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Comment by peatmoss | Hacker News Reader

I can’t second this enough. Snow Crash and Diamond Age were fun page-turners. I slogged through Cryptonomicon, but beyond that I haven’t been able to finish anything else.

I’ve heard good things about Seveneves, but I’m a little hesitant to pick it up given that it’s huge and there are thousands of other books to read.

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Pick up Anathem before trying Seveneves. Anathem might be his strongest novel, and it's the only one that holds up to Snow Crash and Diamond Age in my estimation.

I adore Zodiac as well but am in a decided minority in that regard.

I even liked _The Big U_. Pre Cryptonomicon Stephenson was weird and full of wacky ideas barely held together with a thin veneer of a story. I think he's a much better storyteller now, but the books aren't quite as dense with weird, magic and crazy ideas.

> I adore Zodiac as well but am in a decided minority in that regard.

We're in the same camp, friend. Zodiac was my favourite novel of his.

I loved Snow Crash and The Diamond Age. I've read Anathem twice and loved it. And even though it clocks in at around 3,000 pages, The Baroque Cycle trilogy is so good I've read it 3 or 4 times and I'll probably read it again.

The first 2/3s of Seveneves were pretty good. I think you can reasonably skip the last 1/3 of the novel. Anathem is definitely his best written work. Don't bother with REAMDE.

REAMDE was interesting to read when it came out as it had many ideas about the very-near-future that had yet to come about but are now true. One was how malware will grow dramatically in frequency and sophistication once there is an anonymous way to pay the criminals online. Written before criminals started using Bitcoin. I would agree it is now not worth reading unless one just wants to read everything by Stephenson.

Yeah, agree. You'll reach a point where you very obviously know you can stop.

I sometimes don't mind his "explain every little detail of the physics of how things work" style of writing, but when that's the majority of what you're reading over several pages of being introduced to new characters, it's a bit much.

I'd recommend reading it. Pretty fun book.

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