Life Imitates Art: Snowcrash - L. Bob Rife = Sinclair Broadcasting?

[politicat]

Very similar attitudes - dismissal for speaking out, an uber-neoconservative attitude, allied with the religious reich, engaging in a propaganda war....

Not saying we're entering the Snowcrash age... I think we're already there ... but it's an interesting parallel.

Pcat

[Philostopher]

1. Neal Stephenson often is well ahead of his time.

Snowcrash wasn't my favorite of his -- I didn't think it was as well written as stuff he published later -- but you're absolutely right about the predictive qualities of the story itself. I really wish he'd waited until he was a more accomplished writer to take the story on, it's painful to read once you've gone on to his more maturely-written stuff and try to go back to read it.

[politicat]

3. Yes and no.... SC almost needs to feel like the badly composed docu

that programmers are forced to put out on Alpha products. The style works for me, though it took a couple readings to get the time sequence down. It IS a bit wordy, and the nature of the explanations of the information mean that it can get pedantic.

Stylistically, I prefer both The Diamond Age (later) and Zodiac (earlier) to SC; I'm working my way through the Quicksilver trilogy as I have time, but I must admit that they're tough and I don't like several of the characters, leading to putting down the book. (I despise Jack Shaftoe.)

Don't get me wrong - I'm glad he's making a living writing; so few of us do. There ar just times I wish he'd put down the pen and go back to the word processor.

Pcat

[Philostopher]

4. Oh, I thought it was a great story.

Just didn't think his chops were up to it at the time. I know a lot of Stephenson's fans who liked the cyberpunk stuff didn't think much of Cryptonomicon, but I really liked it.

Maybe it's the fact I was going between him, William Gibson and Norman Spinrad, and Snowcrash didn't hold up stylistically to the other things I was reading. Again, I thought it was a great story. I'm glad he had the opportunity to publish, he's good and getting better.

Unfortunately, I've been so wound up in all the election BS the last year or so, I haven't picked up a piece of fiction in over a year. One of these days, I need to take some money and get me to a bookstore or at least the public library. I'll need serious escape either way it goes, but especially if it somehow manages not to go our way.

[politicat]

5. My trick - ebooks and a PDA

I write, and no input means no output. So I HAVE to read, and I'm fortunately not a TV watcher much. So when I found I could put ebooks on my Palm PDA, that saved me.

Reading my PDA in the grocery store line is far more entertaining and better for me than reading the headlines on the sob-sister rags.

Pcat

(and no, I don't work for or own stock in Palm or anything that produces a Pocket PC.)

[Philostopher]

7. I spend way, way too much time here.

Maybe I should 'break' my computer for a while, it might get me away from my desk long enough to read some books!

I do tend to read more in the winter, though. I suppose that might happen this year, especially once the election is over. Either way, I'll be happy for the stress relief!

I write, too, but it's strictly hobby writing. I've done quite a bit of that the past year, when politics burned me out and I had to give myself a one-week moratorium on this place. It helps, but eventually, as you say, I write it all out of my head and have nowhere to go.

[dave123williams]

2. I always dug the 'illustrated primer'...

Yeah; you don't have to look much further than Orwell to understand these guys...

P.s. Stephenson ROCKS.

[politicat]

6. And I agree with the Orwell parallels, too... but I think Orwell is more

distant. He was violently anti-communist, when it's really apparent that it will be laissez faire economics and the marriage of corporate money with the political system that is going to be our fight. Far more fascist than socialist.

I don't know that anyone, in the late 40s, could have conceived of the idea of a resurgence of fascism. How soon we forget.

Pcat

Edited for spelling... sometimes my fingers play tricks on me....

[MisterP]

8. blipverts!

H-h-h-how can you tell if George WWWW Bush is lying? His l-lips are moving! H'-h'-ha1