Rating: 
Summary: Great first half, then terrible disappointment
Review: The first half was great, after a shaky start. I almost gave up on The Diamond Age after about 50 pages, because everything was so densely technological and impersonal. However, I stuck with it, and after a while became totally absorbed. I wanted to know how things would turn out for everyone - I cared about what happened to almost every single character. Some of them I rooted for, and I hoped others would get what they deserved, but either way I was drawn in to the story and felt that the characters were complex, interesting people. Rather than a straightforward story with a specific goal, The Diamond Age is more of a character study - we see part of Nell's life, which does not follow a linear, prefabricated plot. Since I enjoy involving characters, I didn't see a problem with this.However, things decayed rapidly when the book reached the half-way point, and the unnecessary and monstrously tacky underwater sex cult appeared. As much as I was tempted to abandon the book at that point, I slogged through the second half because I still wanted to see how things turned out for characters for whom I had high hopes. In the end, I wished that I had given up in the middle. The ending doesn't resolve much of anything that I cared about, and didn't seem like a sensible place to stop. My initial reaction was, "Where are the last 50 pages?" I felt cheated and betrayed. I'd been drawn in by an emotional and fascinating story, only to be fed garbage at the end. Since I liked almost all of Snow Crash and Zodiac, I was surprised and disappointed by what happened to The Diamond Age. What's worse, I have serious reservations about reading Cryptonomicon, or any subsequent books by Neal Stephenson. I'll have to read a lot of reviews ahead of time, I suppose. In the end, I have to recommend Snow Crash or Zodiac instead. Maybe you'll love this book - a lot of other people here certainly did. For me, though, this was a big disappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: Stephenson's the best thing going right now
Review: I cannot say enough good things about Neal Stephenson! This one was my second Stephenson novel and it was an unalloyed joy to read. I loved the contrast created between Victorianism and Conficianism - the creative genius that allowed this juxtaposition to be explored in a believable fashion is part of why Stephenson's the hottest writer in the genre he bends with such aplomb. Further, here he manages to combine sympathetic characterization with an appealing edginess in such a way as to make the book very difficult to put down. The multithreaded plot does reveal one weakness, common to most of Stephenson's work: Because he so frequently jumps from one perspective or time stream to another, the reader occasionally loses track of when or where the plot has taken him. This is not a huge problem provided you know to watch for it - it mainly manifests itself in less-than-stellar formatting (a minour break in a continuing thread will sometimes be broken up by a blank line but a change of perspective is not always made so obvious). The only other possible source of complaint is his tendency to end his works so ambiguously. Personally, I like it (usually) because he leaves me free to extrapolate what I think happens next based on what he's told me. Others who need more "closure" may be frustrated and/or feel that the ending was rushed or slapdash. All in all, any Stephenson book is a worthy way to spend one's time and money - this is no exception. For myself, I'd advise reading Snow Crash first but that isn't - strictly speaking - a necessity. But do read this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Victorians and Street Urchins....wonder what happens next...
Review: This was the best book I've read since Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy's first books. The Sci-Fi books are my domain, but this guy writes them like no other. His weaves the technology into everyday instances. A lot like us talking about some computer virus, except this one slices you up into fish bait. Definately not for young children... Still, the character interaction, and how he flips from person to person... I have to meet this guy. You are one of my favs Neal!
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: The Diamond Age is a brilliant novel, and one of my favorites of all time. The three subplots - coming-of-age (Nell growing up) in the foreground, and hacker-vs-system (Hackworth's rebellion with illegal tech) and culture-clash (tribes vs. tribes/nation-state vs. city-states/etc.) in the background - were tied together very well. The setting was very original and had interesting little connections to Snow Crash (DA is a distant sequel to SC) without being a tired copy. The characterization had plenty of depth on all sides of the conflicts, including respect for the good points and acknowledgement of the bad points of both Confucianism and Victorianism. There were realistic and diverse portrayals of both the female and male characters. The ending was also excellent - it had plenty of action and tragedy, conclusions for the main plot line and major questions without letting the background plots and minor questions bog it down, and a new question adding food for thought. One of the coolest parts was the way Nell grows up in so many more ways than just puberty. The parts about leaving home to go seek her fortune, and observing and exploring the world instead of obesssing over how it observes her body, were especially good. It would give away too much of the ending to explain just how she uses those years of education but that brothel job (as a scriptwriter, not a hooker) was a temporary little thing on the way and not her career goal. As for the moralizing, I'm a political and moral liberal and I was intrigued by the feminist aspects of the story such as the Neo-Victorian respect for businesswomen and female soldiers (even Queen Victoria II was a martial artist with an MBA!). I also liked what Stephenson was saying about contemporary Libertarian mores and the harms they bring to societies (the Neo-Victorianism in DA is a backlash against the Libertarian hedonism in SC). The fact that the story was totally anti-racist was great too. Anyway, I highly recommend this book, especially if you've already read Snow Crash. Also, Joel Garreau's nonfiction book Edge City dicusses the trends today that Stephenson warps for SC's and DA's settings tomorrow, so you might want to start with EC before SC and DA. :)
Rating:
Summary: Great book, frafmented ending, a little too ambitious
Review: This book could have easily been 3 books. The first half is excellent though, but the bizzare sex cult, and I do mean bizzare, seemed out of place and the ending left me wondering what the hell was goin on. This kind of Sci-Fi I read for its insights into the future like the nanotechnology that's run amok. He doesn't just mention it, he weaves it into society. Great stuff!
Rating:
Summary: The Diamond Age
Review: What impressed me the most about this book, and there were many things which did, was the rapid maturation of Stephenson's writing and ideas. Snow Crash read much like a first novel (though I know it wasn't), a touch heavy-handed at times, self-conscious, a little too cool. In Diamond, though Stephenson's thought and effort are evident on every page, he can not be seen behind every phrase clamoring for attention, and that makes it a much stronger work. (BTW, I think the amount of detail in this book and the intricacy of the world created make it evident that a writer like Gibson really has no idea what he's talking about anymore). My only complaint is that the ending was written like he was trying to race light. Though I usually don't like the idea this is a book that would have been aided by a postcript. Otherwise it could have used another 20 pages. However, it doesn't look like Stephenson is going to run out of ideas anytime soon, and if this book is any indication, I'm sure that his next work will be even stronger.
Rating:
Summary: Fly Stephenson's rocket...
Review: I really like Neal's approach: he presents his stories as part of the bigger picture - they fit into my idea of the near-future, and illustrate it in a brilliantly dense and tangent-inducing way. The Diamond Age is a great book, nuff said.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Finest Books of Science Fiction I've Ever Read
Review: For months now I have been slogging through volumes of mediocre science fiction/fantasy, watching and waiting for that one, elusive, world class work. This is it. While the plot revealed itself slowly through the first half of this book, it remained engaging, and by the time I roared to the finish I was actively grieving the completion of the "read". "More! More!", I was screaming. This incredibly entertaining, future view of the world with competing phyles and nanotech warriors so abundent that they swirl through the air like pollen has placed this book near the very top of my all-time best books list. And for all the techno-babble and cyber-backdrop, what most carried the book forward was that Stephenson brilliantly developed the main characters. I really cared what happened to Nell, Miranda, Hackworth, etc. Their victories were my victories, their failures saddened me. Take "Snow Crash" and give it more depth, refinement, meaning, and maturity. Then you'll have this satisfying book in your hands. Tim Powers, move over, Neal Stephenson has just become my favorite author!
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Summary: I WANT MORE WRITE FASTER
Review: One of the greatest things about Neal's books is that they arent a series where you have to wait for another book, to finish the stories. This is also the worst thing about them becase when you are done with one of his books you want to consume more of the incredible near future worlds that he creates. And you want to see where the characters progress after the books. I guess great fiction always leaves you wanting more of the authors writing. It is no surprise that three of his books are ranked so highly in sales.
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Summary: Pynchon for the new century
Review: Okay, my favorite authors are Pynchon, Umberto Eco and Haruki Murakami - and Stephenson's now added to the pantheon. If you like densely-crafted prose, complex ruminations on the esoteric order underlying chaos, subtle and complex social criticism, you'll love The Diamond Age. The ending completely threw me, though, and I was up half the night coordinating the various factions' views about technology and social control, and didn't get the pieces to fit together. I don't blame my confusion on the author (though I do think the climax was a little rushed) - rather, I think it's a sign of his ability to paint a balanced portrait of all his characters and cultures. There's no easy distinction between white hats and black hats - and the nature of the vice of hypocrisy is one of his themes, which comes into play heavily in the final scenes, I think. A brilliant, rich, complex work - and the indgredient list for "McWhorter's Original Condiment" is one of the funniest paragraphs I've ever read
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