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angus_mckeogh's review against another edition
2.0
Per the usual, when I read The Baroque Cycle, I evidently read Stephenson’s three best books. All three earned 5-stars. This one just squeaked in at 2-stars, but I honestly could’ve gone with one. For the most part it was a not very interesting fantasy slog. I battled to keep pushing forward on a daily basis, waiting for the story to turn into something incredible, but ultimately that transition never occurred.
caszius's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
cjblandford's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This was a confounding book. The second half felt very different from the first half and it went places I did not expect. It almost felt like we got the major plot points without any of the clever, insightful prose because the author was coming up against a deadline or something. Like most Neal Stephenson books there were some really interesting ideas and concepts here, but not much of a story, or hook. I hated what happened to Nell's character towards the end of the book and the ending itself was very abrupt.
ataraxiary's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
funny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
cheerfulstate's review against another edition
challenging
dark
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
This was loaned to me by a friend – who has been doing her own deep dive into Neal Stephenson – as a starting point of a sort to get into the rest of his work.
This fit for me somewhere in an experiential Venn diagram of reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Ishmael, and A Psalm for the Wild-Built. I found it a little dense/slow to begin with but once it was clear that we were headed in a specific direction, and doing so with evident skill, I was eager to stick around and find out.
This fit for me somewhere in an experiential Venn diagram of reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Ishmael, and A Psalm for the Wild-Built. I found it a little dense/slow to begin with but once it was clear that we were headed in a specific direction, and doing so with evident skill, I was eager to stick around and find out.
katieinca's review against another edition
5.0
It's Neal Stephenson, but with girls! As actual characters!
I actually didn't love it quite as much as I expected to, call it a 4.5. Probably some combination of extremely high expectations, complete unfamiliarity with Chinese culture and geography, and the squick factor of the Drummers.
I actually didn't love it quite as much as I expected to, call it a 4.5. Probably some combination of extremely high expectations, complete unfamiliarity with Chinese culture and geography, and the squick factor of the Drummers.
edriessen's review against another edition
5.0
The first part of this story I’m thinking ‘how does this world work?!’, and soon enough, the story gets going.
I especially liked this book because both for me, the reader, and for one of the main characters, a book is used to tell a story. And for both, the story in the book gets clearer towards the end. These sections are like a cyberpunk version of ‘Sophie’s World’ in a sense.
Besides that, I love Stephenson’s world building. He touches on topics like nanotechnology, our current screen culture, deep fakes, and personalisation, all in a casual way. Not explaining it in too much detail, he leaves room for the reader to interpret it in their own ways. And I like that.
And again, he has created some great characters. Both mains and sides. One of my favorites was Judge Fang.
I especially liked this book because both for me, the reader, and for one of the main characters, a book is used to tell a story. And for both, the story in the book gets clearer towards the end. These sections are like a cyberpunk version of ‘Sophie’s World’ in a sense.
Besides that, I love Stephenson’s world building. He touches on topics like nanotechnology, our current screen culture, deep fakes, and personalisation, all in a casual way. Not explaining it in too much detail, he leaves room for the reader to interpret it in their own ways. And I like that.
And again, he has created some great characters. Both mains and sides. One of my favorites was Judge Fang.
aust1nz's review against another edition
3.0
The Diamond Age, based mostly in a Shanghai of the distant future, is premised on a fascinating question: what if humans could master a technology that allows them to 3D print pretty much anything, quickly in a microwave shaped box? Stephenson invents a future where nanotechnology has created this possibility, and humans can produce food, toys, mattresses and other important goods.
From this premise, Stephenson builds a world quite different from our own, and it's a fascinating thought experiment. After the 3D printers (matter-compliers or MCs in Stephenson's jargon) became ubiquitous, traditional governments were unable to collect taxes or enforce laws, and collectives called Phyles grew in their place. These are homogenous groups of morally/ethnically similar people, including the Neo-Victorians who appropriate the aesthetic of Dickens' London.
Anyways, all of this world-building is cool, but it doesn't really support a novel. Our story concerns a young girl named Nell with an absent father and a negligent mother, who comes into possession of a Primer, a sort of videogame/e-learning tool in the format of a book. With the Primer, she's able to stand out from the squalor she's born into, and rise above her station in life, eventually attending school in one of those Neo-Victorian communities. (Catching all those [b:Dickens|2623|Great Expectations|Charles Dickens|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327920219s/2623.jpg|2612809] vibes?)
Nell's fate is intertwined with Hackworth, an engineer who built the Primer, and a faction of Chinese revolutionaries who are unhappy with the status quo. The first half of the book bounces between Nell and these supporting characters, along with Nell's stories in the very-cool interactive Primer, with plenty of exposition for the world that Stephenson has built, and appears to be leading to some sort of collision between these pathways and appropriate rewards/consequences for the main characters.
Unfortunately, the book shifts tones abruptly at the halfway point (marked by the start of a second book within the book) and loses its narrative cohesiveness. Hackworth, who had made copies of the Primer illegally, gets involved in some shady business in an attempt to cover his track. This leads to him joining an underwater community and a weird mind-control/orgy subplot that unfortunately remains integral to the book's conclusions, despite its out-of-place feel. Major time jumps occur, a lot of characters from the first half of the book are never mentioned again, and characters seem to be engaged in these heroic journeys with no real explanation as for motivation.
In another example of the narrative messiness of the later half of the book, a bit character from the first half was a sort of playhouse director/producer. One of his actresses provided voice-overs for Nell's Primer. He returns in the second half, but as a super-hacker who obtains technology that was previously explained as impossible. Oh, and he's also a trained sharpshooter and nanotechnology expert.
It almost felt like Stephenson wrote these halves of the book separately, and the narrative incohesiveness really pulls from what could have been a great literary, speculative science fiction yarn. Stephenson is a great imagination and world-creator, and his books are always rewarding, but unfortunately the [b:hard-to-follow-motivations|830|Snow Crash|Neal Stephenson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1477624625s/830.jpg|493634] and [b:sudden lurches in story theme and tone|22816087|Seveneves|Neal Stephenson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1449142000s/22816087.jpg|42299347] seem to be a part of the bargain in the book. For fans of the genre, The Diamond Age is still a worthwhile classic, but the story's frailty in the latter half of the book make it a hard recommendation for general-audience readers.
From this premise, Stephenson builds a world quite different from our own, and it's a fascinating thought experiment. After the 3D printers (matter-compliers or MCs in Stephenson's jargon) became ubiquitous, traditional governments were unable to collect taxes or enforce laws, and collectives called Phyles grew in their place. These are homogenous groups of morally/ethnically similar people, including the Neo-Victorians who appropriate the aesthetic of Dickens' London.
Anyways, all of this world-building is cool, but it doesn't really support a novel. Our story concerns a young girl named Nell with an absent father and a negligent mother, who comes into possession of a Primer, a sort of videogame/e-learning tool in the format of a book. With the Primer, she's able to stand out from the squalor she's born into, and rise above her station in life, eventually attending school in one of those Neo-Victorian communities. (Catching all those [b:Dickens|2623|Great Expectations|Charles Dickens|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327920219s/2623.jpg|2612809] vibes?)
Nell's fate is intertwined with Hackworth, an engineer who built the Primer, and a faction of Chinese revolutionaries who are unhappy with the status quo. The first half of the book bounces between Nell and these supporting characters, along with Nell's stories in the very-cool interactive Primer, with plenty of exposition for the world that Stephenson has built, and appears to be leading to some sort of collision between these pathways and appropriate rewards/consequences for the main characters.
Unfortunately, the book shifts tones abruptly at the halfway point (marked by the start of a second book within the book) and loses its narrative cohesiveness. Hackworth, who had made copies of the Primer illegally, gets involved in some shady business in an attempt to cover his track. This leads to him joining an underwater community and a weird mind-control/orgy subplot that unfortunately remains integral to the book's conclusions, despite its out-of-place feel. Major time jumps occur, a lot of characters from the first half of the book are never mentioned again, and characters seem to be engaged in these heroic journeys with no real explanation as for motivation.
In another example of the narrative messiness of the later half of the book, a bit character from the first half was a sort of playhouse director/producer. One of his actresses provided voice-overs for Nell's Primer. He returns in the second half, but as a super-hacker who obtains technology that was previously explained as impossible. Oh, and he's also a trained sharpshooter and nanotechnology expert.
It almost felt like Stephenson wrote these halves of the book separately, and the narrative incohesiveness really pulls from what could have been a great literary, speculative science fiction yarn. Stephenson is a great imagination and world-creator, and his books are always rewarding, but unfortunately the [b:hard-to-follow-motivations|830|Snow Crash|Neal Stephenson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1477624625s/830.jpg|493634] and [b:sudden lurches in story theme and tone|22816087|Seveneves|Neal Stephenson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1449142000s/22816087.jpg|42299347] seem to be a part of the bargain in the book. For fans of the genre, The Diamond Age is still a worthwhile classic, but the story's frailty in the latter half of the book make it a hard recommendation for general-audience readers.
aberdeenwaters's review against another edition
3.0
It started out okay, then it got really good, then struggled to plow through the last little bit. And I'm not entirely sure why. I like Stephenson, and for the most part, I was drawn in. I just wasn't invested enough by the end and perhaps expected too much from the ending? I liked it and its meta fictional qualities, as well as Stephenson's predictions about the future, it just left me wanting a little more.
stephxsu's review against another edition
The first third was incredible! Such stunningly detailed worldbuilding. Stephenson really pulled out all the stops in his reimagining of a future Shanghai. Everything he could have developed, was developed, a fact that I was truly appreciative of, in light of the dearth of well-developed YA dystopian lit being published lately to feed what appears to be simply the latest "hot trend" in YA publishing. How sad.
Unfortunately, like many other adult books I have had problems with, I felt like worldbuilding was great at the expense of other, equally important factors of a story, like characters and plot. I didn't connect to the characters, and furthermore, there was such a lack of engaging plot that it unfortunately made it all too easy for me to put the book down halfway through, just as the pace was (finally) starting to pick up, because the emergence of an actual plot felt so *weird* halfway through the book that I was extremely discomfited. Why aren't there more books that don't have fantastic worldbuilding / characters / plot at the expense of worldbuilding / characters / plot? Is it too much to ask for literature that doesn't scrimp on any of these essential literary elements?
Unfortunately, like many other adult books I have had problems with, I felt like worldbuilding was great at the expense of other, equally important factors of a story, like characters and plot. I didn't connect to the characters, and furthermore, there was such a lack of engaging plot that it unfortunately made it all too easy for me to put the book down halfway through, just as the pace was (finally) starting to pick up, because the emergence of an actual plot felt so *weird* halfway through the book that I was extremely discomfited. Why aren't there more books that don't have fantastic worldbuilding / characters / plot at the expense of worldbuilding / characters / plot? Is it too much to ask for literature that doesn't scrimp on any of these essential literary elements?