Two burning questions

[justalurkr]

1. So, my person hell odyssey through the prospect of surplus is over as of last Friday. It continues, however, for the seven or eight people actually surplussed. How are the rest of us supposed to act around them???2. Fellow sci fi geek and coworker dismisses Neal Stephenson as a hack. I decide to google "Neal Stephenson hack?" and discover the

Comments

[nialla42]

Ack, they didn't do an immediate "Here's your final two weeks of pay, give us your keys and go home" thing? That's pretty much how it's worked at any job I've left by my choice or theirs, because they don't want to run the risk of an exiting employee monkeying around in their systems.

I've got Stephenson on my list to read, but I think calling a writer a "hack" is just an opinion. Well, unless the writer is LKH. :)

[justalurkr]

In which case we have industry pros to fill us in.

The guy who hates Neal Stephenson backed a failed kickstarter a couple of years ago, feels robbed by the author and is bad-mouthing him as a result.

I can't actually throw rocks given how I feel about Orson Scott Card whose "Ender's Game" is a classic of classics, much like "Snow Crash" and the massive Baroque Cycle are for Stephenson.

[nialla42]

Failed Kickstarters are a dime a dozen. Some require all the money be raised or the money is not collected from anyone. I'm surprised an author would do the other kind, but then I don't know what it was for.

I can't read OSC either, but for me that's more about not wanting to support an author who uses his money to support what I feel is a repulsive point of view. That said, we do have the book in the library.

[justalurkr]

Apparently, some video game company using Stephenson's name and idea raised half a mil, started game design and then blew the rest at the track or something.

I feel fortunate that I read OSC's best early work before finding out that he is a hateful bastard and probably a hypocrite. On the other hand, learning that about him made certain themes and scenes in Ender's Game and Songmaster exceedingly creepy.

[wraith816]

Re: 2. Can't really comment based on the merits of just one book, but I had a hell of a time getting through Snow Crash. I remember it starting off interesting, but abruptly starting to drag about halfway through. YMMV, of course.

[justalurkr]

I remember thinking Snow Crash was a little over rated, but readable.

Diamond Age was creepy but interesting in its concept.

Have not gone near his magnum opus, Cryptonomicon/Baroque Cycle.

Could not finish Reamde.

Could not stop listening to the cosmic trainwreck that was Seveneves. I mean, trainwreck for humanity that found out about the end of the world roughly two years before it happened, then coped with highly variable effectiveness. Stuff of nightmares in parts, but interesting take on the end of the world trope.