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Fall; or, Dodge in Hell
3/5. Techbro is the first to have his brain uploaded after his death. Lots of people follow him, and things happen.
The premise of this book – well, it's Stephenson, so one of the premises – is gosh, wouldn't it be interesting to explore how rival techbro billionaire manchildren would build a new world from scratch? and I'm here to tell you, the answer to that question is noooooope.
There are other things going on here given that Stephenson's approach to novel writing is 'throw seven pots of different kind of spaghetti at the wall.' This one actually hangs together, thematically, a lot better than many of his books. There's a lot of stuff in here about how your construction of reality defines your culture (or the other way around, sometimes), and how the digital age amplifies that, and post truthism. And some of it is really good stuff.
But boy. The third of this book that is about two different techbro manchild conceptions of how to make a medieval fantasy world is . . . not good.
3/5. Techbro is the first to have his brain uploaded after his death. Lots of people follow him, and things happen.
The premise of this book – well, it's Stephenson, so one of the premises – is gosh, wouldn't it be interesting to explore how rival techbro billionaire manchildren would build a new world from scratch? and I'm here to tell you, the answer to that question is noooooope.
There are other things going on here given that Stephenson's approach to novel writing is 'throw seven pots of different kind of spaghetti at the wall.' This one actually hangs together, thematically, a lot better than many of his books. There's a lot of stuff in here about how your construction of reality defines your culture (or the other way around, sometimes), and how the digital age amplifies that, and post truthism. And some of it is really good stuff.
But boy. The third of this book that is about two different techbro manchild conceptions of how to make a medieval fantasy world is . . . not good.