Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Maybe the further exploits of Sangamon Taylor, the Toxic Spiderman?

Wherein I am looking for Neal Stephenson

No word on what, if anything, Neal Stephenson is working on or if books/essays/articles are due at the printer. I'm starting to have withdrawal. Still, searching through newsgroups did turn up the following:
Has there been any news (at all) regarding Stephenson's next novel?

Not that I'm aware of.

Idle speculation: either he's stopped writing for a few years to pursue other interests, or his next book is going to be big, for values of Cryptonomicon scale bigness. (It took him seven years to write the Baroque Cycle. It's already been a couple of years since "The System of the World" came out. Therefore, if he's not taking time out, he's had sufficient time to emit another wrist-breaker.

One thing I will say: On the basis of his interviews and public statements, I have no reason to believe that he next novel will be a slim, 150 page long volume that is free of digressions, curlicues, diverticulae, lacunae, footnotes, appendices (veriform and otherwise), endnotes, illuminating codicils, cryptograms, caveats, perambulations on foot through the Black Forest while meditating upon the impact of 16th century silver-working techniques on biodiversity west of the Urals, gothick embelishments, whoopee cushions, monologues, flights of fancy, barock excrescenses, meditations upon the manifest evils of Livejournal, dialogues upon the nature of True Love meandering betwixt pillar and post while the disputants duel with grenade-carrying carrier pigeons, exploding cigars, maps of uncharted territories, and divers alarums and excursions.

I'd read that.

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