Norman U. Senchbau wrote:Stephenson's first book in the Baroque cycle is great: Quicksilver.
I saw his manuscsript for that: a stack of papers 2+ feet high written out longhand in purple ink. Wanted to get into the feeling of the mileau, I guess.
He actually uses genre from the time as well as the series progresses (e.g.picaresque).
If you enjoy the Baroque it's great. The second and third parts are not as well-done. (I wonder if he was under pressure from his publishers to make the other installments a bit more public friendly.) But the first IMO is a great presentation of the period with some added speculative elements. If you have read the Cryptonomicon, then there are some interesting ties-ins as well.
It wasn't a bad book, but it was really, really inapproachable for even a sci fi fan, you had to be a fan of Stephenson's writings and of big, rambling books.
I recently read Heinlein's essey "Incide Intourist". He was good troll :)
... But the Russian language is difficult; it took my wife two years of hard work to master it. The alphabet is weirdly strange, the pronunciation is hard for us, and the language is heavily inflected - a proper noun, such as "Smith" or "Khrushchev," has eighteen different forms.
... Forget about grammar; grammatical Russian is found only in formal literary compositions. Khrushchev has never learned to speak Russian well and Mikoyan speaks it with an accent thick enough to slice - so why should you worry? ...
and this is the best :)
... If you know French or German, your immediate vocabulary is further enriched, as, despite their boasts, Russian culture is very backward and most of their vocabulary for anything more complex than weeding a turnip patch has been borrowed from French, English, or German by converting the foreign word phonetically. ...
Shafpocalypse Now wrote:The Baroque Cycle is not for the casual reader, there's so much shit going on in it.
His last book wasn't either, I can't think of what teh fuck it's called off the top of my head.
So true about The Baroque Cycle. I got turned on to it from some thread or another here. It was work getting through but it was interesting work. I like that it defies being put into a genre: Sci Fi? Historical Fiction? Thriller? Mystery? Fantasy?
Mao wrote:Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party
Second "Glory Road" and "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" unreservedly. I liked "Sixth Column" when I was young, but I'd be hard pressed to defend it now.
Also second "Snow Crash", which isn't about armored Space Marines, but is still bursting with wit and vision. I had a hard time reading any more Stephenson after that because I wanted everything he did to be "Snow Crash" again.
"I also think training like a Navy S.E.A.L. is stupid for the average person. I would say PT like an infantry unit, run, body weight stuff, hump a little, a little weights and enjoy life if you are not training for specifics." -tough old man
Wild Bill wrote:I recently read Heinlein's essey "Incide Intourist". He was good troll :)
... But the Russian language is difficult; it took my wife two years of hard work to master it. The alphabet is weirdly strange, the pronunciation is hard for us, and the language is heavily inflected - a proper noun, such as "Smith" or "Khrushchev," has eighteen different forms.
... Forget about grammar; grammatical Russian is found only in formal literary compositions. Khrushchev has never learned to speak Russian well and Mikoyan speaks it with an accent thick enough to slice - so why should you worry? ...
and this is the best :)
... If you know French or German, your immediate vocabulary is further enriched, as, despite their boasts, Russian culture is very backward and most of their vocabulary for anything more complex than weeding a turnip patch has been borrowed from French, English, or German by converting the foreign word phonetically. ...
Hah, I've got to track that down. Thanks, WB!
"I also think training like a Navy S.E.A.L. is stupid for the average person. I would say PT like an infantry unit, run, body weight stuff, hump a little, a little weights and enjoy life if you are not training for specifics." -tough old man
