The Diamond Age

[Zugzwang152]

Anyone read this book? By the author of the venerable Snow Crash, at least a few years old. This guy whatever his name is, can write for real. keeps even me, a skeptical geek entertained. Those who read it, what were your opinions?

 

[Bigblades]

its by Neal Stephenson.

I'd say its pretty good. If Snow Crash is a 10 of 10, I'd put Diamond Age at about a 8 of 10. Its got a lot of cool concepts and a world as hectic and interesting as Snow Crash. But none of the characters in Diamond Age are as cool as the duel weilding Hiro Protagonist.

If you liked Snow Crash its definitely worth a read. If you haven't read Snow Crash, read that first.

 

[Wuffsunie]

That's the last of his that I've read, I thought it was okay. Stronger on concepts than execution. Of all the books involving nanotech, I think he has the clearest vision of where it'll go. The tools and nifty constructs from The Cassini Division by Ken Macleod were nice, but humanity is not going to go that way any time soon. Giant media walls, chopsticks with scrolling ads, and do-it-youself constructor units, that's where it'll be!

Plotwise the book is okay. You can tell just from the astonishing Depth that Stephenson had a lot of ideas, and then some! Some get better execution than others. Personally, I think he had too many characters, and several get lost in the shuffle as the book progresses. Especially towards the end it really starts to degenerate IMO. I can see how some parts reflected what was going on in others, but there was a lot that I was just going "huh?" over. Finally, it ends too quickly considering the slow pace of the rest of the book.

Oh, and if you didn't like the open end to Snow Crash, Diamond Age will drive you nuts. Utterly MASSIVE open ending to that sucker! It's like finishing Hyperion by Dan Simmons and realizing there's no sequel! That's really what I disliked the most about it.

Overall I thought it an okay read -- great on concept, fair on execution, as I said -- but the poorest of what I've read from him save The Big U. I still have to read Cryptonomicon and am greatly looking forward to that, whenever I'm able to finally get around to it.

-- Jack

Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be -- or to be indistinguishable from -- self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.
-- Neal Stephenson

 

[Zugzwang152]

Originally posted by: Wuffsunie
That's the last of his that I've read, I thought it was okay. Stronger on concepts than execution. Of all the books involving nanotech, I think he has the clearest vision of where it'll go. The tools and nifty constructs from The Cassini Division by Ken Macleod were nice, but humanity is not going to go that way any time soon. Giant media walls, chopsticks with scrolling ads, and do-it-youself constructor units, that's where it'll be!

Plotwise the book is okay. You can tell just from the astonishing Depth that Stephenson had a lot of ideas, and then some! Some get better execution than others. Personally, I think he had too many characters, and several get lost in the shuffle as the book progresses. Especially towards the end it really starts to degenerate IMO. I can see how some parts reflected what was going on in others, but there was a lot that I was just going "huh?" over. Finally, it ends too quickly considering the slow pace of the rest of the book.

Oh, and if you didn't like the open end to Snow Crash, Diamond Age will drive you nuts. Utterly MASSIVE open ending to that sucker! It's like finishing Hyperion by Dan Simmons and realizing there's no sequel! That's really what I disliked the most about it.

Overall I thought it an okay read -- great on concept, fair on execution, as I said -- but the poorest of what I've read from him save The Big U. I still have to read Cryptonomicon and am greatly looking forward to that, whenever I'm able to finally get around to it.

-- Jack

Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be -- or to be indistinguishable from -- self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.
-- Neal Stephenson

thats a shame, i'm right at the point of the book where everything starts to come together. the characters actually begin to find out whats going on. i'm not through yet, but thats a shame you didnt like the ending

 

[Wuffsunie]

Originally posted by: Zugzwang152
thats a shame, i'm right at the point of the book where everything starts to come together. the characters actually begin to find out whats going on. i'm not through yet, but thats a shame you didnt like the ending

Try looking at how much book you have left. If what you're saying is true and you're at the point that I think you are, you should be realizing there's no way in hell he's going to pull off any kind of a meaningful ending.