For _Diamond Age_, it's the idea that in the world as portrayed you would need human actors (rather than a suitable not-quite-AI) to read material and listen to answers for an interactive children's book. It doesn't make any sense at all with the other tech present. And the plot absolutely hinges on that being the case.

And yes, I've had the sensation of being hurled through the windshield at the end of many of his books. _Snow Crash_ was the worst offender.

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 4:02 PM, Kelly St. Clair <xxxxxx@efn.org> wrote:

On 3/29/2016 3:52 PM, Craig Berry wrote:

The value of hand-crafting (and other forms of direct human labor
involvement) in an (unevenly) post-scarcity economy is well portrayed in
Stephenson's _The Diamond Age_. The book annoys me because its plot
hinges on one stupendously implausible detail of the setting, but other
than that it's an amazing read. (And many of his books have that
property. He's basically the patron saint of fridge logic.)

Tell me about it. (No, really, I have a few candidates but I'm curious what your big one is.)

He also likes to "stop" his novels, rather than ending them, in much the same way that a car is stopped by running into a concrete abutment at highway speeds.

And despite all that, I'm still a fan. Go fig.

--
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Kelly St. Clair
xxxxxx@efn.org

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Craig Berry (http://google.com/+CraigBerry)
"Eternity is in love with the productions of time." - William Blake