English language
Published Jan. 15, 2019 by HarperCollins Publishers.
A long, though somewhat satisfying Fall
Like other books by Neal Stephenson that I've read, this book takes time to get into. Not so much the story, but seeing the story develop in a real direction. It mostly meanders in interesting directions, but you only see it all comes together right at the end. It's a good book, it just takes patience and persistence.
This is a unique work, different than previous books. A departure from the kind of scifi one might expect from a Stephenson novel. Its an origin story of a make-believe world that exists in a computer. Nearly all of the 890 page book is that story, using mostly characters from the first 15% of the book that happen outside the computer. I enjoyed it to the end, though perhaps because I was unwittingly exposed to genres I wouldn't have picked outright.
This book was infuriatingly uneven. It begins with a fascinating look at the culture of the near-future, exploring the shifting concepts of truth and identity in a culture that gets its reality from an increasingly social, increasingly hoax-laden information network (and, in some cases, rejects a shared reality altogether). Then, it wastes hundreds of pages on an excruciatingly gradual construction of a new society of post-human digital life forms inside a simulation representing the concept of scanning one’s consciousness into a computer system for eternal life. Every single choice made in this section is wrong, it grinds the narrative to a halt, and caused me to set the book aside for a full year before getting a running start to finish it off. I wish I hadn’t bothered.
що сказати... задум — чудовий, нехай і не новий (пригадалося десь із півдюжини різних фантастичних повістей і романів, від "realtime interrupt" джеймса хогана до "accelerando" чарльза стросса)... виконання — типовий стефенсон останніх років (пригадав "seveneves"): місцями динамічно і цікаво, а часом повільно, поверхнево і нудно. загалом читабкльно... тільки шкода, що фінал і тут досить прісний — як наче автор також знудився й покинув.
There are books that, while they're long, don't feel long. This isn't one of those.
After I'd read the last page, I sat for a while and reviewed in my head the vast sweep of things that had happened. There are ideas and settings in this book that are interesting enough to support an entire novel, but are introduced and abandoned in a few chapters. Some of those are great, some less so.
Full disclosure: I'm a fan of Neal Stephenson's writing. When I tell people that, they usually respond with some variation of, "But all of his characters are stick figures who spend pages and pages lecturing each other about whatever Stephenson has been researching lately!" To which I reply, "Yeah, and I love it!"
In this case, the worst aspect of this book is that there aren't enough of those lectures. The chapters of the book revolving around …
There are books that, while they're long, don't feel long. This isn't one of those.
After I'd read the last page, I sat for a while and reviewed in my head the vast sweep of things that had happened. There are ideas and settings in this book that are interesting enough to support an entire novel, but are introduced and abandoned in a few chapters. Some of those are great, some less so.
Full disclosure: I'm a fan of Neal Stephenson's writing. When I tell people that, they usually respond with some variation of, "But all of his characters are stick figures who spend pages and pages lecturing each other about whatever Stephenson has been researching lately!" To which I reply, "Yeah, and I love it!"
In this case, the worst aspect of this book is that there aren't enough of those lectures. The chapters of the book revolving around the rights of the dead to be preserved and the technical processes being developed to do so are fascinating, well researched and detailed. The social and political groups that enact and react to the simulation of the dead (in "Bitworld") are surreal yet plausible.
But as the action moves to Bitworld and takes on a more biblical and eventually high fantasy tone, the book increasingly drags. I love high fantasy, but this stuff is mediocre. There's still some fun to be had reading about the weird ways Meatspace interacts with Bitworld, and there are some interesting ontological points made, but it's weak, and it makes up about half the book, and this book is not short.
The problem is how derivative the fantasy themes are. Given a chance to literally create a new world from nothing, the simulated post-death characters in Bitworld recapitulate (slightly tweaked) myths and stories from Meatspace. It's a depressing failure of imagination on their part, and seemingly on Stephenson's.
It's not all boring though, not by a long shot. Stephenson retains his ability to present complicated issues clearly and his ever improving ability to write action and drama (without the benefit of much character depth) has reached a new height. This book is also funnier than his books often are. The character of Corvus was a delight, and brightened up the lamer later chapters.
So, if you like Stephenson's writing (especially his later tomes) then I give this one-and-a-half thumbs up (or 4 stars, in the land of Goodreads). If you're iffy on him, then pick it up but be ready to skim chapters when necessary. If you're here for the fantasy, then pass it by.
As is usual with Stephenson, there are rather large swaths of backstory that could have been removed without massively changing the story, but as is also usual, I don't think it would have made it better. I've grown to relish the long soaks in detail. If that's not your thing, be warned. But if you have the time and patience, Fall brings a lot of great ideas and a few good characters to life.
Like Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon (the other two books of his I've read), Fall is a meaty book, with lots of interesting ideas and presumptions to chew on. I look forward to discussing this books with whichever friends I can convince to wade through it.
