NEAL STEPHENSON ON 300, and why the critics liked it a lot less than the audiences have. Plus, some of his comments on gaming and military knowledge (“Video games have turned everyone under the age of 20 into experts on military history and tactics; 12-year-olds on school buses argue about the right way to deploy onagers and cataphracts while outflanking a Roman triplex acies formation.”) echo what Dave Kopel and I wrote back in 2001.

Interestingly, I reread Stephenson’s The Diamond Age last week for the first time since the book came out, and I felt that his future-history has held up pretty well over the last decade. I may have more thoughts on that later.