The Big U

Rating:
Summary: I wish I'd never read this book.
Review: Mr. Stephenson should have been more persistent in his attempt to keep this book from becoming reborn. It's terrible! If you really want more Neal, seek out the Wired issue were he writes about being a Hacker Tourist. Or order up a used copy of the eco thriller Zodiac which is a hundred times better. Or just read Snow Crash again. Please don't buy this book. Please. Okay, so you have to have it. Fine. Do the hacker thing. Seek it out online. There are at least a dozen mirror sites serving up this text. But if you go this route do us all a favor, edit it up, and repost a fixed version.

Rating:
Summary: Good book, light read
Review: I see a few negative reviews of this book on the page, and I really can't imagine why. Sure, this is different than anything else Stephenson has published, because it's not so sci-fi, and sure, it's his first book and his prose is not as smooth as it is in the later work, but I found this to be a highly enjoyable book. I read it on a long flight and, being a college student, I found that a lot of the crazy things that happened to the students in this book actually reflected in some way the environment that I'm in. This is a funny, farcical book, and although the plot is hard to pin down, I found myself thoroughly enjoying Stephenson's look at life in a huge university. I definately recommend this to anyone who has a sense of humor and looks back with mild shock at their life in college.

Rating:
Summary: I Read It When It Was New
Review: I'm in, perhaps, one of the smallest groups in the world -- the folks who read this book when it was new. I was in college, bought it in paperback at the University Bookstore, no less. I read through the first half, and gave up. At the time (this was 1984 or 1985) I just couldn't get interested in it at all. It wasn't bad, exactly, it just didn't make me want to keep reading.

Rating:
Summary: A college book
Review: I found this book in a remainder rack in my university bookstore a little while after it came out -- and absolutely adored it. I doubt I'd love it as much now, but it has many flashes of brilliance amid several first novel flaws (including an ending that completely falls apart).

As another reviewer said, this is a novel for 20-year-olds, rather than 30-year-olds -- or more accurately, university students struggling with their first encounter with the absurdity of a beaurocracy than those who have lived with the eternal wrestling match for years. From that perspective, the satire is merely small exagerations in exactly the right directions.

If you read this book, you will never look at library cults the same way again.

Rating:
Summary: Well, it's a first novel.
Review: I'm just glad I didn't pay the exorbitant prices they were asking on Ebay before the re-release. It's an entertaining read, rather reminiscent of Matt Ruff's Fool on the Hill, but it's not even in the same ballpark as Stephenson's later work. Fine for what it is, but for the love of god, forget about Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, Zodiac, Diamond Age, Spew, and whatever else you can think of before you read it.

Rating:
Summary: Just Awful
Review: I'm impressed with the agents/publishers who found Neal on the basis of this book. They could see his enormous talent about to bloom. I'm clearly dimmer than them -- I found it a painful experience, one which I would recommend to no one.

Rating:
Summary: Satirical comments in search of a story
Review: Like many people who have read this book, I came upon it after becoming a serious Neal Stephenson fan. Like many others with whom I've spoken, I was seriously disappointed with The Big U. It seemed, on the whole, to be a number of different commentaries on campus life thrown, rather than woven, together into a book that was (amazingly) hard to pick up. I read this book for the sake of completeness, and will likely judge the fervor of other fans by whether or not they've gone through the ordeal. That being said, I do not recommend this book to anyone who is anything short of a Stephenson zealot.

Rating:
Summary: Thank You Neal Stephenson!
Review: Thank you Neal Stephenson for reissueing "The Big U". I'm a sophomore student at a "big u" and this book made me feel warm and fuzzy all over. Well, it made me laugh and feel a bit better about being here, which is a miracle in and of itself. My life is full of computer nerds who are more aware of the plot lines of fantasy novels than what we charmingly refer to as "reality". Inane classes with professors that don't give a damn, a scary big u president more concerned with funding than education (what is that?), and overarching bureaucracy is pretty realistic. Unrequited love. Yup, lots of that here. Religious cults were underplayed in my opinion. We have about 2 or 3 on my campus. The chilling near rape scene was so realistic it was frightening. The cultish dorm floors remind me of my beloved dorms where I was dubbed "the girl who never smiles" and "the weird one who likes REM's "it's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)". The only weaknesses of the book is when it completely degenerates in satire towards the end. Stephenson could of continued telling a terrific tale without having to resort to fantasy. I still give it 4 stars because it made me feel better and it's so surreal it is real. Recommended reading for anyone attending or considering attending a "big u".

Rating:
Summary: Mildly amusing
Review: The Big U is a book that is far better when you're 20 than when you are 30, and I while I found it enjoyable 10 years ago I wouldn't go through the trouble now unless I was a Stephenson completist. There are flashes in the book of the writer than Stephenson has become, but it is a typical first published novel, which is to say, showing promise, but not really very good. Stephenson himself only consented to the reprints under duress.

Buy this book if you have to have all of Stephenson's work, and are still in college or at least still think you are in college. Otherwise you won't miss anything by not reading it.

Rating:
Summary: If Stanislaw Lem and J.G. Ballard were roommates...
Review: ...their late-night conversations and speculations might have produced something like _The Big U_. I'm a Stephenson fan, and was delighted to see this book back in print, and greatly enjoyed reading it.

On the other hand, I can see why (if rumor is true) he did not want it reprinted; it is not up to the same level, in terms of tension of plot or depth of character, as his later work. The satire is, at times, over-the-top, but the targets deserve it, and his aim is true, if sometimes using overly powerful ammunition.

If you're a Stephenson fan, read it; if you liked _The Futurological Congress_, _Memoirs Found in a Bathtub_, Sladek's _The Muller-Fokker Effect_, or ever wondered what Ballard's _High Rise_ would be like as a comedy, definitely pick this book up.