Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

Ever wonder how Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk—you know, supercool and competent guys worth celebrating—would fare in an apocalyptic event? Boy do I have the novel for you!

I kept contrasting this with Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem trilogy. Both are interested in how humanity responds to extinction, but whereas Liu is preoccupied with questions of sociology and psychology—how societies, and not just human ones, might evolve in reaction to such a threat—Stephenson just wants to describe a dang girder. His heroes are all the same plucky, fundamentally uncomplicated doers with not-so-subtle Galtian undertones. But Stephenson is not interested in people. He is interested in systems, and particularly the kind of systems that large accumulations of capital located within a few hundred miles of his hometown Seattle might create. As ever, he is their once and truest muse.

Actually: I gave up and stopped reading this.

Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

Stephenson is such an insufferable fucking chud. All his heroes, without fail, are Rick and Morty-type, self-aggrandizing testaments to the importance of a liberal education.

It's a fucking wonder that Stephenson didn't become a tech CEO life coach, or TED Talk bloviator, or Wired hagiographer of this century's guilded morons.

Actually, that last one is exactly what he became.

Reamde by Neal Stephenson

fucking christ what is wrong with me

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Has Stephenson always been this bad of a writer, or am I reading him too closely to good people? He digests Big Ideas into nuggets, across which he drapes a tissue-thin plot and a few gratuitous action scenes.

The System of the World by Neal Stephenson

The Confusion by Neal Stephenson

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Good for the first four chapters.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (05/11)

Schlubby, techie men of the world, rejoice! Here is your Homer.

No quantity of hack novels will ever heighten your sensitivity to the world around you. That, if it exists, would be the province of literature. This does not have to, but often does, coincide with a general lack of titillation and thrill. Something about the stirring of synapses by plot-driven drama seems to inure them to nuance. 100 pages into Cryptonomicon, and it remains to be seen what this will be 1000 pages later.

For all its detailed invention, reaches for stereotypes too often with its characters.

In the end, more like Battlefield Earth than Gravity's Rainbow.