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I'm not a philosophy student nor do I have a comfortable grasp on various topics of meta-physics or astronomical mathematics but I do love how Stephenson can weave an engrossing and thought-provoking story around those concepts and keep me engrossed for 900+ pages.
Stephenson has invented a new language for all the mathematical/philosophical concepts in the book which I think it makes it easier to follow for those of us that have a basic idea of, say, string theory, but without ever naming it as such he breaks it down in terms that are relevant to the story. Granted it does bend the mind at times and for me, I found it easy just to read through the dialogues for surface value without digging into the larger meaning too much. One section of the book spends a lot of time in these dialogues and it can get rather frustrating - not unreadable, just difficult to grasp - but then it quickly goes back to the action-adventure story that is at it's base.
I found that there was more similarities to Snow Crash here in the adventure storyline then the Baroque Cycle or Cryptonomicon. I think there is an element of cyber-fantasy that is not in the more reality-based plots of the aforementioned series. But there is a lot of hard science, math, philosophy mixed in with the fiction which [b:Snow Crash|830|Snow Crash|Neal Stephenson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157396730s/830.jpg|493634] does not have. In the end, it is most definitely Neal Stephenson. I saw him do a reading at Ryerson last week and he refused to talk about his next project but I can't wait to see where he'll go from here.
I do miss the Waterhouses and the Shaftoes, though. They are not in this world ;)
Stephenson has invented a new language for all the mathematical/philosophical concepts in the book which I think it makes it easier to follow for those of us that have a basic idea of, say, string theory, but without ever naming it as such he breaks it down in terms that are relevant to the story. Granted it does bend the mind at times and for me, I found it easy just to read through the dialogues for surface value without digging into the larger meaning too much. One section of the book spends a lot of time in these dialogues and it can get rather frustrating - not unreadable, just difficult to grasp - but then it quickly goes back to the action-adventure story that is at it's base.
I found that there was more similarities to Snow Crash here in the adventure storyline then the Baroque Cycle or Cryptonomicon. I think there is an element of cyber-fantasy that is not in the more reality-based plots of the aforementioned series. But there is a lot of hard science, math, philosophy mixed in with the fiction which [b:Snow Crash|830|Snow Crash|Neal Stephenson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157396730s/830.jpg|493634] does not have. In the end, it is most definitely Neal Stephenson. I saw him do a reading at Ryerson last week and he refused to talk about his next project but I can't wait to see where he'll go from here.
I do miss the Waterhouses and the Shaftoes, though. They are not in this world ;)