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Reviews tagging 'Racism'
The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson
7 reviews
machen27's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Sexual content and Violence
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Rape and Sexual assault
The language about the different cultures is fairly dated, an obvious mid 90s take, especially on Chinese culture. The separation of the cultures is also a bit jarring, and it's pretty disappointing that Stephenson's vision of "top cultures" are Victorians and Japan.kingcrookback's review against another edition
Graphic: Child abuse, Physical abuse, and Sexual content
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Racism, Violence, and Death of parent
ksorianotaylor's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
but some of the ideas didn’t really come across to me like the “seed” vs the “feed”, like why are they different?
very very white savior-y and orientalist. like literally
Graphic: Racism and Sexual content
Moderate: Racial slurs, Sexual violence, and Violence
crufts's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Under the Primer's tuition, Nell grows up, becomes a badass, and founds her own cultural tribe - a simultaneous coming-of-age and rags-to-riches story.
Unfortunately, this fascinating worldbuilding and premise is dragged down by a slow start and a dubiously-justified ending. It takes ~100 pages of poverty and suffering for Nell to even receive the Primer, and she only starts to learn from it around p138. 130+ pages of hopeless misery with no end in sight is an awfully long time, and I think the book would have hooked me more effectively if the Primer's spark of hope had been introduced earlier.
After that, The Diamond Age chugs along effectively and maintains interest through Nell's days at a high-class elocution school. However, the events of the last hundred pages seem contrived and poorly justified, as though the author wanted to hit specific beats and plot points regardless of what made sense for the characters to do. Details in the spoiler tag below.
For example, while Nell is travelling through Pudong, she decides to loiter inside a brothel so as to lose the trail of some bad guys who are following her. However, she then applies for a (writing) job?!?! at the brothel and then comes back the next day to actually do the job?!?!?! Why????
She was just hiding in the lobby to get out of sight for a few hours! Why would she actually apply for a job there??? Why tie herself down to a location like that? Why provide identifying information that might be used to track her in the future????
Now, the narrative reason for this is that it sets Nell up to meet the scriptwriter Carl Hollywood, one of the good guys who helps her find the surrogate mother who effectively "raised" her via the Primer's tuition. But there is no in-universe reason for this happen, and so it feels very arbitrary.
Other events at the end of the book also seem unjustified and unbelievable, such as the fact that the Mouse Army girls antagonize Nell by tying her up and torturing her (p468), only to universally pledge allegiance to her shortly afterwards (p478). It's very serious that this event has no justification, because Nell's state of incapacitation leads to an invading group of thugs raping her (Y I K E S). Even that event seemed to be brushed over quickly in order to get to the following events the author had planned, like the mass walk of the Mouse Army into the sea and the visit to the Drummers' caves. Like, dude, you can't just drop sexual assault in like it's no big deal.
Again, narratively you might say that this was to set up for Nell having the sexually-transmitted Drummer nanosites in her bloodstream, which is relevant to the last few pages. But then she immediately engineers counter-nanosites to remove them from her body, so what was the point of all this? It just seems contrived, unnecessary and gross.
I felt that this letdown in the ending was a real shame, because the middle section of the story (about Nell's use of the Primer's fairytale education) was charming and interesting.
In the end, I don't recommend The Diamond Age. There are other sci-fi books out there that have equally interesting worldbuilding without the unnecessary attempts at shock value.
Graphic: Sexism and Violence
Moderate: Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, and Murder
Minor: Drug use and Trafficking
As you can guess by the number of tags above, there's a lot of violence and nasty staff in this book.A little like Cryptonomicon (although not as bad), The Diamond Age also had some unnecessary sexual references, maybe intended for the shock value.
merst_nob's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.25
Graphic: Racism, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, and War
carolined314's review
3.0
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
janel's review
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
Minor: Child abuse, Misogyny, Racism, and Rape