Ser Scot A Ellison Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 Just arrived. I'm already hooked. [mod]I'm changing the spoiler status to tagged spoilers since there's no general thread about this and many people are in the process of reading it[/mod] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calibandar Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 This is an interesting one, opening is good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted May 23, 2015 Author Share Posted May 23, 2015 I'm going to spoilertab this just because many, like me, are still reading:The whole progression of the "Hard Rain" as people lost touch with their families on the ground (particularly Dinah's and Ivy's) was a hard read, in the best senseI'm having a tough time not reading, but, I have other things I need to do, dang it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kat Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 I'm only about 150 pages in so far but I'm really liking it. Stephenson seems to have gotten over with this book the one bugaboo that he's always had, which is that he has approximately one token female character per book. This one has a lot. The issue didn't stop me from liking his books before, but it's nice when the world is ending and you actually have legit female representation in places where it's realistic. Also, another shoutout to geologists in this book, so booyah. This was supposed to be my summer reading, or really I was supposed to wait until next weekend to start, but whatever. I only have 2 more finals to give and grade. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerenthaClone Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 So far, its good, though his prose seems clunky as hell. It picks up once PhDs stop lecturing each other about the most basic stuff in their fields quite as much.E:act 2 is awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted May 26, 2015 Author Share Posted May 26, 2015 I'm close to the end. Still good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teng Ai Hui Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 So far, its good, though his prose seems clunky as hell. It picks up once PhDs stop lecturing each other about the most basic stuff in their fields quite as much.I was anxious to start reading this book, and then I read this comment. I tossed my copy of Snow Crash to the floor a couple of times when the Librarian started one of his many info dumps about ancient Sumeria. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted May 26, 2015 Author Share Posted May 26, 2015 I love the infodumps. Stephenson always prompts non-fiction reading for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendan Moody Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 I didn't mind Stephenson's expository asides in other projects, because they covered a range of topics and didn't get in the way of the plot or milieu. But with Seveneves (which I read an advance copy of a couple months ago) I felt he was overly focused on one particular sci-tech topic, and ended up skimping on a couple major aspects of the narrative in consequence. But I still found it a thoroughly compelling and rewarding read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted May 26, 2015 Author Share Posted May 26, 2015 I'm so close to being done. Work keeps getting the way of my reading time. There better be a sequel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maltaran Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 I enjoyed part 3 a lot more than parts 1 and 2, which while good were incredibly depressing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted May 26, 2015 Author Share Posted May 26, 2015 Malt,The "Hard Rain" chapter was tough to push through. The idiocy of Aida pissed me off.Done.This book really deserves a sequel. So much seems a set up for another story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerenthaClone Posted May 27, 2015 Share Posted May 27, 2015 I was anxious to start reading this book, and then I read this comment. I tossed my copy of Snow Crash to the floor a couple of times when the Librarian started one of his many info dumps about ancient Sumeria.I mean, its a book much more in the vein of Anathem, Cryptonomicon, or Reamde, so I guess I kind of expect infodumps from Stephenson. I don't mind, but Anathem and Cryptonomicon handled it really gracefully. Sometimes its handled well in Seveneves too, others not so much. The "Hard Rain" chapter was tough to push through. The idiocy of Aida pissed me off. Aida? Really, I honestly am not sure she was stupid. Julia got me mad, but Aida's attack on the Endurance works as someone who is pretty sure her crew will be expelled/locked down because they're a cannibal group approaching a non-cannibal group. She's got some reasoning behind what she does, Julia just does her thing out of sheer narcissism and doesn't even seem to be thinking about what she's doing. And I'm still just barely into the last third of the book, but I can't help but wonder if this was originally intended to be mostly about the post-spoiler society and then he just found the pre-spoiler society so interesting that what was intended to be a prologue ended up dwarfing the entire book. So far, its very interesting but I can't help but think, like Brendan Moody, that some aspects are focused on in great detail and others are just handwaved away or barely touched on. Oh well. It took me a while to wrap my head around the functioning aspects of the Eye, Cradle, and Wheel though, especially the Cradle. e: The book is worth reading for the entirety of the Hard Rain section though. Just some excellent writing all around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spockydog Posted May 27, 2015 Share Posted May 27, 2015 I think I would like to read this. I almost bought it yesterday, but £12.99 for an e-book was a little rich for my tastes. Plus, more often than not, I buy a sci-fi book based on an awesome premise, only to end up binning it 'cos I'm basically too stupid to 'get it.' Today I decided, stupidity be damned, I was going to go for it. But when I came back to Amazon they'd only gone and put the price up. It's now just under £15 for the e-book. That's just taking the piss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted May 27, 2015 Author Share Posted May 27, 2015 Spocky,For that price I'd go ahead and spring for the hardback.MC,I used "idiocy" for a reason. There were at the inception of her attack 39 living humans in the Universe to thme best of her knowledge. To kill anyone at that point was a crime of immense proportions. I can see what her tactics were but it was so incredibly small minded.I agree Julia was a narcissistic hosebeast. That a portion of humanity (a significant proportion) is derived from Julia and Aida is extremely sad.I so hope the story continues or other "Epics" are fleshed out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peadar Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 I really enjoyed it, but I have to agree with those who found the exposition endless and clunky. Also, what happened to the amazing sense of humor he used to have? Not that I can complain too much -- EPIC, all in caps, is the only fair description. I didn't quite buy how calmly people on Earth behaved in the first section. If you read Boccaccio's account of how people acted during the arrival of the Black Death, I think it would be a bit more believable. Even so, all carping aside, I wish I had a few hundred pages more of it to get lost in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 Peadar, It's hard to have a lot of funny scenes in a book were 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999% of humanity ends up as crispy critters. That said I think its intersting that in an 800+ page book much of the criticism is that the story seems really incomplete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peadar Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Peadar,It's hard to have a lot of funny scenes in a book were 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999% of humanity ends up as crispy critters. Dunno. He is capable of it. A lot of the humour in The System of the World occurred in the most appalling circumstances -- Galley slavery etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 Peadar,A fair point. But System of the World was less on the "epic" side of the equation. Perhaps he was giving us a taste of how the surviors of the "Hard Rain" viewed "the Epic" and he toned down the humor as a deliberate stylistic choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iskaral Pust Posted May 31, 2015 Share Posted May 31, 2015 I'm 25% in and bored so far. This guy is one of my favorite authors but REAMDE was really generic and now this has started poorly. I hope it gets a lot better. My concerns so far:- Izzy storyline feels identical to The Martian- too many characters and sketched too thinly; it's hard to care about them- no humor, no élan, just turgid, dull prose- the under-reaction in Earth society is too implausible. No economy or society would continue to function as normally as portrayed so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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