For the last few days, I have been enjoying the buzz that comes from having read a really good novel. I read each Neal Stephenson book as it comes out, and I particularly liked the new one, D:Heavy Water, the second book of a new trilogy of historical novels about the atomic bomb.
Stephenson has a Substack newsletter, and he has written some posts that shed light on the new book. This newsletter reveals which writer provided the inspiration for the main character in D:Heavy Water. Peter Fleming "belongs in my personal Mount Rushmore of English prose stylists along with Gibbon, Dickens, and Churchill," Stephenson said. And in a footnote, Stephenson said Jane Austen is "the best novelist," surprising me. I am very well read in Jane Austen, I've read all of her books, most of them more than once. Here is another newsletter, on Edward Gibbon, "the greatest prose stylist ever."
I have had a quite a few posts here that mention Neal Stephenson. Here is the post on how he and Robert Anton Wilson used a similar method to tie several novels together. Here is another post, which mentions that I asked Stephenson about it and decided not to give him my business card or a Discordian Pope card.
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