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An Achievement I Say!
Feb. 28th, 2006 10:46 amAfter seven years and three failed attempts, I have sucessfully finished reading Cryptonomicon. Let's review the sad saga of my previous endeavors:
Copy One) - Book purchased and put on bookshelf unread shortly before moving. Book thrashed and torn apart in the course of move.
Tyme The Seconde) - Book purchased used from Logo's in Santa Cruz. Foolishly took it in the house with me when I visited my family, whereupon it was horked from me by my father. Book was dropped in the bathtub before it was returned to me.
Third Go) - Book received as a gift. Read maybe 30 pages. Bobbled it as I was walking from my car to my apartment on a rainy day and dropped it in a deep puddle.
I received a fourth copy as a gift last year but refused to even open the cover out of fear. After auto_de_fe made me read The Diamond Age, I resolved that I should finally read Cryptonomicon, but first I took a precaution. Knowing the results of my previous attempts, I decided to get a second copy and put it on my bookshelf first. Why, you might ask?
To check for the existance of God.
If there had been a vast cosmic conspiracy to prevent me from ever finishing this book, the odds of simultaneous destruction of both copies, one of them safely ensconced in my bedroom, would be truly astronomical. Luckily, this did not happen. My atheism remains justified.
Now, having finished this book I have read all of Neal Stephenson's novels. I, overall, adore his work. His characters a engaging, complex, and the worlds convoluted and believable. However, the man has a real problem with endings. I consider the Baroque Cycle to be all one book so I declare that one to be the first one that is nicely wrapped up and doesn't end abruptly. Can't quite decide if Diamond Age or Cryptonomicon is more annoying in their *POOF* "The End".
Normally, stuff like this suggests sequels in the pipe. I somehow don't see this. Instead, my theories are as follows:
1) He keeps running down to the wire on deadlines, goes "Sweet Salmon Of Seattle!", and the last 20 pages of all of his books (except for the Baroque Cycle) were written in eight minutes, leaving two minutes to hand it off to the FedEx guy.
2) Every time he hands in a manuscript it is 10,000 pages long, causing his publisher to have apoplectic fits. However, with each subsequent novel that becomes a best seller, the publisher decides to let a bit more get through the editor and to the shelves.
I really hope it is the latter. That would mean there are warehouses full of unpublished chapters out there.
Copy One) - Book purchased and put on bookshelf unread shortly before moving. Book thrashed and torn apart in the course of move.
Tyme The Seconde) - Book purchased used from Logo's in Santa Cruz. Foolishly took it in the house with me when I visited my family, whereupon it was horked from me by my father. Book was dropped in the bathtub before it was returned to me.
Third Go) - Book received as a gift. Read maybe 30 pages. Bobbled it as I was walking from my car to my apartment on a rainy day and dropped it in a deep puddle.
I received a fourth copy as a gift last year but refused to even open the cover out of fear. After auto_de_fe made me read The Diamond Age, I resolved that I should finally read Cryptonomicon, but first I took a precaution. Knowing the results of my previous attempts, I decided to get a second copy and put it on my bookshelf first. Why, you might ask?
To check for the existance of God.
If there had been a vast cosmic conspiracy to prevent me from ever finishing this book, the odds of simultaneous destruction of both copies, one of them safely ensconced in my bedroom, would be truly astronomical. Luckily, this did not happen. My atheism remains justified.
Now, having finished this book I have read all of Neal Stephenson's novels. I, overall, adore his work. His characters a engaging, complex, and the worlds convoluted and believable. However, the man has a real problem with endings. I consider the Baroque Cycle to be all one book so I declare that one to be the first one that is nicely wrapped up and doesn't end abruptly. Can't quite decide if Diamond Age or Cryptonomicon is more annoying in their *POOF* "The End".
Normally, stuff like this suggests sequels in the pipe. I somehow don't see this. Instead, my theories are as follows:
1) He keeps running down to the wire on deadlines, goes "Sweet Salmon Of Seattle!", and the last 20 pages of all of his books (except for the Baroque Cycle) were written in eight minutes, leaving two minutes to hand it off to the FedEx guy.
2) Every time he hands in a manuscript it is 10,000 pages long, causing his publisher to have apoplectic fits. However, with each subsequent novel that becomes a best seller, the publisher decides to let a bit more get through the editor and to the shelves.
I really hope it is the latter. That would mean there are warehouses full of unpublished chapters out there.
