For a bit of a Pynchon feel, try Cryptonomicon.
On Wed, Aug 11, 1999 at 04:23:02PM -0400, Robert S. Thau wrote:
> Joseph S. Barrera, III writes:
> > BTW has anyone here read Updike's _Roger's Version_?
>
> I don't remember it in detail, but I do recall two things. First, the
> book in general was a real disappointment, considering the reviews I'd
> seen. Second, the sections where he tries to discuss anything serious
> about technology had the same sort of awkwardness that you see in bad
> translations from foreign languages --- not so much that the text
> doesn't make sense, as that Updike consistently chooses the wrong
> word, and comes up with missed emphases, unnnecessarily off-beat word
> choices, and generally poor and muddled expression of technical
> concepts. Aside from that, it really didn't leave much of an
> impression at all. Besides which, there's always the feeling that I
> get with Updike that whatever he's doing is just an excuse to talk
> about his characters' screwed-up sex lives (which isn't a bad thing if
> that's what you want, I suppose, but why toss cosmology into the mix?)
>
> Yes, he is a non-technical guy trying to write technical text in these
> sections. No, that doesn't get him off. Richard Powers did a *much*
> better job in Galatea 2.2 and The Gold-bug Variations (in two
> different disciplines, AI and biology), both of which are much better
> reads. Updike may be a much better writer sentence by sentence, but
> for my money, Powers writes better books.
>
> And then, of course, there's Pynchon...
>
> rst
-- --b