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Cryptonomicon

2011-11-02 00:00

Cover for Cryptonomicon

Review:

I fin­ished reread­ing Crypto­nomi­con. It should tell you some­thing when some­one rereads a al­most-1000-­page be­he­moth of a book. It's a fun book, it tells you stuff you don't know, it con­tains a very en­ter­tain­ing ac­tion thriller and a big-busi­ness thriller, and half a dozen oth­er books with­in.

It's re­al­ly re­al­ly good.

Cryptonomicon (Crypto, #1)

2011-11-02 00:00

Cover for Cryptonomicon (Crypto, #1)

Review:

I fin­ished reread­ing Crypto­nomi­con. It should tell you some­thing when some­one rereads a al­most-1000-­page be­he­moth of a book. It's a fun book, it tells you stuff you don't know, it con­tains a very en­ter­tain­ing ac­tion thriller and a big-busi­ness thriller, and half a dozen oth­er books with­in.

It's re­al­ly re­al­ly good.

Reamde

2011-10-08 00:00

Cover for Reamde

Review:

Well, it's a Neal Stephen­son book, so you know a few things be­fore you start read­ing:

1) It's long
2) It will con­tain some mem­o­rable pas­sage you will quote to friend and foe alike
3) It's pop­u­lat­ed by char­ac­ters that pos­sess some sort of mo­ti­va­tion, that may or may not make sense to you, but is in­ter­nal­ly con­sis­tent
4) It con­tains in­cred­i­bly ac­tion ac­tion scenes
5) It will make you think about a thing or two. Or two hun­dred.
6) It's bet­ter than 99% of the oth­er books that were pub­lished around the same date.
7) The end­ing.... oh, the end­ing.

So, all that is true. Is it as good as Anath­em? Or as Crypto­nomi­con? Yes and no.

The au­thor sure seems to have spent a lot of time do­ing plot. There is a lot of it. Oth­er au­thors would live 5 or 10 years on this amount of plot.

As a Du­mas-pére ac­tion-­packed romp, it's kick­ass. As a nov­el full of deep ideas... nah, not this one. For that, get Anath­em. It is, how­ev­er, a page turn­er, a ton of fun, and yes, re­al­ly, re­al­ly good.

I rec­om­mend it to pret­ty much any­one over 14, since it con­tains some stuff that may be a bit too di­rect for younger read­er­s.

Reamde (Crypto, #2)

2011-10-08 00:00

Cover for Reamde (Crypto, #2)

Review:

Well, it's a Neal Stephen­son book, so you know a few things be­fore you start read­ing:

1) It's long
2) It will con­tain some mem­o­rable pas­sage you will quote to friend and foe alike
3) It's pop­u­lat­ed by char­ac­ters that pos­sess some sort of mo­ti­va­tion, that may or may not make sense to you, but is in­ter­nal­ly con­sis­tent
4) It con­tains in­cred­i­bly ac­tion ac­tion scenes
5) It will make you think about a thing or two. Or two hun­dred.
6) It's bet­ter than 99% of the oth­er books that were pub­lished around the same date.
7) The end­ing.... oh, the end­ing.

So, all that is true. Is it as good as Anath­em? Or as Crypto­nomi­con? Yes and no.

The au­thor sure seems to have spent a lot of time do­ing plot. There is a lot of it. Oth­er au­thors would live 5 or 10 years on this amount of plot.

As a Du­mas-pére ac­tion-­packed romp, it's kick­ass. As a nov­el full of deep ideas... nah, not this one. For that, get Anath­em. It is, how­ev­er, a page turn­er, a ton of fun, and yes, re­al­ly, re­al­ly good.

I rec­om­mend it to pret­ty much any­one over 14, since it con­tains some stuff that may be a bit too di­rect for younger read­er­s.

Darwin's Radio (Darwin's Radio, #1)

2011-09-25 00:00

Cover for Darwin's Radio (Darwin's Radio, #1)

Review:

I have de­cid­ed Greg Bear is just not a writ­er I can en­joy.

His books are full of char­ac­ters to whom things just hap­pen. They don't act as much as flail around, buf­fet­ed by forces they don't un­der­stand, un­til fi­nal­ly the sto­ry just stop­s, right in time for the se­quel hook, which is prob­a­bly the part of the book that the au­thor has been think­ing about since page 20.

So, in­stead of try­ing to read Dar­win's Chil­dren and see if there is ac­tu­al­ly some fire be­hind all this smoke, I am go­ing to stop wast­ing my time, and read ac­tu­al books with ac­tu­al char­ac­ters that ac­tu­al­ly do things that ac­tu­al­ly have some ef­fect on their lives.
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