Commenters focused on Neal Stephenson’s witty reply and on his wider body of work. Several praised his style and pacing, with nickmonad saying Reamde was the fastest novel they’d ever gotten through, and hungryhobbit recommending classics like Snow Crash, Diamond Age, Zodiac and In the Beginning Was the Command Line. NickDouglas called one of the explanations in the exchange the best distinction between litfic and commercial/genre fiction he’d ever seen. Others added playful asides, with buildbot joking about a fictional Stephenson-Gibson fight producing Vancouver Island, and yipinwong wondering how long Stephenson, who they said rarely goes online, sat on his reply.
Opinion split over Stephenson’s later work and the surrounding crypto discourse. hungryhobbit argued his newer books had grown verbose and self-indulgent, claiming Anathem used a made-up sub-language that expected readers to learn it, while nickmonad’s praise of Reamde suggested others still enjoy his recent output. dfxm12 lamented that the “crypto” label displaced earlier cryptography commentary, pointing to archived Matt Blaze pieces, and EvanAnderson noted Blaze remains active. jjs expressed nostalgia for classic Slashdot-era conversations, reflecting broader feelings of fondness and critique circulating among the commenters.
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