At 01:25 PM 7/18/2002 -0500, nikki m. pill wrote: >Neil Stephenson, on the other hand, overdoes the "look how > clever I am" aspect. So do those Roberts who do the Illuminatus Trilogy. > It's like reading Tom Robbins in SF, or even worse, Gore Vidal. I can't >cope > with smug writers. Now that is a fascinating post. I agree about Neil Stephenson; I spend have his books going, "He's really clever," and the other half going, "He thinks he's really clever." And I've referred to him as sf's answer to Tom Robbins. But it would never occur to me to put Gore Vidal in that category. He's entirely different, and yet, I can see where you're coming from. I must consider this.