Rating: 
Summary: Great story... until it falls apart.
Review: I bought this book after reading "Snow Crash", which I thought was a really good book. It was with this expectations that I started reading "The Diamond Age." I loved the way he built upon the girl Nell, and how the story unfolded. Until around the middle of the book, when it gave me the impression that I was reading two or three different books at the same time. I was very disappointed by this (not to mention the ending). Buy this book if you like to change the channel in your TV every 5 seconds, but don't buy it if you like a good, solid story from start to end.
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Summary: i loved it..
Review: this is his best work yet!
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: This book is one of the greatest books I've read in a long while. Together with SNOWCRASH is THE DIAMOND AGE one of the top Sf books ever written
Rating: 
Summary: Absorbing though not quite coherent
Review: I found the world of this novel very engaging and vivid. The nanotech is a plausible extrapolation of today's fumbling attempts at atom manipulation, and Stephenson draws out some of the fascinating consequences of this technology (some of which are very disturbing, such as nanotechnological parasites, or "nanosites"). The cultural speculations are also rich and interesting: neo-Victorians, neo-Confucians, and a world organized not by nation-states, but by "phyles." I thought the characterization was a little simplistic, but I didn't mind. I did get a bit annoyed by the leaps in logic in the plot. If you try to figure out the connections, you're going to fail. In Stephenson's defense, I guess he is experimenting with connections that operate on the level of the collective unconscious. This is what's going on in the most bizarre parts of the novel, the scenes set among "the Drummers" -- a phyle that lives in undersea caverns, in a continual state of zombie-like sexual ritual, their minds linked by nanosites. The nanosites carry out computations, exchanging information with every fornication, in what Stephenson dubs "the wet net." A creepy idea.
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Summary: I am pleasantly surprised
Review: I was very pleased to see an author improve through time and work. Zodiac was fun (not too deep but fun), while Snowcrash was fine (fun again, but not too deep). Diamond Age is a leap and a homage to the Victorian school of science fiction as exemplified by Gibson and Sterling's _the Analytical Machine_ and other works.Stephenson handles female characters well and that is something to be proud of in a genre that has not been favourable towards complex female portrayals. I am further pleased that Stephenson has not fallen into the sequel trap but continued to explore other areas. I am one of those readers who always years to visit again worlds and locations e.g., Earthclan/Uplift saga but understand the need to step away (that is life). I would definitely take this book with me travelling and would definitely read it again. A fine work and good contribution to the field.
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Summary: The Diamond Age - The Way Science Fiction Novels Should Be
Review: Classically, there are several types of science fiction worlds, one of which is based on a single or several technological trends extrapolated to their logical conclusion. The Diamond Age is one of the best contemporary examples of this type, as Stephenson creates an extensive sociopolitical and technological landscape based on Humankind's mastery of nanotechnology. The advantage of this type of science fiction, as Stephenson clearly shows, is that human nature can be explored in a context different from our own, providing the reader with greater insight into people, just as other great authors of the past have done.
Rating: 
Summary: pseudo intellectual garbage
Review: It is disconcering to find, that like in the world of art, the incomprehensible is seen as denoting a fine work. This read was tantamount to having a bad acid trip. The author has no concept of science and attempts to so confuse the reader that the reader is supposed to see greatness in a work that is merely jejune.
Rating:
Summary: We liked the ending!
Review: This book grabbed us and kept us delighted til the end. I started reading it again immediately something I am not prone to do. The image of the disenchanted army is one that will not soon leave our minds and dreams. The ending was uplifting and satisfying. We felt that there is a Hollywood mentality for most readers who would like the endings of books to tie up all loose ends and not pose any ambiguities. Humans have a unique and marvelous ability to hold conflicting thoughts and emotions simultaneously. Stephenson portrays this elegantly. We say bah humbug to those that want their reading to be pablum and speaking of bah humbug does anyone out there read Dickens anymore? It might have helped in understanding a novel so sweeping and unafraid to be heartfelt- even corny by times.
Rating:
Summary: Gettin' there, Neil
Review: After my somewhat mixed review of Snow Crash I figured that I might as well give the guy another shot. And you know what, he got a bit better. This book shares most of the same flaws that Snow Crash had, but they aren't as noticeable, one thing that seems to go a long way is that the author doesn't seem as self consciously smug as that book, Snow Crash seemed at times to be a little kid showing off and showing you what a neat thing he had made, while here things are much more relaxed. I actually care about the characters here, they aren't as cardboard as the previous book and some of them actually elicit more than one emotion from me and that's a good thing. The concept itself is fairly spiffy, the idea of the Primer is interesting and his vision of the future, while not startingly original, is entertaining enough and it serves his plot pretty well. Of course he still seems to think that just having some good concepts means that a plot will just fall right into place automatically and he has yet to figure out by this point that it doesn't work that way and so most of the time you can follow along fairly well, at least the plot isn't all that convoluted but there are times when you'll be scratching your head wondering what part of his body he's pulling these twists from, so many come from left field that you start to wonder after a bit. The ending still stinks, he hasn't gotten any better with that, I once again closed one of his books thinking "That's it?" and leaving it at that, though as someone else commented, the images that he leaves in your head are memorable. It's just after five hundred pages I want more than a pretty picture. In any event, if you loved Snow Crash you've already read this and probably are just reading this review to see what the rest of the masses thought about this book. It's not so bad, after Snow Crash I was ready to hate it but it grew on me, the adventures of Princess Nell and company can be darn fun and the flaws that I've mentioned really aren't any different from any other "cyberpunk" book that I've read thus far. So if Snow Crash turned you off you might want to give him another chance. Hey, people can get better. It's how the world works.
Rating:
Summary: I'm tempted to say 2 & 1/2 but recommend it with caveats
Review: I came to this book after Cryptonomicon which I enjoyed, in fact read it over just a few days as i couldn't put it down. This depite some slow passages, lapses and absurd coincidences in plot, and a certain shallowness. It is however engaging and pulls you in. Diamond Age shares the same qualities and flaws as well as a ridiculously slapdash ending. THe flaws in fact are much more pronounced. The treatment of nanotech is glitzy and shallow, the MTV vision of nanotech. Additionally if you're the kind of reader who can't stand laughable illogic in the story and setting this book is perhaps not for you. However if you can look beyond the occassionally stunted tress the view of the forest is worth it. The ending is both too neat and incomplete and in thus unsastifying, though I must say the mental pictures it inspires are vivid, epic and incredible. This book would make wonderful anime. My advice read it, option the rights.
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