# Fall by Neal Stephenson

22 Hacker News commenters recommended Fall by Neal Stephenson and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Stephenson's ambitious, big-idea novel about uploaded minds and the singularity; people praise its ideas and readable prose. Critics find its subplots uneven and disconnected.

## Why people recommend it

- Big, ambitious ideas about uploaded minds (5 comments): "a ridiculously long novel about a future where the cloud is increasingly used for uploading souls of scanned brains" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47469110)) "The book in particular is of a debatable quality but I keep going back to those introductory chapters as prophetic" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48292564)) "much more oddly ambitious. But it is a very strange work. You have to be on board for the literary direction." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49885047))
- Simple, precise, readable prose (2 comments): "His writing is simple and precise, but his ideas are big." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46396904)) "Reamde and Fall are quite readable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46079019))
- Enjoyable, rewarding read overall (3 comments): "A fun read; there is a generalization of this idea therein." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47350840)) "I really liked the first half to 3/4ths of the that book." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46178869)) "My favorite NS in a long time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46986062))

## What people warn about

- Subplots disconnected or go nowhere (3 comments): "That whole book seemed like a collection of interesting threads that ultimately go nowhere." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47155931)) "after a couple hundred pages I ended up just skipping the chapters about Bitworld" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48391141)) "pretty much entirely disconnected from the rest of the story" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48390350))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir](https://hackerapproved.com/p/project-hail-mary.md): 117 recommend
- [There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm](https://hackerapproved.com/p/there-is-no-antimemetics-division.md): 98 recommend
- [Blindsight by Peter Watts](https://hackerapproved.com/p/blindsight.md): 96 recommend
- [Dune by Frank Herbert](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dune.md): 82 recommend
- [Accelerando by Charles Stross](https://hackerapproved.com/p/accelerando.md): 71 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Fall+by+Neal+Stephenson&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Fall by Neal Stephenson", https://hackerapproved.com/p/fall/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).