That dude needs a publicist.

April 18, 2007 6:16 AM

Just because we gotta ask every couple of years: Anyone know what Neal Stephenson is up to lately? Any new works on the horizon?

As usual, nothing on his website, no press releases anywhere.

posted by sourwookie to media & arts (25 comments total)

Good Question. He recently reviewed the movie 300. Other than that? I want to know too.
posted by lyam at 7:00 AM on April 18, 2007

There is is mp3 short story available on his website. i believe it is FPP'ed, too.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 7:00 AM on April 18, 2007

Can I coat-tail? I just read Snowcrash for the first time...is the rest of his stuff as completely awesome? What about Cryptonomicon? Just as good? I dun wanna waste my precious book-reading juices.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:34 AM on April 18, 2007

Cryptonomicon is a lot of fun.
posted by OmieWise at 7:41 AM on April 18, 2007

I seem to be in the minority opinion around here concerning this, but I think each book after Snow Crash was better than the one previous. His tangents become more interesting and hold up as mini-pieces in their own right. He does become more removed from Sci-Fi in Cryptonomicon and Baroque Cycle (easily his best works). His worlds become far more immersive, his volumes lengthier, and his action becomes amazing (and I'm someone who hates action sequences in novels).

His humor gets more refined too. His description of the British design philosophy as it relates to phone booths is good. He devotes four pages on how to eat Captain Crunch in tropical weather. His minutes from a Royal Society meeting circa 1670 are jaw-dropping.

So in short, yes, well worth it. His later stufff takes more work due to the size and depth, and many fans of Stephenson's earlier work just couldn't get into Newton's childhood or pipe organ design, but looking back I now find Snow Crash to be overly thin, shallow and linear.
posted by sourwookie at 7:47 AM on April 18, 2007

maybe he's spending the time working on his endings ,

im a NS fan , but arent the ending always a little lacking...?
posted by burr1545 at 7:56 AM on April 18, 2007

I just read Snowcrash for the first time...is the rest of his stuff as completely awesome?

Cryptonomicon is better but the "modern-day" sections are already quite dated.

His description of the British design philosophy as it relates to phone booths is good

I don't recall that but I'd like to read it... which book is it in?
posted by Leon at 8:06 AM on April 18, 2007

What about Cryptonomicon? Just as good?

It depends on what you want from books. Cryptonomicon has a lot of interesting factoids and settings, and the prose is fun. But it's all put together really, really clunkily. Action almost never happens "onscreen"-- most chapters are either reactions to or flashbacks of big events that just happened. There isn't a lot of real human emotion-- lots of zero-to-true-love swings, with most of the action taking place in the margins. The ending pisses all over the logic of the book.

I liked reading it, but lots of things didn't sit right afterwards.
posted by COBRA! at 8:13 AM on April 18, 2007

Here you go:

When he does get to the right floor, though, it is a bit posher than the wrong one was. Of course, the underlying structure of everything in England is posh. There is no in-between with these people. You have to walk a mile to find a telephone booth, but when you find it, it is built as if the senseless dynamiting of pay phones had been a serious problem at some time in the past. And a British mailbox can presumably stop a German tank. None of them have cars, but when they do, they are three-ton hand-built beasts. The concept of stamping out a whole lot of cars is unthinkable—there are certain procedures that have to be followed, Mr. Ford, such as the hand-brazing of radiators, the traditional whittling of the tyres from solid blocks of cahoutchouc.
posted by sourwookie at 8:29 AM on April 18, 2007 [3 favorites]

You have to walk a mile to find a telephone booth, but when you find it, it is built as if the senseless dynamiting of pay phones had been a serious problem at some time in the past.

I'd forgotten about that marvellous sentence! Shame it's no longer true, but it's just an absolute classic.
posted by Happy Dave at 8:54 AM on April 18, 2007

Sourwookie - maybe he's busy with his side job brainstorming for Blue Origin? They had experimental launches last fall, I think. Or he might be working on something as big as the Baroque Cycle that won't be finished for some time (a combo of the two would be my ill-informed guess).

Balrog - ah, don't be such a baby about your precious juices, take chances with books! His other stuff is very good too, though different from Snow Crash. And the Baroque Cycle books are... a project. A time-consuming project. Still, they're fairly exciting and dazzlingly encyclopedic in scope. And I personally liked both The Diamond Age (nanotech science fiction) and Cryptonomicon (near future and historical).
posted by aught at 9:09 AM on April 18, 2007

Maybe he's working on this? I'm psyched.

Not remotely related, but maybe there are some Stephenson fans who'd also be interested in this.
posted by Telf at 9:53 AM on April 18, 2007

Stephenson seems to be notoriously disinterested in establishing any kind of active dialog during the often long periods between his publications. My impression is that the only reason he does interviews is for promotion of recently published work. The lack of any hints on his home page suggest nothing is imminent; the relative silence of the recent couple years suggest he is probably working on something.

His wikipedia page provides links on pretty much everything, recent interviews, articles and so on, that is available online. As far as I've been able to determine there isn't any info going around about whether he's engaged in another novel, and if so what it's about.

Balrog - it all depends on what you like about Snow Crash. Definitely start with The Diamond Age, which is a conceptual sequel to Snow Crash (though set long beyond it in a very different world, with only one character carried over (who plays a relatively minor role in the latter novel). If you don't like the way his writing is going you probably won't like the later novels, because (in my opinion) the trends established are pretty consistent and only become more pronounced. Otherwise give Cryptonomicon a try. Again, if you don't like the trends going on there, you'll probably hate the Baroque Cycle trilogy.

burr1545, the quality of his endings is a matter of opinion. Personally I think the idea that he can't write endings has become popular (mostly internet-disseminated) wisdom among people who can't handle ambiguity and the violation of traditional climactic tropes. Stephenson has stated he works as hard on his endings as any other part of his writing, that they are as he intends them to be and in his opinion work as well as any of his writing does, and I agree.
posted by nanojath at 9:58 AM on April 18, 2007

Maybe he's working on this? I'm psyched.

God, I'm not. Sci Fi's track record on this kind of adaptation is abysmal.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 10:15 AM on April 18, 2007

If you're looking for sf to fill your time until he publishes something else--

I love Stephenson's work, and I recently read Blindsight and the Rifters trilogy by Peter Watts and I remember feeling that they were Stephensonny at some points.

Blindsight and the first two Rifters books are freely available at his website.

(I promise I don't mean to derail...)
posted by adamwolf at 10:49 AM on April 18, 2007

nanojath wrote "with only one character carried over (who plays a relatively minor role in the latter novel)"

Which character is carried over?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 10:50 AM on April 18, 2007

Which character is carried over?

It is implied that Y.T. in snow crash is the old headmistress of the school in diamond age (IIRC).
posted by advil at 11:07 AM on April 18, 2007

Which character is carried over?

LG. Vg'f ng yrnfg nethnoyr gung Aryy'f cevznel grnpure va gur arbivpgbevna fpubby vf LG -- fur zragvbaf univat orra n guenfure rneyvre va ure yvsr.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:11 AM on April 18, 2007

advil is correct. There is a brief passage in Part the Second (just before Miss Matheson explains the role Miss Stricken and her class play in the school and neo-Victorian culture) suggesting Miss Matheson is YT. While it is an explicit nod to the prior book, strongly suggesting a continuity between the two, the connection between the characters is only implied, and it isn't really relevant to the plot of the book in any way.
posted by nanojath at 11:17 AM on April 18, 2007

Cute, ROU_Xenophobe.
posted by nanojath at 11:20 AM on April 18, 2007

burr1545 writes "im a NS fan , but arent the ending always a little lacking...?"

After reading the ending to The Baroque Cycle, all is forgiven.
posted by mullingitover at 12:46 PM on April 18, 2007

Yeah, the Baroque Cycle has enough ending for all of his other novels combined... also, it would seem that Stephenson's m.o. is to be completely silent about his upcoming work while he's working on it, so, since we haven't heard a thing out of him in two years, I'd say he's probably writing up a storm.

I'd love to see a proper sequel to Cryptonomicon come out. He implied in past interviews that it was at least conceptually fleshed out, and that it might in fact be the next thing he writes. Either way, I am very excited for new material.
posted by synaesthetichaze at 2:28 PM on April 18, 2007

Also, holy crap, an HBO mini-series of A Song of Ice & Fire? That will be... something.
posted by synaesthetichaze at 2:29 PM on April 18, 2007

They've got some real talent working on the SF series. And by talent, I mean that George Clooney doesn't usually produce crap. Just look at his other science fiction movies. Err, never mind.

Also, I think HBO is probably the only way to produce a passable Song of Fire and Ice. Maybe anime.

I call Peter Dinklage for Tyrion.
posted by Telf at 3:11 PM on April 18, 2007

of course, you meant to ask about Neil Gaiman, right? Sorry about that.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 9:17 AM on April 19, 2007