It was hard to believe it was written in 1984, as it reminded me of Snow Crash.

Well, Snow Crash copied a lot.

Though Gibson never named his protagonist Hiro.

Well, Snow Crash copied a lot.

Sure, but I like Stephenson's prose style more. It's got esprit up to here.

Sure, but I like Stephenson's prose style more. It's got esprit up to here.

Huh. That's not something I would posit as Stephenson's strength over Gibson.

From the LA Times review:

Sentence for sentence, few authors equal Gibson's gift for the terse yet poetic description, the quotable simile -- people and products are nailed down with a beautiful precision approximating the platonic ideal of the catalog. An ex-bandmate now wears a " 'Bladerunner' soccer-mom look," a "Bluetoothed bouncer" patrols a bar and, when Gibson registers a "delirious surge of graffiti, a sort of street-fractal Hokusai wave," the phrasing is itself a delirious surge of pleasure-center prose.

That's not something I would posit as Stephenson's strength over Gibson.

What would you, then?

Trick question! Or rather I trapped myself because I don't consider Stephenson to be a better writer than Gibson.

Uh...Stephenson is an actual nerd who actually programmed and understands the science. Whereas Gibson is primarily interested in exploring the metaphoric implications of new technology.

Stephenson's climaxes don't peter out in trippy, apocalyptic Space Odyssey imagery.

Small spoiler for the book: A character recurs from Pattern Recognition, Hubertus Bigend. Speculation about that character's name on the interpipe suggests it may have been a nod to the character Recktall Brown in William Gaddis' book The Recognitions. Also, the Pynchonian tendency to name characters with broad, comic names. Also that whole era of metafiction's (late sixties, early 70s) fascination with Capitalism Equals Shit.

I feel like Stephenson is more user-friendly in his tone. Gibson's prose is denser and more detailed, as if he really, really wants you to know that he sees that world in his head.

I hate Stephenson. Really, really hate him. Threw the book across the room, hate him. And damaged the cover. And Didn't Even Care!

I love Gibson. I cannot wait until I get my hands on Spook Country, but it will have to wait as I spent my book allowance on Vampire People.

eta: Hee! I missed hitting the post button. I think it happened because I'd left off a period, and the b.org will not allow such a travesty.

Gibson's prose is denser and more detailed, as if he really, really wants you to know that he sees that world in his head.

I guess that's the whole thing. Density of information is one of the great cyberpunk ideals. And it also happens to overlap with my understanding of literary prose. The density means there's more there. It's richer and more allusive. It's more evocative. All that means "better" to me. Whereas I think prose can be so user friendly as to be lacking in substance. That's not how I'd describe Stephenson, but on my spectrum Gibson being over on the dense side is a positive.

Besides it's not like reading Finnegan's Wake.

Like the infamous line in Neuromancer about the sky being like a dead TV channel (meaning gray and staticky) and the world quickly shooting by that with widespread cable use so that the association would be with a blank blue screen instead.

I love this, because the passage of time and technology has landed us with a completely different yet more plausible visualisation of that line.

Although I do seem to recall having seen the husky staticky "no signal" screen again recently.

Yeah, I think about this fairly frequently. With our current setup, when the tv comes on, it is static.