I expected to love Some Remarks, Neal Stephenson’s newest collection of essays and other writing, as a continuation of my love for his fiction. As it turns out, I did not. Some Remarks is typical of Stephenson’s writing within a non-fiction lens, and I found, to my surprise, that this isn’t precisely a good thing.
If you’re read a great deal of Stephenson, you’re probably familiar with a peculiar quirk of his literary style. Stephenson writes incredibly dense speculative fiction with a heavy emphasis on world-building through meticulous, subtle detail. He tends toward discovery-driven plots that cast off and recapture little threads of narrative, typically leading to a grand crescendo in which characters, ideas and technologies crash together.
But inevitably, as the story is hurtling along down its various channels, Stephenson will put the narrative on pause at some point so that he can explain something to you.
[Does that sound familiar? Read more...]