Books and Stuff
I decided to read some of the stuff all self respecting geeks have read, namely some of the stuff by William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. So I picked up Neuromancer and Cryptomicon, and I started the former first, namely because it was the shorter of the two.
One one hand, I found the concepts proffered in Neuromancer to be fantastic – it really is the “archetypal cyberpunk work”. On the other hand, I found it to be a slightly unpleasant read – it was rather disjointed, occasionally confusing and it lacked much flow. While the ideas and the plot are great, the execution didn’t really appeal to me. It’s importance as a literary work in undeniable though.
Conversely, while I’ve just started Cryptomicon, I find it’s writing style to be absolutely fantastic. I’ve not gotten far enough to actually judge it on it’s merit of plot.