Message #3073

From: Vasily Vladimirovich Vylkov <vasily@gatech.edu>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Snowcrash and Permutation City
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 02:04:20 -0800

I read through the whole of Permutation City in one sitting. Wow – thanks
again for the link. At some point it gets kind of tiring (how many
simulations within simulations within simulations could there be…) but
overall I haven’t been so engrossed in a book since I read Hyperion
(Simmons) or maybe Murakami (e.g. Norwegian Wood); it had that sort of
dreamlike melancholy.

On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 1:08 PM, Vasily Vladimirovich Vylkov <
vasily@gatech.edu> wrote:

> That Snow Crash book was more than a little over-the-top Tarantino
> spaghetti western B-movie style bombastic, but I think I will also give
> Stephenson the benefit of the doubt – that it was a stylistic choice to
> write that way, and not necessarily amateurish. (I do remember being
> bewildered at first, at how blatantly unrealistic some of the action was!
> : )
>
> On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 8:00 AM, David Vanderschel DvdS@Austin.RR.com
> [4D_Cubing] <4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Melinda’s comment got me curious about Second Life. I had never paid
>> much attention. Then I found a contradiction of Melinda’s claim from
>> Second Life creator Philip Rosedale himself, here:
>> http://freakonomics.com/2007/12/13/philip-rosedale-answers-your-second-life-questions/
>>
>> Q: Have you ever read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson? I don’t know much
>> about Second Life but it sounds similar to the Metaverse in the fiction
>> novel.
>>
>> A: When Snow Crash came out, I was already really intent on the idea of
>> creating a virtual world like Second Life — I had been thinking about it
>> and doing what small experiments I could since I was in college. But Snow
>> Crash certainly painted a compelling picture of what such a virtual world
>> could look like in the near future, and I found that inspiring.
>>
>> I guess I am only quibbling about the definite article. He did find it
>> inspiring, but he had already been inspired; so it was not *the*
>> inspiration.
>>
>> Unlike Melinda, I did not find Stephenson’s writing to be amateurish.
>> However, I did take it to be deliberately absurd and satirically comical.
>> I liked Snow Crash a lot, laughed a lot. I still occasionally recommend it
>> to people.
>>
>> Regards,
>> David V.
>>
>> On 2/9/2015 7:10 PM, Melinda Green melinda@superliminal.com [4D_Cubing]
>> wrote:
>>
>> Snowcrash’s metaverse was the inspiration for Second Life which I helped
>> develop for a couple of years.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>