Fall was not my favorite. But I don’t regret reading it because I liked the Reamde characters who were reprised therein. Seveneves had almost a KSR feel as I recall. Snowcrash and Zodiac were early works and IMO inferior to the later ones. 
i agree e with  Star about the brilliance of Cryptonomicron, and the Baroque Cycle even more so. 
anyway, my cat, my rocking chair and I are looking forward to going ahead with Termination Shock. I have put it aside for the moment because I want to be reading it for a long time

Kokipy wrote:

I just finished it. I will write more tomorrow but for now- I really enjoyed it. Every word. Highly recommended. Best book I have read in I don’t know how long. 

‼️ Very high praise indeed!

Ok. This was just a wonderful book.  The characters were interesting and likeable, except for two who were interesting and, I thought, unlikeable, as the author surely intended. While it is long, I found myself last night, sitting on my sofa with my cat, noticing with dismay that I was ALREADY at 94%. I could have read twice as much and not found it too much.  
The pacing is excellent. While much of it is informative, Stephenson manages this without making the reader feel she is being dumped on. He is a master of clear and entertaining exposition, as those who will remember the Cap'n Crunch episode from Cryptonomicron will agree, and he makes all the technology and science that is the foundation of his "what if" easily comprehensible. Often the descriptive passages put the reader right in the middle of the scene.  Everything IRL disappears and you see the dikes in the Netherlands, or the copper mine in Papua New Guinea. You are there.
And the last bit is a breathless dizzying rush of excitement, evocative of Reamde at its best.  I never felt the story lagged or got bogged down in the expositions; indeed, they carried the story forward in a compelling manner. 
There are four POV characters whose perspectives take turns moving the story forward: the Comanche, the Dutch Queen, the Indonesian/Chinese/Dutch diplomat, and the Canadian Sikh. This is not too many (I have a bit of an aversion to stories that load on the POVs), nor is it too highly flavored.. Each of these four characters has an important part to play and, while they are all well-realized full people, they each represent a larger concept that adds depth to the point of the book, if that makes any sense.
Of course the diction - one of my bugaboos -  is stellar. I love his wordsmithing. I expect he could make a telephone directory interesting and entertaining. 
So I really really really loved it. I am not sure I am able to start on something else , that will surely be of lesser quality, until the glow of this one fades a bit.. 

Last edited by Kokipy (12/05/2021 10:30 am)