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What's New
Review Features
S - Science Fiction
F - Fantasy
H - Horror
Complete Listing
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Adams, Douglas (S)
Asher, Neal (S)
Aylett, Steve (S)
Banks, Iain M (S)
Barclay, James (F)
Barker, Clive (H)
Baxter, Stephen (S)
Brin, David (S)
Bury, Stephen (S)
Card, Orson Scott (S)
Cherryh, CJ (S/F)
Clute, John (S)
Cockayne, Steve (F)
Cook, Glen (F)
Danielewski, Mark (H)
Dick, Philip K (S)
Egan, Greg (S)
Feist, Raymond (F)
Gaiman, Neil (F)
Gibson, William (S)
Goodkind, Terry (F)
Grimwood, Jon C (S)
Hamilton, Peter (S)
Jeter, K.W. (S)
Jordan, Robert (F)
Lethem, Jonathan (S)
McAuley, Paul (S)
MacLeod, Ken (S)
Martin, George RR (F)
McMullen, Sean (S)
Miéville, China (S)
Moran, Daniel K (S)
Morgan, Richard K (S)
Nagata, Linda (S)
Niven, Larry (S)
Noon, Jeff (S)
Robinson, Kim S. (S)
Rucker, Rudy (S)
Simmons, Dan (S)
Smith, Michael Marshall (S)
Stephenson, Neal (S)
Sterling, Bruce (S)
Vinge, Vernor (S)
Westerfeld, Scott (S)
Williams, Sean (S)
Williams, Tad (S/F)
Collections (S/F)
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| The Classics |
Bradbury, Ray (S/H)
Burgess, Anthony (S)
Tolkien, JRR (F) |
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| Neal Stephenson (Stephen Bury) |
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 Our
Ranking This one actually took me a bit by
surprise. I usually stay on top of new releases from my favorite authors (Stephenson
obviously being one of them) and was shocked when I saw this slim paperback sitting
in the bookstore. So, after immediately buying it, I went home and dug in. I'm
assuming one of the reasons for the lack of fanfare is that it is not actually
a fiction work by Stephenson but rather an essay. It is basically Stephenson speaking
very frankly and casually about today's Operating System arena. For the most part
this was pretty interesting reading. Stephenson does a good job of not only describing
the OSes but also of delving into the cultures that use and created these systems.
As with all his works, he pays very close attention to the "hacker/geek" culture
and their part in the development of what we know today. Stephenson uses some
pretty amusing analogies to compare the different systems such as cars and even
a power drill. The essay is written with a typical degree of his matter of fact
humor and it adds to the work. However, a few things really struck me the wrong
way with this. The first being the Stephenson really seemed to put himself on
a high horse throughout this essay. Some of the statements he made were fairly
sweeping, such as "Intellects do not go to Disney World" and for the most part
I think he was fairly serious. I just found this odd and a bit hypocritical considering
he'd obviously been there himself. Also, after finishing the essay I found myself
disagreeing with some of his assertions. He just seemed to oversimplify the market
as well as the technology. By focusing almost purely on the user level he ignored
factors such as business practices and business moves by corporations. Overall
this is not a bad essay and offers a nice unique perspective on today's OS world.
If you're a techhead or are interested in this then give it a shot. Be warned
though, it is fairly technical and "geeky" on its own so if you only have a passing
interest you'll probably be bored out of your skull. |
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 Our
Ranking Snow Crash is rightfully considered one
of the ground breaking novels in science fiction, turning the realm of cyberpunk
upside down. Today, companies are still striving to model their internet plans
around the ideas expressed in this. The amazing/sad thing is that after over a
decade now of internet development, we really are no where near the vision from
Snow Crash. The book is based sometime in a not too far off future of the United
States, where the economy has more or less collapsed and the US is left with only
a few world wide markets they still dominate, high speed pizza delivery being
one of them. The main character, Hiro Protaganist (has there ever been a better
name?) happens to be a high speed pizza delivery guy with aspirations of freelance
hacking. As with all of Stephenson's novels, the characters are simply amazing
in this. Each character is so fleshed out, each with their own little quirks and
issues that you truly fall for them. Even the small bit characters are done wonderfully.
You almost have to assume he's modeling these after people he knows. The main
villain has to be a top 10 character and has one of the funniest methods to being
bad ass that I've ever read. (of course, this set up the ending to fail, since
he was just sooo bad ass, there really wasn't anything Stephenson could do to
him.) The plot itself is terrific. The first 45 pages are one of the best openings
to a story that I've ever read. While it really has little to do with the main
plot itself, it is extremely entertaining and really introduces the main characters
for you. I literally reread the beginning ten times, laughing hysterically the
whole way. I mean just the scene at the drive through window was worth the price
of the book. One quick thing though. I've heard a few people tell me that they
stopped reading it after this scene, cause it really wasn't overly interesting
plot wise. Believe me, this is not a book about pizza delivery. Keep reading.
From the opening scene you are pulled into Stephenson's world and into the plot
itself. Only at a few points do things seem to drag, going into way too much detail
about a few of the plot drivers. Some of the religious explanations just were
way to detailed and to be honest, I wasn't sure if they were even legit. But this
seems to be a staple of Stephenson's, and it really isn't that bad. The only disappointment
of the entire book is the ending, which while OK, really doesn't live up to the
high standard of the rest of the book. I got the feeling that Stephenson painted
himself into a corner and wasn't too sure how to get out of it. However, this
shouldn't deter you. Anyone who claims to be a fan of science fiction needs to
read this one. There is no excuse not to. |
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 Our
Ranking It was pretty much a trap for Neil Stephenson.
Having to follow up the critically acclaimed and revolutionary Snow Crash, he
was almost bound to disappoint. Unfortunately that is exactly what he did. Based
in a futuristic Far East, the main concept for this book is actually pretty amazing.
The book goes into extreme detail about nanotechnology, and while it may not have
been the first book to come up with the concept, it is still one of the most detailed
I've read on it. The problem is, he took this great concept and well, it was pretty
much like he tried to make the story up around the idea. It didn't work. The plot
is fairly weak and not particularly interesting. One of the only reasons I continued
to read was to see what he would do with the technology, and because the characters
were quite good. The characters were not up to his normal standards but they were
still interesting enough to keep me reading it. I almost wish they hadn't been.
If the plot is considered weak, the ending would have to be down right horrible.
I almost had the feeling he realized he had no plot, so he decides to just create
a war with no warning and start blowing everything up. All in all, this is not
worth reading unless you are a fan of nanotechnology stories. If you are, I'd
recommend Fairyland or Permutation City before
this. |
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 Our
Ranking After more or less declaring Snow Crash
the bible of science fiction at that time and then being sorely disappointed by
the plotless Diamond Age, I really had no idea what to expect from his latest
effort. Overall the book was a good read, but really never moved on beyond that.
There are 3 or 4 plots lines spanning over 50 years, that are intertwined throughout
the book building the plot. The book is centered mostly around the art of code-breaking,
and ties the code breakers of WWII to the computer hackers of today's world. While
the tales of the results of the cracking during WWII were very entertaining, I
didn't find myself to excited by the modern day story lines. Maybe I'm just not
enough of a tech head but they simply did not keep me interested. The writing
was excellent as usual for Stephenson, but at times he seemed to drag and get
a little lost in the enormity of the size of the book. Even worse, at other times
he just dove way too deep into the science of some of the details, spending pages
describing some of it in almost mind numbing detail. Once again, maybe I'm just
not techy enough, but I thought this took a lot away from the tale. As always,
the story was full of humor, some points which were outrageously funny. One scene
in particular had me laughing in hysterics while flying back from Europe, much
to my neighbors annoyance. The characters were terrific, you really get a feel
of the nerd hacker as a hero in this book. Overall, I would recommend this to
any science fiction fan, but would warn not to expect something as ground breaking
as Snow Crash. It is better than Diamond Age though. |
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 Our
Ranking Don't be fooled by the Stephen Bury author
name here, this is Neal Stepenson at his best. Stepping a bit back from his usual
cyberpunk and hacking futuristic writing, this book is more of a near-future,
if not already here kind of book. I'm assuming that's why he chose to use a pen
name for this. Interface centers around the upcoming presidential election for
the United States. A shady coalition has selected candidate William Cozzano, to
be their next president and they've developed a technology that just might get
him there. They've implanted a chip into his head that allows him to receive real
time polling of his electorate. In other words, Cozzano can see the affect of
a line or a mood in his speech as he is doing it. If his electorate begins to
get cold or bored by his speech or statement, he can subtly begin to turn it until
he feels them swaying to his side. The potential is incredible and Stephenson
takes it to its fullest. The idea of this really got me thinking. With typical
Stephenson style, he exploits this rather humorously but all the while still getting
across a pretty scary concept. It's bad enough to have politicians maneuvering
weekly to poll results, what if it was real time? The technique in which Stephenson
describes this is very feasible. Basically, the group pulls together a sample
group of one of every "type" of person in the electorate to wear the chips that
feed information to Cozzano. These "types" are more like marketing targets and
some of the types are pretty hysterical. The characters in this book ranging from
Cozzano, to the members of the coalition backing him and especially to the electorate
samples are simply amazing. Stephenson does it again, bringing you very realistic
characters that seem all to human and truly drives the story. Set in the very
near future, this is borderline science fiction, but Stephenson throws in enough
tech gadgets to keep it there. Science fiction fans as well as straight fiction
fans should find this one very interesting. |
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