Comment by floren
4 months ago
There's something you'll start to notice in Stephenson's books, where a passage will be almost entirely standalone and you think, he wrote this some other time and just barely massaged it to fit into this text. See also "Part 3" of *Fall; or, Dodge in Hell* which is pretty much entirely disconnected from the rest of the story but god damn it Trump just got elected (for the first time) and I've gotta write this.
I experience this as me being a ridealong on my friend's random diatribe. Oftentimes it feels like something he just learned and needs to tell someone about.
I believe REAMDE included an entire page dedicated to the virtues of lashing tires to fishing craft.
William Gibson's writing really fell off a cliff post-Trump. Agency was one of the dullest reads I've encountered in a long time.
Speaking of Fall, after a couple hundred pages I ended up just skipping the chapters about Bitworld.
I didn't bother reading Termination Shock and if Gibson ever finishes Jackpot, I doubt I'll pick it up either. What a bummer.