Review of 'some remarks'
some remarks by Neal Stephenson
“some remarks” is a collection of non-fiction and fiction works from Neal Stephenson including 1996's “Mother Earth, Mother Board” from Wired (which, at more than 100 pages dominates this book) in which Stephenson investigates the laying of the “FLAG” communication cable from both a technical and political perspective. “Slashdot Interview” from 2004 which covers a number of topics related to Stephenson's work. “Gresham College Lecture” (2008) where he talks about Speculative Fiction as a writing genre and of the industry as a whole. There are only a few pieces of fiction including “The Great Simolean Caper” (1995) a somewhat tongue-in-cheek story of cryptocurrency that somewhat predates the modern phenomenon.
For the most part the pieces are small and appear in somewhat haphazard order making reading quite difficult as the chapters differ so widely from each other in not only subject but also time. Quite a difficult and slow to read, not, I feel (with the exception of “Mother Earth, Mother Board”), some of his better work. Best to stick with his much easier to read and better written novels. To be fair, Stephenson admits as much in his introduction and it is a theme in the articles here focusing on his writing: He prefers to concentrate his talent on his novels, pushing aside the rest. Here, it shows.
Rating: “It is OK but I have some issues”
Review Date: 2021-07-10
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Publication Date: 2012
ISBN: 9781848878563