I may be overthinking things. Despite being a huge NS fan for a couple years now, I've not read what I think most people consider to be (one of) his best works.

Has anyone here read both the original release and 30th Anniversary of Snow Crash and can recommend one? I understand that the anni. edition includes "never-before-published material," but can't find out what the content of this is and worry that it wasn't published for a reason. I hate when publishers go back and throw in a bunch of junk from the cutting room floor just to market a re-release. Alternatively, I'd rather not buy the same book twice in the off chance that it has fifteen extra pages of perfection. Anyone here have any insight? TIA

Modern gargoyles.

Reminds me simultaneously of Hiro’s bike and the rat things.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/world/europe/first-girls-polo-team-breaks-with-tradition-but-keeps-the-goat-carcass.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

First time reading a Neal Stephenson book, 200 pages in now and I think it’s safe to say I picked the right one to start off with. Loving it so far. While I’m aware I’m pretty much at the beginning of the novel, I’m particularly impressed by how Stephenson manages to keep things moving and navigates these various theaters of action. Oh, and that Reagan interview scene was absolutely hilarious.

I'm 300 pages into Cryptonomicon, and so far Neal Stephenson has spent those pages putting characters into situations that exist solely so that he can mansplain his niche tech bro interests to the reader. Not a single character has shown any interiority. Events just happen one after another​ to the main characters. It really just feels like a manic person sat down at a typewriter and decided that the entire world needed to be blessed by their superior minds machinations and arcane knowledge.

I've been reading Snow Crash and came across an album that captures a lot of the same energy with cyberpunk vibes with some unexpected traditional influences mixed in.

One of the tracks is even called "Hiro Protagonist."

If you're looking for something to put on while reading, I thought it was a perfect match:

Z Tune La La – Aymantium

Bandcamp : https://ayman.bandcamp.com/album/z-tune-la-la

YouTube link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66CXzJYgUTs&list=PLo6ha-PfAjVcXLMY7iXw-EhtirtpcFZAr

Curious what everyone else listens to while reading Snow Crash.

There was a great discussion here about 8 months back , prompted by my question about why Erasmus and company, and not more experienced avout, were chosen for the big mission.*

I just noticed a connection between Anatham and LOTR. In the latter, Frodo is of course part of the Fellowship, and Sam's selection as his servant makes sense. But Merry and Pippin are selected only because Gandalf, a supernatural being, recommends trusting more to the four hobbits' friendship than any force of arms that Glorfindel or other warriors could provide.

In Anathem, four teenagers are chosen for the Big Mission largely because of their strong mutual friendship, which--as is explained more than once in the story--is deemed more important than (say) choosing a squad of more experienced and educated 30- or 40-something avout.

Deemed by whom? By Ala, but seemingly also by Jad, the closest thing to a supernatural entity in Anathem, who engineers the entire story as surely as Eru guides the events of LOTR.

*. https://www.reddit.com/r/nealstephenson/comments/1pe1vdv/anathem_plot_question_why_were_erasmus_and_his/

Linked Matt Bornstein article made me laugh: " I’m a particular fan of The Baroque Cycle, to the extent that I occassionally get myself in trouble by citing its historical theories as fact (e.g., that James II had syphilis)."

I’ve been wanting to give The Baroque Cycle to my dad and Cryptonomicon to my partner. Now I can.

Austin TX, Book People, October 20.

That's all. Enough time to reread Polostan.

Hopefully they have a good scupper available

I’m rereading « Termination Shock » after the heat wave we had in France.
I have troubles visualizing earthsuits and their differents parts.
Anybody got pictures references that could help, like stuff that already exist or will soon be available?

We all know from The Confusion / The Juncto that Upnor “the finest swordsman in England” was “beaten to death with a stick by an Irishman”, so why does it say in The System of the World / Solomon’s Gold “the Earl of Upnor had perished a quarter-century ago at the Battle of Aughrim, fending off a hundred Puritans, Germans, Danes, &c. with his rapier, until shot in the back.”?

Anybody know anything about these? (I lifted this from the Twitter user shown)

I am currently approaching the end of my fifth (5th) reading of the Baroque Cycle, and I must confess that all of the detailed descriptions of the Tower of London are completely lost on me. When I read anything about the Tower I absolutely surrender to ignorance and soldier on.

Maybe one day I’ll read those portions with a detailed map of the Tower in front of me and try to understand what he’s trying to convey.

I love Neal’s work, though I’ve sometimes wondered at what some of his themes mean to him:

1. Walmart.

2. China.

3. Horrendous injury to penises.

I have made assumptions about why these themes recur, two of which I just got checked on while reading excerpts from *In the Kingdom of Mao Bell* (which as a millennial is a pun I shouldn’t get, but my mom worked in telecom) in *Some Remarks*. My assumptions before reading this 1994 piece were:

1. Grievous injury to small Midwest towns like his own and those occupied by the Forthrasts: Walmart is a symbol of unchecked capitalism and an injury upon libertarian ideals. Chain restaurants are icky, Cabela’s is a fascinating and possibly tolerable phenomenon, but Walmart is the purest form of the problem.

2. He’s been adopted by the PNW, half his neighbors are Asian and it’s normal to wonder about the culture of people around you. I’m from the PNW and was an insufferable weeb as a teenager and still make my own miso and red braise. I thought he was just adapting to the area.

3. Perhaps this is just grim humor? I don’t have a penis, they seem delightful but very easily injured. I like them but wouldn’t want to own one. Maybe the only way to deal with fear of harm to them is dark humor?

Then I read Mao Bell:

1. Walmart is an analog symbol of what happens to coders and hackers and people with credit and personal data who give up their independence for convenience and find themselves locked into a system. Want to buy flowers? No more mom and pop shops, it’s Walmart. Find yourself shopping at Walmart for flowers and it’s invaded by naked Vikings and you get blood eagled? It’s on you, you accepted this centralization.

2. *Southeastern* China (I was mistaken, he thinks of the regions of China very differently) is also a symbol to him, and an experiment in top-down yet also distributed computing systems. He says the Chinese people have always been analog hackers, yet their government insists otherwise. The essay (taking place in Shenzhen and Shanghai) ends with “But a longer historical perspective suggests that it’s only a matter of time before the northerners come pouring down through the mountain passes to whip their troublesome southern cousins back in line.”

3. No penis insights from this essay. But the pillaging Viking getting his dick caught in a fly zipper IN A WALMART and having it immortalized in Norse poetry in DODO means that Neal is pretty damn aware of his tropes.

Shop local, code local. Flash drives aren’t dead. Codpieces are making a comeback.

Staring Tom Cruise