Neal Stephenson can’t even win over the Scots: “The author biography says that having discovered his ‘pretty humour for the writing of Romances… he took up the Pen and hath not since laid it down’. To which one can only add: Please do. ” Ouch. (via the Saloon)

Paul Di Filippo also remains unconvinced: “But if we wanted this kind of pure historical romance, we’d be reading Patrick O’Brian. Where are the observations and insights that relate all this ocean of storytelling to our current era? Lost in a welter of (mostly) entertaining Pirates of the Caribbean material. A single sentence from Enoch Root that parodies Clarke’s Law—’Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo’—is hardly enough to carry the day.”