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Some Remarks: Essays and Other Writing
One of the most talented and creative authors working today, Neal Stephenson is renowned for his exceptional novels--works colossal in vision and mind-boggling in complexity. Exploring and blending a diversity of topics, including technology, economics, history, science, pop culture, and philosophy, his books are the products of a keen and adventurous intellect. Not surpri...more
Hardcover, 336 pages
Published
August 7th 2012
by William Morrow
(first published August 1st 2012)
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Leave it to Neal Stephenson to publish a collection of essays that cover everything from office furniture to the metaphysical theories of Gottfried Leibniz. (I found the office furniture one more enjoyable.)
The thing about Stephenson is that once he gets interested in a subject, he is going to write the shit out of it and leave no idea unexplored. It’s what makes him unique and his skill is usually enough to get the reader to go along for the ride. But even a fan like myself started getting seri...more
The thing about Stephenson is that once he gets interested in a subject, he is going to write the shit out of it and leave no idea unexplored. It’s what makes him unique and his skill is usually enough to get the reader to go along for the ride. But even a fan like myself started getting seri...more
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Perfect for a fan like me (but you can get most of this material online.)I love "Why I am a bad correspondent" "The quality of my e-mails and public speaking is, in my view, nowhere near that of my novels. So for me it comes down to the following choice: I can distribute material of bad-to-mediocre quality to a small number of people, or I can distribute material of higher quality to more people. But I can't do both; the first one obliterates the second."
An interesting collection of articles, essays, interviews, reviews and short stories showing the range of the author's interests. I enjoyed Stephenson's 'Anathem' which I found reminiscent of 'A Canticle for Leibowitz'. I slogged through 'Cryptonomicon' which I found interesting but less engaging. Some Remarks is eclectic. I found Stephenson's ideas on two main kinds of writers intelligible. The essay on Leibnitz was thoroughly engaging for me -- a geek out experience. I found the series on the...more
Neal Stephenson’s Some Remarks comprises a mishmash of feature articles, Q&As, op-ed style pieces, and short fiction that covers his writing career to date. Many of his pet themes are represented, including the history of computers, the relationship between science and imagination, and the cultural effects of global telecommunications. What makes the content here so refreshing is how jarringly concise it is. According to the wordsmith’s own introduction, this uncharacteristic brevity was mea...more
Neal Stephenson existed to me entirely through his novels before, since he doesn't have any of the modern authorial infrastructure – no twitter, no blog, no Goodreads, etc. And apparently I had come to a number of conclusions about him based entirely on his books, which is one of those things we like to pretend we don't do, but, I mean, come on. I figured this out when I was trudging through the opening salvos of this book and thought, ug, what a fucking asshole, with a complete lack of surprise...more
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Some interesting excerpts from previous writing by Stephenson. The longest work in it, "Mother Earth, Mother Board" is 118 pages of discourse on the history and potential of laying submarine cable. His essay on Leibniz and Newton (not about the calculus dispute, which Stephenson mentions only in embarrassment, but on the metaphysical dispute revolving around Leibniz's theory of monads) is fascinating; and his discussion of treadmill desks and the dangers of sitting provocative.
Since the essays c...more
Since the essays c...more
I'm very forgiving of essay collections by my favorite authors. Even though in some ways it feels like cheating, I've often not read the essays, so what do I care if they get the cheap revenue? The Stephenson is not the best essay collection I've read, many of the stories are old and feel dated, but there is enough here by a great writer that it is worth reading for any fan. The vast majority of the book is from Mother Earth, Motherboard. A huge article he wrote for Wired in 1996. Don't be scare...more
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You can read this rather enjoyable collection
- if you're a fan of Mr Stephenson: you'll be curious to hear him ponder about many an issue, mostly technological. Some older material will be meh, some will be well-rounded and pleasant. He talks with an admiration you can feel about the world of the Baroque Cycle; he sheds a light on his vision of science fiction, or rather speculative fiction as he names it one speech. He edited some of the meh stuff because he cares.
- if you're a geek: Mr Stephen...more
- if you're a fan of Mr Stephenson: you'll be curious to hear him ponder about many an issue, mostly technological. Some older material will be meh, some will be well-rounded and pleasant. He talks with an admiration you can feel about the world of the Baroque Cycle; he sheds a light on his vision of science fiction, or rather speculative fiction as he names it one speech. He edited some of the meh stuff because he cares.
- if you're a geek: Mr Stephen...more
This was kind of a mixed bag. I really liked 'Metaphysics in the Royal Society 1715-2010'. I read the Baroque Cycle a few years ago and felt it was a masterpiece but seriously in need of a good editing. (In one of the articles in this book, Stephenson comments that early in his career he wrote by churning out vast volumes of text, then editing out all the crap... feels like Baroque Cycle might have been written this way). So I enjoyed this focused account of the Newton-Leibniz feud and Stephenso...more
A good writer can make you interested in material that you don't really care about. For populist examples, consult Michael Lewis or HG Bissinger.
Neal Stephenson is mostly a good writer, but in this anthology of largely non-fiction he generally failed to engage me on topics that I have a baseline interest in to the extent that I didn't feel any qualms about skipping large segments once I'd established they weren't doing anything for me.
Stephenson has some valid (if not entirely accurate) insight...more
Neal Stephenson is mostly a good writer, but in this anthology of largely non-fiction he generally failed to engage me on topics that I have a baseline interest in to the extent that I didn't feel any qualms about skipping large segments once I'd established they weren't doing anything for me.
Stephenson has some valid (if not entirely accurate) insight...more
I really like the opening chapter - all about the mobile vs. immobile and how we are trying to lift ourselves out of the sit down and stare at a screen culture that we have gotten ourselves into. Unfortunately, Stephenson tends to be so self-deprecating that at a certain point, it feels disingenuous. We know that he knows that he is smart.
My favorite essay was a tie between the analysis of SF subculture as uber-culture and the short story 'Spew'. The collection started going downhill about half...more
My favorite essay was a tie between the analysis of SF subculture as uber-culture and the short story 'Spew'. The collection started going downhill about half...more
A lot of the material in this collection can be found online*. (The longest piece is a reprint of Mother Earth, Mother Board, which is not only available online but has also been reprinted in the kindle edition of Cryptonomicon.) The new material is good, but not very long, so whether it makes sense for you to read this or not is going to depend on how much of it you've already read, how much you value the convenience of having all the pieces in one place, and/or how much you enjoy re-reading. I...more
Neal's storys have never been shy on exposition, and if you're a fan, as I am, you kno doubt see that as a good thing. Well, Some Remarks does away with all that messy character development and a fair amount of plot, though reality often follows the structure of story, especially when realted by a master storyteller and worldbuilder like Stephenson.
A case in point is his essay on the laying of the FLAG fiber optic cable from Eruope to Asia, which he wrote as a "Hacker Tourist." The drama allude...more
A case in point is his essay on the laying of the FLAG fiber optic cable from Eruope to Asia, which he wrote as a "Hacker Tourist." The drama allude...more
Some Remarks by Neal Stephenson is a collection of essays, one sentence from a novel that he never finished, and a few short stories. I’m not the typical audience for this book as I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, nor science-y essays. As a result, I read a bit of the most recent essays in the collection, the introduction, and the short fiction pieces, plus the one sentence to the novel. I can say that I see why he never went further with his novel; it wasn’t very attention grabbing for me, but...more
Sep 18, 2012
Mitchell
added it
This was a fun read of some shorter essays, stories, articles, and lectures that Neal has given over the years which serve to really drive home the point that the man is quite intelligent and knowledgeable over a wide range of technical topics. The longest piece was, what I can only assume was, a multi-part piece for Wired magazine where he traveled around the world learning about the FLAG fiber optic cable that was being laid in the 90's between England and Asia. While obviously rather old, it...more
I didn't read all of the essays in this book - it had to go back to the library first - but dipped in here and there. I did adore the foreword to David Foster Wallace's Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity, which is about my current town and, more generally, Midwestern American College Towns (MCATs) everywhere. E.g., he describes the "habitually dour, self-deprecating, not to say passive-agressive residents of the upper Midwest," as not considering themselves -- or others -- very s...more
What would Neal Stephenson write that I wouldn't want to read? I don't know...haven't found that unicorn yet. But WHY do I want to read whatever he cares to write about? This lovely little collection of essays helps to explain why. Stephenson is interested in complicated problems, and respectful of the competence that solves those problems, whether it's the competence of the mad geniuses who (separately) invent the calculus or the competence of the manual laborer who knows how to dig the ditch P...more
Kind of like my kitchen junk drawer, this book is full of fascinating, semi-useful, basically unrelated items. There is some fiction, including a deeply funny one-sentence short story, but mostly there are essays, and these have exactly the depth and breadth of interests that one expects from Stephenson.
For instance he writes lucidly about high/low culture distinctions and the place of speculative fiction within that. He also writes about the Star Wars prequels: "These newer films don't even pr...more
For instance he writes lucidly about high/low culture distinctions and the place of speculative fiction within that. He also writes about the Star Wars prequels: "These newer films don't even pr...more
I like Stephenson a bit, and individual portions of this book are quite enjoyable. But be warned of two fairly salient facts:
1) Most of this stuff is fairly old and/or available online already.
2) Roughly a third of the book is taken up by "Mother Earth, Mother Board," a mid-90s essay about transoceanic cable laying. It's a great piece (though the second half is worlds better than the first), but it's esoteric, technical, and long. If you happen to not be particularly interested in the topic, or...more
1) Most of this stuff is fairly old and/or available online already.
2) Roughly a third of the book is taken up by "Mother Earth, Mother Board," a mid-90s essay about transoceanic cable laying. It's a great piece (though the second half is worlds better than the first), but it's esoteric, technical, and long. If you happen to not be particularly interested in the topic, or...more
WOW. I know some people complain about Neal Stephenson's novels being long, but I was never one of them. I find his style meandering, but he always gets to the point and it's always interesting. But this book had a couple of items that just. Could not. Get through. The piece on Liebniz and Newton, for example, was pretty long and covered a lot of the material in the Baroque Cycle. That one I skipped. Everything else was enjoyable, but the Wired article entitled "Mother Board, Mother Earth" was a...more
This is a collection of some previously published articles by Stephenson, essays, lectures and a few fiction pieces as well.
It's a trek through the Stephenson mind, where one is never sure what's around the corner. He touches on politics, writing, sci fi as mainstream, and the future of literature and publishing. I particularly enjoyed his mini-fascination with an prolonged disagreement between Newton and Leibniz.
One of the longer pieces describes his adventures following several companies busy...more
It's a trek through the Stephenson mind, where one is never sure what's around the corner. He touches on politics, writing, sci fi as mainstream, and the future of literature and publishing. I particularly enjoyed his mini-fascination with an prolonged disagreement between Newton and Leibniz.
One of the longer pieces describes his adventures following several companies busy...more
Recopilación de trabajos anteriores de maese Stephenson (artículos de Wired, prólogos de libros, relatos cortos...), con un capítulo añadido (Arsebestos) que es fantástico y habla sobre lo malo que es el sedentarismo y los métodos que ha empleado el autor para combatirlo. Su opción final, un escritorio elevado y una cinta de andar que encaje en él, para trabajar en casa caminando a no más de 1-2 km/h, me ha maravillado. Digna de echarle un par de pensadas.
Yo ya había leído algunos de los compon...more
Yo ya había leído algunos de los compon...more
Neal Stephenson is one of my favourite authors and there's plenty of the writing I love here: particularly his stuff on Leibniz and on rocketry.
I've also been thinking recently how similar he seems to David Foster Wallace in some ways - something about the enthusiasm and generosity with which they set out to explain complicated stuff. So I was pleased to see Stephenson wrote a foreword to Everything And More , included here, which explains how they shared a very similar background as children o...more
I've also been thinking recently how similar he seems to David Foster Wallace in some ways - something about the enthusiasm and generosity with which they set out to explain complicated stuff. So I was pleased to see Stephenson wrote a foreword to Everything And More , included here, which explains how they shared a very similar background as children o...more
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In the ultimate essay of Some Remarks Neal Stephenson says the time he might spend answering e-mails could be better spent writing fiction. In my opinion the time spent compiling this volume would have been better spent writing fiction as well. With that bit of snark behind me I can also say I enjoyed reading this for the most part. The central and longest of the essays on laying cable did go on a bit though. Overall it is a fun read and Stephenson has some pretty good ideas to throw out along t...more
If you haven't already figured out from my favorites shelf, I lurve Neal Stephenson. I think there's nobody like him except maybe Terry Pratchett. (Someone once told me I had it in me to become "the new Neal Stephenson" and I still think it's the highest praise I've ever received. Granted, I am pretty sure they were mad drunk at the time but I like to think that it still counts.)
Given this, I was a bit worried when Reamde dropped, as it seemed his sure hand was starting to slip. I bought Anathem...more
Given this, I was a bit worried when Reamde dropped, as it seemed his sure hand was starting to slip. I bought Anathem...more
There's more information in the average Neal Stephenson book than in most works of non-fiction, so you can just imagine the amount you learn when he's writing avowed fiction. There are two (and a bit) short stories here, all tending to confirm that it's not really his form, but mainly you get essays - and of those, about half the wordcount is taken up with one behemoth, 'Mother Earth, Mother Board'. An account of laying a cable (shut up, you dirty sods) may not sound like it would sustain 120 pa...more
Aug 08, 2012
Regina Nunley
marked it as to-read
I just saw Mr. Stephenson at Skylight Books in Los Fe, he is a marvelous commentator on our unreal reality and technology and being a (now cool) nerd/geek...I related to his view of people like myself who used to be despised and now are cool, because FINALLY smart is good...plan to read it after I finish plowing through the last 2 novels I purchased to read over the summer...can't wait...he is very astute and hilarious!! I am a teacher, and find I love being read to by talented authors such as h...more
No doubt, Stephenson has depths of knowledge about many subjects, and is an incredible author as well. But some of his (nonfiction) essays tend to get bogged down in technical minutiae that appeals to a small, select audience. While I am interested in undersea cabling technologies, I am not 110 pages interested. The article to which I'm referring -- "Mother Earth, Mother Board" -- needed some serious paring-down. Overall, the collection is hit-and-miss, with some extremely clever Sci-Fi short st...more
Stephenson, in his introduction, reads as reluctant to release this volume. For good reason. The short fiction and long-form reportage available here are also available elsewhere, and are excellent. The shorter and more modern pieces are only trivial in his canon. If you wanted to read his introduction to David Foster Wallace's college thesis, you would have read it already, because the initial volume would already be on your shelf. If you wanted to read Mother Earth, Mother Board, you would hav...more
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Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known primarily for his science fiction works in the postcyberpunk genre with a penchant for explorations of society, mathematics, cryptography, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired Magazine, and has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (funded by Jeff...more
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“The Victorian era was an age of superlatives and larger-than-life characters, and as far as that goes, Dr. Wildman Whitehouse fit right in: what Victoria was to monarchs, Dickens to novelists, Burton to explorers, Robert E. Lee to generals, Dr. Wildman Whitehouse was to assholes. The only 19th-century figure who even comes close to him in this department is Custer.”
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