From long experience in places like Afghanisatan and Chechnya, Sokolov recognised, in the black jihadist’s movements, a sort of cultural or attitudinal advantage that such people always enjoyed in situations like this: they were complete fatalists who believed that God was on their side. Russians, on the other hand, were fatalists of a somewhat different kind, believing, or at least strongly suspecting, that they were fucked no matter what, and that they had better just make the best of it anyway, but not seeing in this the hand of God at work or the hope of some future glory in a martyr’s heavens.

Style
In his earlier novels Stephenson deals heavily in pop culture-laden metaphors and imagery and in quick hip dialogue as well as in extended narrative monologues. Since 1984 Stephenson has lived mostly in the Pacific Northwest and currently resides in Seattle with his family. A.

His novels have been variously categorized as science fiction historical fiction cyberpunk and "postcyberpunk. He has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin a company (funded by Jeff Bezos) developing a manned sub-orbital launch system and is also a cofounder of Subutai Corporation whose first offering is the interactive fiction project The Mongoliad. " Other labels such as "baroque" often appear.