Eagle Time Reading List

loving mockery of sci-fi

It was 100% this (as opposed to the other option, anyways). Stephenson absolutely took the piss out of a lot of terrible, terrible tropes that took deep root in a lot of science fiction (primarily cyberpunk) post Neuromancer, such as ridiculously perfect protagonists and trying to make everything overly gritty and dangerous - hence how we get Hiro Protagonist the katana wielding pizza delivery boy. Seriously, I don't think I've read more than a couple of novels that came out between the two that didn't fit into the same mold.

I always took the lackluster ending as being part of what was happening in cyberpunk as well - the vast majority of them end terribly especially considering the often neat things they'd set up throughout.

Oh, and supposedly one of the creators of Google Earth said they were inspired by Snow Crash, so there's that.

As for Ender's Game I thought the writing was really solid and the world interesting as hell, but couldn't ever get past how the main character invents the best religion ever and apparently becomes some sort of god king. Oh right and how he kicks some other kid in the crotch so hard it kills him (I might be remembering this part incorrectly). I mean the situations and everything were neat and the twist was solid, but I would have preferred to see a properly balanced character go through them (even if they were still generally amazing).

I always though the book and probably entire series would have been better if his still-flawed-and-thus-interesting siblings were the ones taking centre stage, though at least near the end of the novel Card sort of dealt with Ender's blatant perfection.