its center, and then released its energy. Or that it simply kept on going out the other side, depositing enough energy en route to break up the moon. Another hypothesis stated that the Agent was a device buried in the moon by aliens during primordial times, set to detonate when certain conditions were met.

[1] http://www.nealstephenson.com/news/2015/04/13/seveneves-exce...

Symmetry• 11 years ago

Not really, and the scenario has some other problems too[1]. But all sorts of books have fantastic premises, just look at Lord of the Rings! I can accept an awful lot of improbability in a book's setup as long as the plot given that premise makes enough sense. In Seveneves it did so I was happy.

[1]http://hopefullyintersting.blogspot.com/2015/06/seveneves-an...

grimman3• 11 years ago

I spent a long time pondering the premise of the subsequent planetary bombardment. Would the moon fragments really bang into one another the way they do in the book? Would it lead to massive fragmentation and ultimately the aforementioned bombardment?

jwr• 11 years ago

Neal Stephenson is my favorite contemporary writer. I really think he stands apart — his ideas are big, varied, and interesting, and he doesn't limit himself to one particular corner of fiction. Definitely worth checking out, if you haven't read his work.

I'd especially recommend "The Diamond Age" to start with.

Vaskivo• 11 years ago

I only read The Diamond Age. It's setting is grand, immaginative and full of detail. I was specially enamored with the concept of "ractors".

But the last 100 pages left me extremelly dissapointed. Some plot threads go nowhere, others intersect "just because". The whole ending sequence was weird and happened too fast. I guess there was some moral or meaning to the end, but if there was i just didn't get it).

And there was a disgusting thing that happened that left me really disturbed. (I'm usually NOT disturbed by that kind of situation. I guess I was just really attached to the character. And the way it was written was tactless and too casual).

But I loved the rest of the book. I think of it as a great meal with a crappy desert :)

EDIT: About "Ractors": After VR sets in, I can totally see "racting" being the next big thing for entertainment!

EDIT 2: Forgot a "not" in there.

xioxox• 11 years ago

I've read a few of his books, and what they seem to have in common are the badly written endings. He doesn't seem to be able to properly wrap up a book (although I haven't read the last couple of his).

bcgraham• 11 years ago

I understand where people are coming from when they say Stephenson's endings aren't up to snuff, but I disagree. His endings are usually like the ending of the first Matrix movie. Things are about to get very different for almost everyone; the story was about how that transformation happened, not what that transformation is. Saying anything further would feel, at best, extraneous. At worst, it would undermine the story that was just told.

chaosphere21122• 11 years ago

Snow Crash is much lighter fare, and my usual suggestion for people who want to try Neil Stephenson. Though with the audience here, Cryptonomicon is probably a good bet.

DanBC• 11 years ago

Zodiac is fun and lighter than Snow Crash.

grimman3• 11 years ago

Cryptonomicon was my first contact with Stephenson, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It also opened my eyes to WW2 crypto and a whole lot of other very interesting things!

beambot• 11 years ago

I still can't believe he willingly worked at Intellectual Ventures -- largely considered the most egregious (successful?) patent troll. I still purchase, read, and enjoy each of his books... but I feel a small pang of guilt knowing that some of his ideas may have originated from a shady organization.

Neal, if you're reading... perhaps you could shed some light and assuage our misgivings?

searine• 11 years ago

Also ripping off all his fans (including myself) on his failed kickstarter.

Stick to books Neal.

IvyMike• 11 years ago

I know a lot of people feel ripped off, but as a funder, I think it was a genuine, if failed, experiment, and I was glad to fund the attempt.

Pre-kickstarter: "They told us a true-to-life sword-based simulation wouldn't be any fun. Help us make one and prove them wrong"

Post-kickstarter: "They were right"

WizzleKake• 11 years ago

He draws a distinction between Intellectual Ventures and Intellectual Ventures Labs (where he worked):

http://corporation9592.com/Intellectual_Ventures.html

aaronbrethorst5• 11 years ago

    SP: Two-thirds of the way into your novel,
    Seveneves – in fact, on page 569 – you do
    something kind of crazy. The story suddenly
    skips ahead 5,000 years. What’s the idea here?

It took me maybe a week to read the first 2/3's of the book, and about three weeks to read the last 1/3. In many ways, these two parts feel like completely different books, one of which is significantly better than the other.

Also, I was occasionally distracted at the beginning when snippets of dialog from Anathem were reused in the form of exposition in Seveneves.

But, that said, I think the book is worth reading, especially the first 2/3's.

My personal, quick, rough ranking of Stephenson's bibliography:

    * Anathem
    * Snow Crash
    * The Diamond Age
    * Seveneves
    * Cryptonomicon
    * The Baroque Cycle
    * Zodiac
    * Reamde
    * The Interface
    * The Big U

Haven't Read

    * The Cobweb
    * The Mongoliad

EdwardCoffin6• 11 years ago

Could you cite any of these bits of reused Anathem dialogue? I've read Anathem countless times, and didn't notice anything other than "plane-change maneuvers are expensive" or something to that effect, which I think is more of a truism than reused dialogue.

aaronbrethorst5• 11 years ago

"Plane change maneuvers are expensive" is the one I remember off the top of my head, but I do distinctly recall another line elsewhere in the book. Sorry I can't be more specific.

rosser5• 11 years ago

I enjoyed the second part of Seveneves quite a bit, myself, though I definitely feel like it could easily have been expanded a bit, and become a second volume. I will say, however, that the sharp divides between the "races" felt a bit artificial to me, much like the ways the alien species in something like Star Trek are monocultures, for no obvious reason beyond author/plot convenience.

I'm trying to break through the initial wall in Anathem presently. I think part of what's impeding me is that I bought it in mass-market paperback format, and the binding on my copy is egregiously bad; it's shedding leaves like a Minnesota maple in September.

Uhhrrr2• 11 years ago

I think he was going for a take on mitochondrial Eve, and what could happen given current/future technology. But I agree, the racial purity hopes and dreams of the seven Eves would have been obliterated about two minutes after the second space baby hit puberty.

Anathem does take a little while to get into thanks to the language, but it's great!

pavedwalden2• 11 years ago

In one of his recent interviews, Stephenson said that he was intentionally playing off the silly trope of Star Trek type aliens that are basically just caricatures of humans with this-or-that trait emphasized. Not that he was trashing Star Trek, just that he was having a little fun trying to make up a backstory about why humans and vulcans can interbreed.

protonfish2• 11 years ago

I assumed all of his books read like this. Stephenson is great at building a world and characters but once the story needs to stumble into some kind of ending, it all gets contrived and uninteresting. (Right now I am stalled at 75% of Snow Crash.)

ionwake• 11 years ago

SnowCrash had an awesome ending!

Man if only he had picked me to build a game with him maybe stuff would have gone better

obstinate• 11 years ago

Snow Crash is a much better book if you skim all the stuff about the ancient Mesopotamians. He gets a little off into the weeds with that stuff, and apparently the editor failed to cut things back properly.

EdwardCoffin6• 11 years ago

Stephenson had an Authors @Google talk in 2008 [1], which was mostly about his book Anathem. In it he actually addressed what he calls the "Stephenson can't write endings" meme, as he calls it, at 10:54 going on for about three minutes [2]. I think his endings are just fine, myself, and also think that this whole idea that he can't write endings is just a self-perpetuating meme.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnq-2BJwatE

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnq-2BJwatE&t=10m54s

prezjordan• 11 years ago

Definitely finish the book. Are you at the weird ancient studies part of the book? It wraps up quick and gets right back to awesome.

CodeMage2• 11 years ago

I haven't read Reamde, yet. I've read lots of complaints about it on Goodreads, so I'm kind of on the fence about getting it.

In your opinion, how was Reamde compared to works like Anathem, Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon? I'm asking because I like your ranking :)

devindotcom• 11 years ago

Reamde was just bad. Not even on the charts. It's extremely tedious and narratively preposterous.

http://coldewey.cc/post/26464791525/reamde-neal-stephenson-2...

I'm going to read a few reviews of Seveneves before I read it, Reamde burned me so bad. Although now that I know this huge plot point (spoiler warning!?!?).... I don't know which way that tips the scales.

arcadius• 11 years ago

In my mind it's much more like Zodiac. It's not nearly as "smart" as Snow Crash or Cryptonomicon, and at least to me sort of screamed "grocery store fiction" as I was reading it. That said, I could not put it down, and found myself following every twist and turn with a grin.

rosser5• 11 years ago

Not the GP, but I quite enjoyed it, personally. It's probably the least "Neal Stephenson"-ish work in his oeuvre, to be sure — if you come to it expecting another Snow Crash, you're going to be disappointed — but I had fun with it.

geuis2• 11 years ago

I've read Reamde several times. It's a fantastic book. It's an interesting story set in modern times. I actually think it's a little more down to earth than some of his other work, more of a traditional story arc. I'm a huge fan of Anathem and Reamde is a very different style. The audiobook is also really good with a great narrator.

jkaunisv1• 11 years ago

The cool ideas it presents aren't as cool as those in Snow Crash or Diamond Age, and when it goes off the rails it does so way worse than the other two. As I recall it's about 70% bad Tom Clancy plot.

I don't think you'd miss much if you never read Reamde. Whereas Snow Crash & Diamond Age (haven't read the other two) really do have fascinating premises & ideas.

unoti• 11 years ago

Reamde is totally worth reading. Great fun!

mcphilip• 11 years ago

Have you tried Mother Earth Mother Board?

http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html

It's a ~40,000 word article from 1996 he did for Wired about the laying of undersea fiber-optic cables. I'd say it ranks as one of his best writings, just behind the Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon

aaronbrethorst5• 11 years ago

Yep, back in 1996 and thought it was great. I re-read it a couple years ago when his collection of essays, Some Remarks, came out.

ryanmarsh• 11 years ago

Oh God, Mother Earth Motherboard was so great. Im really upset I lost my copy of that issue. That was a real treasure to 16 year old me. I'd love to read it again, in print.

geuis2• 11 years ago

I agree with your list mostly except for two points. Reamde should be near the top and Seveneves closer to the bottom. I found parts of SE to be interesting, but in the first part it just becomes a series of characters making more and more unrealistic choices in a survival situation.

I was really into the story until the President shows up. Then for no reason with clearly defined motivations, she starts making divisions that other well trained and selected people start following for no clear reason. It was like Neal knew where he wanted to be in 5000 years, but once he got everyone into space and Earth destroyed he didn't know how to tie them together. So he introduces Julian as a mcguffin to kill the swarm and whittle the survivors to 8 people.

And don't get me started on the mermen.

Uhhrrr2• 11 years ago

Maybe you've had the fortune to not have met any really manipulative people. Julia seemed pretty plausible to me.

pavedwalden2• 11 years ago

I think you're bending the term 'McGuffin' slightly past its limit. Originally it meant "interchangeable object of pursuit that drives the plot" - a secret document, a special microchip, a stolen diamond etc. Recently I've seen people using it to mean "contrived shift in the plot", but even then it seems wrong to apply that label to a person. Villain or antagonist maybe?

bostonpete• 11 years ago

Grrr.... being 1/2 through that book right now, I really wish I hadn't opened this comment thread with this comment at the top. Spoiler alert???

fromtheoutside• 11 years ago

Oh, Neal Stephenson, ins't that the guy from this one sword fighting game on kickstarter?

rosser5• 11 years ago

This is sort of like saying, "Oh, Richard Stallman. Isn't that the guy who sings Hungarian folk songs?"

basseq4• 11 years ago

I'm just getting into Neal's work. I saw Snow Crash on a list of best sci-fi (maybe via HN) and started there. I then read Diamond Age and just finished Cryptonomicon (which I really liked—probably my favorite of the three).

I started reading Anathem, which I know is seen as his "seminal work" but it's been a slow start for me: all the made-up vocabulary combined with strange names makes it a very disjointed reading experience.

I read the first chapter of Seveneves back in May, so that one is on the list, as is The Baroque Cycle.

jon_dahl• 11 years ago

I had the same experience with Anathem. It is a little hard to get in at first. But about 200 pages in, it really starts rolling. Great mix of world, plot, characters, and ideas. (Ultimately, it is a mashup of Plato and quantum mechanics.)

basseq4• 11 years ago

That was my sense as well, so trying to gut through it. I had a similar problem with Infinite Jest (i.e., getting into it), but know the payoff is well worth it.

rs2322• 11 years ago

If by chance you missed it, there is a glossary at the end of the book. (I've seen some comments from people who didn't notice until they finished it.)

Also, if you enjoyed the Shaftoes and Waterhouses of Cryptonomicon, consider putting the Baroque Cycle before Seveneves.

kldavis4• 11 years ago

I didn't notice the glossary and I am actually glad I didn't. By the end of Anathem all of the strange names for things become second nature and you understand from the context what their meaning is. It is almost like what happens when you learn a new language and are able to think in that language.

CodeMage2• 11 years ago

A bit of warning about Seveneves: treat it as a duology. A lot of readers complain about the pacing problems caused by that 5000-year jump the article mentions. Basically, the pace slows down to a crawl again at that point and starts slowly building up.

If you treat Seveneves as one book, that might annoy you. If you treat it as two books, published at the same time so you don't have to wait for the next one after you've finished the first, then it suddenly makes sense.

And if you're used to Neal's writing style, then you already possess the patience you need with almost every one of his books, because they usually start slow and build up a tremendous momentum over time, until they reach a frantic pace and then they just... stop ;)

Don't get me wrong, I love his books, but I'm all too aware that you simply have to get used to his style and "forgive" him for certain aspects of it. I know I can and do, but I also know people who can't.

basseq4• 11 years ago

they usually start slow and build up a tremendous momentum over time, until they reach a frantic pace and then they just... stop

That was my problem with Diamond Age. I was left wondering, "Where's the last 100 pages!? Is this an unfinished manuscript?" Cryptonomicon was better balanced at the end, IMO. Snow Crash was OK (given that it is kind of a weird book overall), but similar trend.

clavalle3• 11 years ago

Anathem is seen as his seminal work? Huh. It is, by far, my least favorite of his books.

The Baroque Cycle is fantastic and I just finished Seveneves which is really good as well.

EdwardCoffin6• 11 years ago

It's a very divisive book, people seem to love it or hate it. I'm a long time Stephenson fan, have read everything he wrote multiple times (excepting Seveneves for the moment), and Anathem is my most favourite of his works.

meatysnapper• 11 years ago

Interface is oft forgotten, but it is a very good book, and very timely with era of billion dollar presidential campaigns and industrial strength data mining.

e12e2• 11 years ago

just finished Cryptonomicon (which I really liked—probably my favorite of the three).

I pretty much gave up Stephenson after I got half way through "Cryptonomicon". (Really enjoyed "Snowcrash" and loved "Diamond Age"). But then I read (half of) it after I'd just finished Singh's "The Code Book".

It just felt like Stephenson's science and drama subtracted from the real-world science and drama the book was inspired by.

My theory was that after "Diamond Age" he couldn't get an editor that dared cut his manuscripts in half any more. But I'm willing to give some of his newer books a chance -- I see they're quite well received by people that seem to like other good books :-)

If you enjoyed "Snow Crash", you might also enjoy (or hate...) Bruce Sterling's "Islands in the Net".

gary_• 11 years ago

FYI ... we've posted some behind the scenes video as well as some illustrations at Neal's site -- http://seveneves.lithive.com and will be sharing some beautiful illustrations of some of the vehicles in the next day or so.

hoopdr• 11 years ago

video is interesting. thanks.

clavalle3• 11 years ago

I really hope Seveneves is the first of a series. It left a few seemingly important dangling questions and teasers.

Also, I wonder if he's angling for an RPG spinoff. Not to give too much of the last third up but the character types felt very 'rpg class-ish' to me at the end complete with complementary factions.

contingencies• 11 years ago

for the last few decades, the kinds of really smart geeks who in the 50s and 60s would have been building rockets or something have been moving to Silicon Valley and creating startups to make little apps.

Ouch! So close to home. So true. But now we've automated the process - http://tiffzhang.com/startup/ - those people can get back to something more useful, like finally learning IPv6 to allow us to build mesh networks for swarming spacecraft to evade inbound asteroids.

davidw• 11 years ago

I would pretty much buy anything Stephenson writes, but I wasn't all that happy with this book. It's very depressing in that you get a look at the deaths of billions of people, something they all know about well ahead of time. I found myself reading it the same way Cory Doctorow describes here: http://boingboing.net/2015/06/03/neal-stephensons-seveneves....

Stephenson builds up a sense of brutal inevitability, of humanity's insignificance in the cosmos that had me putting the book down for hours at a time, unable to read on (but my curiosity always overcame my sorrow).

The final (future) part of the book was more fun; I could have gone for just that with some references to what happened in the past. Indeed, there were various things that didn't feel wrapped up at the end, and I wonder if there's a sequel coming or he's just going to leave it like that.

Perhaps because I didn't care much for the first part, I found myself more critical of some of the science fiction too.

Hominem• 11 years ago

I'm almost done with seveneves and the thing that gets me is how defensive his wrighting has become.

He explains every semi-technical concept in excruciating detail as if he expects an army of angry nerds to tear the book to shreds if he doesn't explain early research into how whips work or the theoretic underpinnings of how swarming algorithms work.

An Interview with Neal Stephenson

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