The Diamond Age : Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

Rating:
Summary: Great Story, but like Stephenson books, the ending slips
Review: I have never before read such a fascinating story centered around nanotechnology. The characters, setting, and the political games made the story a very enjoyable sci-fi novel. If not for the ending, I would give the book an unequivocal five stars.

This is the third Stephenson novel I have purchased. I first read Cryptonomicon, then Snow Crash, and now The Diamond Age, and in all three books the main plots and the settings made for very engaging stories. However, in all three novels, I felt like the story stumbled at the end.

In this novel, either the book is left setup for a sequel or too much is left open. In either case, I was left scratching my head at the rush to bring the story to a close.

Stephenson obviously worked very hard to write this story. The level of detail is nearly ideal, and I found the revival of Confucianism and Victorian social norms a perfect reaction to the political chaos of the day.

A great read for any science fiction fan.

Rating:
Summary: The Diamond Age
Review: The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson is a fascinating edition to the cyberpunk genre. Stephenson uses the same style that brought him so much acclaim for his earlier work, Snowcrash. Although The Diamond Age doesn't quite live up to the expectations after reading Snowcrash, it certainly comes close. The Diamond Age is a typical Stephenson book in that he uses an extreme view of what one future might be like in order to demonstrate for modern day society the evils that it could fall into. Stephenson does this with his usual style of using many interweaving characters, an extreme futuristic society, and of course his sardonic sense of humor. The world in which The Diamond Age takes place is a world where you can do pretty much everything. Almost everything is made using nanotechnology, using small machines to build something or to build something from the atoms up. Engineers in this book actually construct things by assembling them on the atomic level. They are then actually made in the Matter Compiler. Everything from clothes, food, and buildings to chopsticks is made in this fashion. This is the world that Nell, the main character, grows up in. She is raised without any education until her brother gives her The Primer. The Primer is an incredably powerful book that adapts itself to Nell and teaches her everything from reading to self-defense. The Primer also have virtual reality (or ractive ability as it is called in this world) so that the user can experience what's going on. In short The Diamond Age is a book that will be enjoyed by people who like an alternate glimpse into what the future may hold. The many characters and plot twists are sure to catch and hold the attention of most readers. With this work Stephenson has shown that the success and brilliance he portrayed in Snowcrash was not luck but a habit.

Rating:
Summary: Completely Original
Review: The Diamond Age is the second of Stephenson's books that I've read. I enjoyed it far more that Snow Crash. While Snow Crash got off to a great start, I didn't enjoy the second half at all. I found myself reading it because it was a groundbreaking book, not because I enjoyed it. I read The Diamond Age because it was a fast-paced enjoyable read AND because it was unique and thought-provoking.

The Diamond Age is set is a very plausable near future where nanotech has eliminated basic problems, such as starvation, but its created its share of problems as well. Nasty nanotech devices that can track or kill people require sophisticated nanotech defenses.

Meanwhile, all nanotech products are provided be a central feed that both controls what can be delivered, what is free and what costs money, and frees peasents from substistence farming and the poor from working to survive. While this world is harldy a utopia -- as there are still massive economic disparities between the rich and poor and a tremendous amount of crime and pollution -- Westerners on the whole seem happy with this arangement.

But there are more than a few who are unhappy or restless. The Diamond Age is the story of what happens when a father who wants a better life for his daughter collides with an entire culture that wants change. Throw in an enormous computer made of human bodies, an interactive storybook that tells a story that takes over a decade to read, an army of teenage girls and a few other interesting characters and you have a compelling and fascinating view of the future.

When I first finished the book, I thought the ending was abrupt and disappointing. But, as I started to think about the end, I could see everything falling into place.

This is the best book I've read in a while and I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Its no Snow Crash...
Review: Stephenson does not do endings(well)...Period.

Its important to know this before picking up his books. The only book with an ending that didn't completely [disappoint me] was Zodiac. (Cryptonomicon almosts makes that short list, but not quite). Snow Crash probably had the worst ending of any Stephenson book, but it makes up for it with a story and prose that can only be described as incredible. Diamond Age doesn't quite get that far. Its convoluted, which isn't entirely a bad thing, but unlike SC it drags. It reminded me entirely too much of a Bruce Sterling book (not a compliment). Stephenson's fast paced witty prose is few and far between, the characters are passable, but there definitely are no Hiro's or YT's in here. I guess everyone can't be good all the time. Needless to say though, even bad Stephenson is better than about 90% of the SCi-FI out there and about 98% of the stuff that wants to call itself Cyberpunk.

Rumor has it he's working on another book, something a little more Snow Crash-esque after the thoroughly enjoyable (but entirely too 'present day', Cryptonomicon). I'll sit back and wait for it and read Zodiac again in the meantime.

Rating:
Summary: Sci-fi Book of the Decade, Nanotech in 21st Century Shanghai
Review: In the genre of literature that is well over a decade into its Renaissance, this is an important book among important books -- an importance that by definition will not confined to the boundaries of the science fiction world. With The Diamond Age, Or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, a remarkably mature Neal Stephenson offers us a vision of our own future, one all too recognizable and believable. Technology and culture collide, race ceases to matter as a means of predicting (or affecting) human behavior, nanotechnology redefines the word "make," while reshaping our daily lives, and the world's peoples, no longer able to distinguish each other by skin color, group themselves into phyles based on shared cultural and moral values, historical tradition, and dress. It's an around-the-corner mid-twenty-first century greater Shanghai. A young thete girl named Nell is destined to become one of the shapers of an even newer, wondrous future when a fantastically sophisticated "primer," a powerful computer in the shape of a book designed to educate young Victorian ladies -- as well as encourage subversion -- unintentionally falls into her hands. The Primer was designed by nanotech engineer John Hackworth (Stephenson's penchant for a nom de pun for his protagonist is slaked once again), an intuitive genius unaware of the extent of his own talents. Nell's life, and the entire world, will never be the same. A hauntingly beautiful book, The Diamond Age exhibits a respectable understanding of Chinese culture, demonstrates in a most original fashion the indispensablity of an ever-present mother in raising a psychologically healthy child (as well as the crucial importance of psychologically healthy children to the future of mankind), and provides insight into questions of law and justice in cultural as well as advanced technological contexts. All of these themes are cradled within a masterfully woven plot, elevated by a brilliant, yet subtle sense of humor. Trascending the argument about how much books like William Gibson's Neuromancer and Nancy Kress' Beggars in Spain either predicted or shaped the near-future they described, The Diamond Age not only shows us, but prepares us for what is in store. Fans of Stephenson's previous novel, Snow Crash, will be both shocked and delighted. A must-read for sci-fi lovers, newcomers to the genre, and armchair social/moral theorists

Rating:
Summary: must-read for SF fans
Review: I've enjoyed other Stephenson books, but this is by far the most interesting. It still has some adolescent hack-and-slash elements reminiscent of Snow Crash, but the remarkably complex social context Stephenson develops in a world fully immersed in nano-tech is fascinating. The emergence of the transnational organizations as the primary replacement for current concepts of nationalism are wonderfully predicive (given the current influence of shadowy organizations like al Quaeda, Microsoft, and Wal-Mart).

Almost equally powerful is Stephenson's handling of the Nell character. His choices of language are very appropriate to her age, and are reminiscent in effectiveness to Frank McCourt's handling of his main character in "Angela's Ashes".

Highly recommend this book. There is enough depth here that it warrants more than a single read.

Rating:
Summary: I read this book 7 years ago and it still affects me...
Review: ...few books do that. Admittedly at the time of read I would have given the book 3.5 to 4 stars. Lacking in my opinion was a coherent storyline; the book was convoluted, you never knew what the point really was.

However, this novel has left a lasting impression on me. Of the numerous "takeaways", the most enduring are these:

1. Nanotechnology will change everything (not so apparent to the public now, much less back in 97).

2. Technology of this magnitude could offer the key to "leveling the playing field" with respect to economic inequity.

3. I devised a business term as a consequence of reading this book that has helped me immeasurably in my career: "attention units". In the future Stephenson posits that marketing will be so efficient that virtually every piece of visual real estate will be covered with what he calls "mediaglyphs"; billboards with audio and video (even on chopsticks). Not saying that I think that's a future I'd like to help build, but it does give you greater appreciation for any venue that could garner consumer attention.

And finally, my greatest lesson of all was what the Primer (the supercomputer/teacher designed by the futures equivelant to a Bill Gates for his grandaughter in an effort to stave off the near inevitable corruption of his heirs owing to great fortune); the Primer's number one lesson in all of it's teaching was appreciation and capability in one principal skill; subversion. It taught her how to go "around, under, over" any obstacle with unorthodox, even risky thinking.

Cool stuff.

Anyway, didn't give anything away of great substance there, but did want to give you a few more reasons from my perspective to read this very special book.

Hope this was helpful.

Rating:
Summary: Strong characters meet great storyline!
Review: That just about says it all for this, yet another fantastic sci-fi/high-tech by Stephenson, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite sci-fi/high-tech writers like Gibson and is welcomed into the ranks of other such books as: "Foundation", "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Neuromancer", "Snow Crash", "Cryptonomicon", and "Darkeye: Cyber Hunter".

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Nanotech Novel
Review: Readers of Stephenson's SNOW CRASH will not be disappointed by this high-tech yet gritty novel of an oddly Victorian future in which nanotechnology is a reality. Those who enjoy the works of WILLIAM GIBSON, VERNOR VINGE, and newcomer JOHN ROBERT MARLOW should find much to their liking here. (For a radically different view of a near-future world upon which nanotechnology has been loosed, see Marlow's new tech thriller NANO, another 5-star book.)

Rating:
Summary: Social commentary over plot; ramblings that go nowhere...
Review: The first third of the book is reasonably compelling... you forgive the tangents as world building and the slow pace as character development. Then all at once the book looses steam and degenerates into busy work. The tangents are irrelevant ramblings intentionally obtusificated for no other purpose than to be explained, concisely and briefly, in the next chapter... leaving the reader to wonder why he didn't just say so in the first place rather than pad his book. One could literally skip entire chapters losing none of what little plot there is, and arguably missing little of the story's richness. Other tangents are self-indulgent allegory which the sharp reader which disassemble in a glance yet be forced to plod through his ponderous analogies in pretentious fairy-tale speak. As a computer scientist, even I didn't find the tales to be interesting illustrations (than compared to, say, a Christian's adoration of the allegory in C.S. Lewis' works). The final major tangent are the large portions of social commentary, which work fine in SciFi, but by this point you wonder if you are being entertained at all- why bother to read this? Any "plot" is fully predictable from the moment their conceits begin save for the moments when the characters fall completely out of their character- at which point, you feel like you're reading a bad dream and promptly forget as the character "wakes up" back into their normal persona.

This is a novel (but not much of a story) with a lot of great ideas, a rich world, and initially compelling characters. But their interaction is stifled and the entire plot runs out of steam, chugging along on auto-pilot after the first third-to-half of the book. When at last we get to the end the relief is more because your ordeal is over than the characters. Most of Stephenson's curious ways of writing can be forgiven or even endearing if he just made sure it was all going somewhere... unfortunately, The Diamond Age is burdened with a lot of dead weight. An abridged concise novella version might actually be compelling....