he did it to me again!

[rone]

Neal Stephenson tricked me again... he wound me up with a good book and then STOPPED. WRITING.  Cryptonomicon is a good, if highly nerdy, romp, until he decides, "OK, i'm tired of writing about protagonist A, so i'll just kill him off.  Hmm, and protagonist B was going to get married, but i have these loose ends, so i'll have him tie them up.  That frees me up to use protagonist C to... oh, fuck it.  Explosions.  Sex.  More explosions.  Exeunt."  That bit about the psychopath with the bow and arrows was so random and gratuitous, i still don't get the point.  FUCK YOU NEAL STEPHENSON AND YOUR BROKE CYCLE SEE IF I READ IT `CAUSE I WON'T.  JERK.

Maybe that's the thing... LucasArts, in a hurry to put out KOTOR 2, hired Neal Stephenson to write its ending.

Comments

[merde.livejournal.com]

come on, if you don't know the man can't end a book by now, you haven't been paying attention.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I know, i know. I feel like i'm co-dependent or something. I guess i was hoping that he'd be more polished or something in his recent books, but instead he's gone all JK Rowling and shoved his editor in a garbage can.

[erikred.livejournal.com]

The closest he's come to an ending was in Zodiac. You might enjoy that one.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's a good one, and it definitely counts as an ending.

[andrewhime.livejournal.com]

I love Neal too much... I don't mind his endings.

[jonathankaplan.livejournal.com]

wait.
what!?

I am currently reading Cryptonomicon. It is a great book, I am about 550 pages in.
uhoh...

I read Snow Crash and got into Neal. I read Quicksilver and stopped right before the ending, didn't make it, but still enjoyed the book anyway, I really appreciate the author's skill and vision. I have another book (Illustrated Primer?) on order.

This isn't the first author I really like who has some inability to finish off his books. George MacDonald Fraser was like that. The early Terry Pratchett was that way. Maybe some author's need a reliever to come in and finish the pitching job? Or maybe it's just I'm not reading them right...smile.

[nyar.livejournal.com]

I am going to have more to say on this subject (Neal Stephenson) in the near future, for what it is worth.

I don't recall Zodiac having a real ending, but it is interesting to read as a sort of progenitor of Snow Crash. I found The Big U to be a very fun book, albeit very hokey. I think it was because it reminded me of Infocom games!

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

The Big U was silly college fanfiction (Big U == Boston University), and I very much enjoyed it. Of course, that is, in part, because I *wrote* silly college fanfiction.

I read and enjoyed Cryptonomicon, Zodiac, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age - and I have the first book of the cycle waiting.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I'd agree about the "good" part. I think there may have been a decent 250-page short novel buried in there somewhere, but you could only barely hear its muffled screams.

Also: worst. sex. scene. EVER. Bulwer-Lytton worthy.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

It wasn't that bad... um... yeah, it was that bad. B-L is a good comparison. Ugh. She deserved better, dammit.

[palecur.livejournal.com]

What? Cryptonomicon is the best ending he's written to date. Well, ok, given it's Stephenson, you shouldn't take that as any great praise, because it's not, but still. It was more of a controlled, slewing stop that happens to run over a few nuns, compared to Diamond Age, which just plowed into a granite cliffside at 90mph.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Nope, sorry, it's his second-worst ending after TDA. It's not a controlled slewing stop so much as taking an airplane and clipping its wings off in mid-flight and then the tail rips off and you wait for it to hit the ground and instead it hits a brick wall.

Zodiac is, by far, his best ending.

[kehoea.livejournal.com]

I love his endings. Life doesn't have loose threads all tying up at once in an effort to give observers a warm feeling of closure; why should books? :-)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

"Life is the crummiest book i've ever read" -- Bad Religion

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

I've had it with people whining about Stephenson's endings. Yes, they're not what you expect. But neither are his books. He doesn't write like other people. He doesn't write according to accepted norms. He just plain likes to write a whole lot, and just sort of pours stuff into a big pile, and leaves it up to the reader to find something to enjoy. This does not appeal to everyone, needless to say, but complaining that he can't write endings is missing the point by miles. His books aren't about endings - they're about the crazy shit that's on every fucking page, not just the last fifty.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

That Yngwie fuckin' Malmsteen, he just plain likes to play real fast, and pours notes into a big pile. His songs aren't about melody or structure.

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what you're talking about! You must be some sort of crazy person!