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Zodiac

Zodiac

List Price: $7.50
Your Price: $6.75
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Toxic Avenger
Review: Considering that this novel was a precursor to Stephenson's excellent Snow Crash and Diamond Age, I was full braced for disappointment. This was most certainly not the case.

Zodiac is a fast, funny, thrilling and scary look into the endeavours of a real-life 'toxic avenger', whose reason for living is to force the chemco's into cleaning up the contents of their outfall pipes - by any means necessary.

Stephenson does an excellent job of explaining the science of toxic waste in lay-terms without coming across as patronising, and manages to keep the pace going from beginning to end.

Top stuff.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Ecology can be fun?
Review: I liked this book. Yes, I read the "Show Crash" first and liked it very much. (And Neuromancer, too) I think every author is entitled to try different styles. It only sharpens the skill. Gibson gets a little tiresome after a 3rd novel: it's all the same. "Zodiak" brought some fresh air with it (and some fresh water too). Can't wait for Stephenson's new book, whatever it will be!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Smart ironic adrenaline, ending stronger than Snow Crash.
Review: I've read Snow Crash and Zodiac and I'm about to start reading Diamond Age. Zodiac starts strong and keeps trucking straight through to the action-packed ending, where various story threads come together in a satisfying explosion. If you eat organic veges and wonder how human-made chemicals are altering our reality, it's a thought-provoking scary story. Stephenson puts you in a Zodiac (zippy inflated motorboat) in the Boston harbor, evading bad guys and diving for sunken evils. It reads like a good movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Feel like saving the world today?
Review: I really enjoyed this book, though not as much as Snow Crash.

Perhaps the other people reviewing it didn't like it because they expected something in the same vein to some of his other books. It's different, but it's still Neal Stephenson.(oh, if you are in SA and a Stephenson fan, mail me :)

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Tale of Drug Abusing Eco-warrior Makes Torturous Reading
Review: After reading N. Stephenson's _Snow_Crash_, I very excitedly bought and started reading this book. The enthuiasm was short-lived. This book quickly turns into an environmentalist's sermon. At points it is about as interesting as an Al Gore speech.


The main character is a drug abusing eco-warrior. Forget the techno-savvy and future thinking found in Stephenson's other novels. Our hero breathes nitrous-oxide gas and likes it.


I never really cared enough about our hero to get into the story. Maybe Stephenson breathed too much nitro when writing this snoozer.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This is a book I test relationships with.
Review: I've given away three copies of this book; one to a favorite uncle, one to my daughter, one to a would-be relationship: the people I connect with best love this book. There's some mystery, some reasonably plausible adventure, a practical turn of mind, and consideration of our relationships to the natural world, our material possessions, and each other. Not a great book, but a good book, and I liked it better than DA (sort of fun, but bogged down and got pretentious). I'm delighted its in print.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Read Another Stephenson first!
Review: Dissapointing when compared to Snowcrash and Diamond Age. The characters are flat, the plot is plodding, the science (explained with beer cans, on character to another) is patronizing. But if you are already a Stephenson fan, go ahead and read it (you will anyway, right?), it's a pleasant afternoon's work. The best thing about the book is that it reminded me of other books I've liked: Gen-x Techies, Culture of: See Microserfs by Coupland. World destroyed by Ocean Chain Reaction, novelty of: See ice-9 novel (Cat's Cradle?) by Vonnegeut. Evil Corporate America, sendup of: See Thank you for Smoking, Christopher Buckley.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Don't Waste Your Time Reading This Book.....
Review: If you have read Stephenson's the Diamond Age, you won't find what you're looking for in this novel. The full title of Zodiac:The Eco-Thrilller does not do this novel justice. I read halfway through the novel and I was still wondering where the thriller part was. The main character Sangamon Taylor does not make me want to like him and halfway through the book I started wondering when something would happen to him. The book is a commentary about the state of our ecology but it makes an often boring statement.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Save the world, skip this book
Review: Buy the very, very cool DA. Some of Neal's funky web-available stories (i.e., Simoleons). Even the jumbled but visionary SC. But spare yourself this drivel. *** Let me count the reasons: (1) The characters are complete cardboard. (2) The tone of the book is the tone of this review - arrogant and supercilious. (3) Neal's good at envisioning nanofuture and infofuture, but his biofuture sucks. ** Please, please, don't let Neal support himself by writing junk - we need his gems

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: READ IT!! READ IT NOW!!!
Review: Wow. What can I say about this book other than I loved every moment of it?

Neil S. wrote a truly rocking and rolling book, a wild ride of fun, biology, ecology and another protagonist that you just wish you could be. Zodiac simply starts as a man tries to do what is right, in his own brash and annoying way. And then, everything goes wrong. The main character in this novel seems to be a direct ancestor to "Hero Protagonist" in Snowcrash, in both voice, style, and attitude. I adored this book. Not only is it a fun read, but it's a good social commentary on today's business, and what it is doing to the enviroment.

Go read this book.


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