faetal on 5/6/2014 at 14:27
Quote Posted by SubJeff
I'm STILL reading Snow Crash.
Why isn't this a film by now?
Haven't you and Dethtoll had enough arguments for one month?
SubJeff on 5/6/2014 at 14:59
Does he hate Snow Crash or something?
faetal on 5/6/2014 at 15:33
You might say that.
There's this thing about Neal Stephenson's beard too. It's come up a few times.
june gloom on 5/6/2014 at 18:53
Snow Crash isn't the worst book I've ever read. But it's bad enough that comparisons can be made.
I don't know how Subjeff can be such a prolific poster here and not have a clue about other peoples' tastes or experiences. It's not like I haven't made my views about stuff like Snow Crash (or TV, which he's argued with me over in the past) or my experiences with deafness very clear.
SubJeff on 5/6/2014 at 23:04
I've argued with you about specific TV shows before but not about you disliking Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad.
I just don't remember any posts where you said you disliked Snow Crash. I remember you said something about Neal Stephenson but disliking a person doesn't mean you'd automatically dislike his book, does it? That'd be idiocy of the finest pedigree.
I don't know how you can be a human being and not know that another person isn't going to remember everything you love and hate. Can you name a book I dislike? One I like?
I'm enjoying Snow Crash. What's to hate?
june gloom on 6/6/2014 at 01:27
Considering everyone else is like "shhh don't mention Stephenson around dethtoll" I have to wonder where you've been.
Also, what's to hate about Snow Crash?
Everything, and Stephenson himself is a hack. His books are about 7-8 times longer than they have to be and full of useless information that somehow is connected to the plot but is utterly extraneous otherwise. His characters are flat and often little more than archetypes. There is little narrative flow or tension. But once you shovel away the endless mounds of Wikipedia text dumps, what you have left really isn't very good.
Snow Crash was almost okay if we took it as an intentional parody of cyberpunk and anarcho-capitalism, but then he fucking infodumps the reader with a bunch of bullshit about ancient Sumeria that doesn't mean anything or further the plot. It's something to do with the neuroscience of language, okay, but why does that matter? It doesn't. It has no bearing on the plot, and the whole "Sumerian is the programming language of the human brainstem" could have been reduced to maybe 10 sentences, 9 if you toss the completely throwaway JESUS WASN'T REAL line that got thrown in because Stephenson just can't help being a stereotype. None of this is necessary. It's all extraneous and should have had red ink dumped on it. But Stephenson thought editors were for wimps, and now I've read through a couple dozen pages of this stuff and I've forgotten what the fuck the main character was supposed to do or why he -- or I -- should care. Then I realize that he's had no real motivation anyway, unless you count jamming it in the valley girl.
And that's him at his most restrained -- when he became popular with about 40,000 neckbeards he pretty much disappeared into his own asshole, and now every goddamn book of his -- from the excruciating Cryptonomicon to the full-stop unreadable Anathem -- is a million pages of beemban (beemban: noun, predating the age of Shitquarius, meaning thoneeturr'ntooloh, which in turn means furrferfortwinhie after carrying the two if we use non-Faulknerian math THIS IS EXACTLY THE SORT OF STUPID BULLSHIT ALL HIS BOOKS FUCKING DO
Sulphur on 6/6/2014 at 04:47
Take it to the private members' jerkoff circle, please. I don't think I'm the only one tired of the long, ropey wads of text erupting between you two over the same thing day in and day out.
henke on 6/6/2014 at 06:18
Quote Posted by dethtoll
His books are about 7-8 times longer than they have to be and full of useless information that somehow is connected to the plot but is utterly extraneous otherwise. His characters are flat and often little more than archetypes.
Agree about too much useless info, but I thought the characters were great. The samurai who delivers pizza for the mafia is like an 11 year old's idea of the
the coolest guy ever and the banter between him and YT was great.
I'd love to see a movie version of it. There's lots of scenes in it that'd work great visually, and they could cut out most of the fluff and focus on the main story and characters.
june gloom on 6/6/2014 at 06:20
In all honesty, I actually would not mind a movie of it. Its plot, its flat characters, its whole setting being the inside of an 11-year-old's head after watching, I dunno, his brother's copy of Ghost in the Shell, and playing Shadowrun on the Genesis, not to mention potentially being a rather timely critique of the Koch brothers' idea of how capitalism works, would make for a good stupid summer film where you turn off your brain and just look at the pretty for a couple hours. The shit about ancient Sumeria would bore everyone to tears and any studio exec worth his salt would have it excised and then the screenwriter would turn up dead for trying to put it in, and the movie would be better for it.
But fuck me if I'm ever going to read that another book by that pretentious shitbeef and his beard ever again.
faetal on 6/6/2014 at 09:57
I loved Snow Crash, but loved Diamond Age even more. I'm not sure about film versions. Look what happened with Johnny Mnemonic.
