Rating: 
Summary: If you're a fan, you'll love it, if not, who knows?
Review: Since they didn't release this book in mass until after Neal Stephenson had made his name, you might think this is just a marketing attempt to capitalize on his later success. Are his later works better? Yes, I think so. But this work is his first and demonstrates audacity and spunk.
The story is a tale of two halves.
The first half is a satire of large universities and all of the cliques that exist. From ridiculous frat and sorority mentalities to computer geeks to crazy role-playing dungeons and dragons freeks, the stereotypes are cast and then exaggerated. I laughed often as I saw the basic nature of what Neal was creating in so many of my college experiences.
The second half of the book truly goes over the top and out of control. It's a blast if you're in this book for a fun read, an all-out war of absurdity, and that's how I would recommend the book.
If you like Neal Stephenson and haven't read it, then you must give this a try.
If you haven't read Neal Stephenson, then this is a book that I would recommend to the liberally minded, as Neal takes stabs at all stereotypes and doesn't pretend or try to be logical in the second half of the book.
This was a fun read.
Rating:
Summary: Oh my gosh That is my Life
Review: That's what I kept thinking when I read The Big U in 2001 about half way through my undergraduate college experience. I connected so much with the setting (a giant university with bureaucracy and paperwork and 20 story dorms and little subcultures that become resident's realities) and the characters. This could be about any giant university now.
The story follows the lives of 3 students at Megauniversity: Casimir Radon, the 30 year old junior who saved up for college imagining something very different than he finds, Sarah, a Senior student, and Ephraim Klein, a philosophy major. The story is narrated sometimes in the third person and sometimes first person by an assistant professor who lives in the dorms in a sort of RA position and has a better understanding of the way the Big U works than most. The Big U follows these characters month by month through one school year in college - September to May. The story is really about the University but the characters give it context.
In September each encounters problems with bureaucracy. Sarah has been assigned to live in the foreign non-English speaking maintenance staff's lounge and can't be reassigned to another dorm room without signatures of professors for classes that she can't yet register for due to a holdup with that paperwork. Ephraim has a jock roommate who he hates and has other problems in that he is a philosophy major. Cassimir has finished his first two years of physics at a community college, but can't transfer the credits because he didn't take physics with an emphasis on socioeconomics.
After experiencing college this is so realistic. (I spent my senior year taking sociology classes as part of a general graduation requirement and took my first 1000 level class my last semester.)
As the story progresses to March things fall apart within the student body as well. The frats can't distinguish fantasy from reality. The Dungeons and Dragons crowd have the same problem. Pranks get bigger and bigger until the campus is a war zone literally. The plot sounds bad and this is probably why people gave the book bad reviews, but getting there is fun and it comes across as plausible.
For Stephenson fans The Big U may be disappointing. It lacks the digressions into technology that he is so fond of. Instead the book can be viewed as a series of short daydreams in the form of pranks played by the students: a golf cart is retooled by engineering majors into a miniature tank - all the toilets in an umpteen story dorm building are flushed at once - things people plan and speculate on but no one ever gets around to doing.
So maybe from this review the book sounds bad. It sounds that way, but it is not. This is one of the best books ever. I bought it and loaned it to fellow students whenever possible.
If you are currently attending a Big University or have graduated, then buy or borrow this book as soon as possible. If you went to a sane college, or didn't go at all then don't bother. This book parallels life so well its scary.
Rating: 
Summary: College Professors Cloistered: Shocking but True
Review: This is a four-star read for Stephenson fans, a three star read for new fans, and a book to avoid if you are not yet a fan.
In the Big U, we witness a complete social meltdown, during which professors hole up to ponder slides of various samples of "scat" while the world crashes down (literally) around them. The retreat of the intelligensia when the "going gets tough" (and when they seem to be needed most) is paramount to the message Stephenson is getting at here (like I actually know!). Left to their own devices & without any guidance, the students (who have matriculated only to find that the primary obejective of the tenured is to avoid them at all costs) spin off into what other reviewers see as the "inferno".
If you are looking to get into Stephenson, I would recommend beginning with "Zodiac" (totally hilarious/five stars). Then I would suggest "In the Beginning...was the Command Line" (a five star philosophical read). Then, I would choose Cryptonomicon (brilliant/five stars), and then Snow Crash (4 stars), The Big U & finally the Diamond Age (Neal must've been doing crack when he wrote it).
Rating:
Summary: Mega U and The Castle
Review: Originally published in 1984, The Big U is Neal Stephenson's debut. As with any first novel, this is immature in the ways you'd expect, but is an inventive and funny satire despite the minor flaws.I entered SUNY Buffalo in the Fall of 1984, one of 30,000 students at this megalithic university. For all the similarities, this book could have been set at my school. I read this either in late 84 or early 85, enjoyed it as only one living the book could, and went on with my life. Over the next couple years, I began reading a ton of Philip K. Dick and The Big U's dystopian near-science fiction was left behind. But elements of my life would remind me of this book in a way that it has of only one other book. I spent part of the Summer of '92 working in a fish-processing plant on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska, and during this time I read Franz Kafka's The Castle. It was my first time through the book, but I had already read The Trial, so I was used to Kafka's absurdist dystopian stylings. My reality so closely mirrored the situations in The Castle that all I could do was laugh and wonder if Kafka had been hired by God to write my life. My feelings about The Big U were a precursor to this. It's hard to find a good review of The Big U online. Most people reviewing this for Amazon hate it or see it only as a bit of literary anthropology- interesting because the guy who wrote this evolved into the guy who wrote Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon. Read as the infant Stephenson, it is only interesting. But read in conjunction with (former) attendance at a 1980's Mega University, it is not quite Candide, not quite The Castle, but almost there.
Rating: 
Summary: The Big Ewwwwww
Review: I've now read all of Stephenson except his Stephen Bury books and Quicksilver. He is undeniably a brilliant author and great storyteller. However, this early work displays all of Stephenson's faults in full bloom while merely hinting at his strengths. As always, Stephenson writes a bang-up beginning. Those are always his strengths, he then is typically weak with endings and holding the plot together. Unfortunately in his first novel here the threads of the plot escape his reins quickly and run out of control. There are some funny bits in this alleged satire, such as the M.A. and philosophy Ph.D. cement-truck drivers. However the satire quickly escalates into sheer lunacy, and becomes so ludicrous that it loses effect. One other problem is the jarring change from 3rd person to 1st person that occurs from time to time in the book. The narrator of the book is a participant, albeit a very passive and seldom seen participant. The change of perspective from straight 3rd person to a sentence beginning with "I" really takes the reader out of the story. Add to these problems the apparent Boston University in-jokes and the good things in this novel are vastly overshadowed. There may be a good Stephenson story in here, but it needed much tighter editing. Luckily for us all, Stephenson got much much better. If you must see his genesis as a writer, read this, if you aren't interested in his development as a writer give it a big pass.
Rating:
Summary: Good thing he's improved...
Review: The first novel written by Stephenson, and it's a satire on college dorm life. Pointless, rambling, and bizarre. It's a good thing he's improved his writing over the years, as this one stunk.
Rating:
Summary: You've Gotta Start Somewhere
Review: Stephenson has admitted that this first novel of his is a bit rough. For fans of the author, however, this is still an interesting read as it provides glimpses into the foundations upon which his career was later built. Like his later work, this novel contains several interesting tangents, and lovable, geeky characters with whom many of us can identify. The story lacks a uniform flow, however, and leaves the reader annoyed by missing links in many places.
Rating:
Summary: Not a good start for an otherwise great author.
Review: I picked up this book at the library after reading Snow Crash and Diamond Age. Even the Neal Stephenson completist should consider not buying this book. It's poorly written and was left out-of-print for so long for a good reason. I highly reccommend anything else by this author, though.
Rating: 
Summary: Stephenson doesn't pull it off
Review: I would've read The Big U even if it had been universally panned. Ever since I read Snow Crash -- one of the most influential science fiction novels of the last 20 years -- Stephenson has been my favorite author. I love audacious satire, and the fact that Stephenson and I are of similar age and share many interests doesn't hurt.
Although there are some funny moments, and although I know a fair amount about circa-1980 campus life at B.U. (because my wife went there), I didn't care for this book. Most of the characters were one-dimensional, the satire wasn't particularly deft, and the plot wasn't nearly as compelling as Stephenson's later novels.
The best moments in The Big U have to do with recognizing B.U.-inspired material. If you don't know about John Silber or the Citgo sign or the flaming couch, or if you aren't a true Stephenson devotee, I doubt you'll enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Ought to be required reading
Review: Every kid who thinks that college is all about partying (as well as every financial aid office, registrar, and administrator) should have to read this book. If you're looking for Snow Crash II or Snow Crash the Prequel, forget it. This is much closer to the present. If you've ever been screwed around with at college, or torn at your hair because frat pledges pulled the fire alarm again, or felt like a number, then read this book and read it now. Chances are, your experience wasn't quite as bad as the characters' in this book.
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