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Which is funny because I think that Stephenson is much better at portraying how the people who live in his futures rhyme with people we know but are profoundly different than the people of our world because of the circumstances in which they live
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Gibson is much better at writing a world which completely overwhelms the characters we meet. They experience a rich and textured slice of the world but you can feel that there is much more beyond the edges. Stephenson’s characters get the grand tour.
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This is true, but also funny, because ‘Snow Crash’ + ‘Cryptonomicon’ are an attempt to deliver an accessible version of Pynchon’s ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’. And it SUCCEEDS. 😲 If you have not been able to get through ‘Rainbow’, read ‘Snow Crash’ then ‘Rainbow’ right after.
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Gibson is also more literary where Stephenson is more genre, so hard to compare
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Is that an observation of similarities or an intent Stephenson has expressed? I'd be very surprised if it were intent to 'translate' literary insights rather than just coincidental exploration of similar themes
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Replying to and
Before ‘Snow Crash’ was famous, a lot of reviewers noted how much it owed to Pynchon. And if you read a few chapters of ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’, then read ‘Snow Crash’ immediately after, then go back to ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ immediately after that, it is *unmistakable*.
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I have given this advice to several people who have bounced off of how weird ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ is, and they describe how the scales were lifted from their eyes when they returned to it after ‘Snow Crash’. It’s not (only) about themes, it is about METHOD.
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