My first exposure to Neal was through Reamde and it's definitely the fastest I've managed to get through a novel relative to length. I really enjoy his style.
I recommend his older stuff to anyone else looking to check him out: Snow Crash is an undeniable classic, Diamond Age was absolutely incredible, and even Zodiac and In the Beginning Was the Command Line are both very good (although the last one is obviously more for computer people).
His newer stuff is very ... verbose. It started with Cryptonomicon (not sci-fi and WAY longer than it should have been) and by the time he got to Anathema he was so full of himself he not only wrote a giant text ... he wrote it in a made-up sub-language he created (and expected you to learn) just to enjoy the story.
He's one of my absolute favorite authors ... or at least he was for the first half of his career.
I really enjoyed cryptonomicon and seveneves most recently. And while yes snow crash was a faster read with just the right amount of detail the stories in both cyrptonomicon and seveneves were absolutely worth the bit of extra detail in between. Could they have been edited shorter? Possibly, but the length of the adventure in part comes from the length of the text and I couldn’t see either being paced faster in hindsight. They were paced well.
nickmonad · · focus · HN ↗
hungryhobbit · · focus · HN ↗
His newer stuff is very ... verbose. It started with Cryptonomicon (not sci-fi and WAY longer than it should have been) and by the time he got to Anathema he was so full of himself he not only wrote a giant text ... he wrote it in a made-up sub-language he created (and expected you to learn) just to enjoy the story.
He's one of my absolute favorite authors ... or at least he was for the first half of his career.
bfrog · · focus · HN ↗