Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
Fun book. I thought the start was strong and there were some fun images, like a robot sentry cruising the hills of wealthy suburbs in Washington state. The ending was lame, as I recall.
Diamond Age began with fascinating ideas and a great plot. 4 stars and I was hoping for 5. Half way through it completely tanked and I lost all interest in the story.
Per the usual, when I read The Baroque Cycle, I evidently read Stephenson’s three best books. All three earned 5-stars. This one just squeaked in at 2-stars, but I honestly could’ve gone with one. For the most part it was a not very interesting fantasy slog. I battled to keep pushing forward on a daily basis, waiting for the story to turn into something incredible, but ultimately that transition never occurred.
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was a confounding book. The second half felt very different from the first half and it went places I did not expect. It almost felt like we got the major plot points without any of the clever, insightful prose because the author was coming up against a deadline or something. Like most Neal Stephenson books there were some really interesting ideas and concepts here, but not much of a story, or hook. I hated what happened to Nell's character towards the end of the book and the ending itself was very abrupt.
adventurous
challenging
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was loaned to me by a friend – who has been doing her own deep dive into Neal Stephenson – as a starting point of a sort to get into the rest of his work.
This fit for me somewhere in an experiential Venn diagram of reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Ishmael, and A Psalm for the Wild-Built. I found it a little dense/slow to begin with but once it was clear that we were headed in a specific direction, and doing so with evident skill, I was eager to stick around and find out.
This fit for me somewhere in an experiential Venn diagram of reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Ishmael, and A Psalm for the Wild-Built. I found it a little dense/slow to begin with but once it was clear that we were headed in a specific direction, and doing so with evident skill, I was eager to stick around and find out.
It's Neal Stephenson, but with girls! As actual characters!
I actually didn't love it quite as much as I expected to, call it a 4.5. Probably some combination of extremely high expectations, complete unfamiliarity with Chinese culture and geography, and the squick factor of the Drummers.
I actually didn't love it quite as much as I expected to, call it a 4.5. Probably some combination of extremely high expectations, complete unfamiliarity with Chinese culture and geography, and the squick factor of the Drummers.
The Diamond Age, based mostly in a Shanghai of the distant future, is premised on a fascinating question: what if humans could master a technology that allows them to 3D print pretty much anything, quickly in a microwave shaped box? Stephenson invents a future where nanotechnology has created this possibility, and humans can produce food, toys, mattresses and other important goods.
From this premise, Stephenson builds a world quite different from our own, and it's a fascinating thought experiment. After the 3D printers (matter-compliers or MCs in Stephenson's jargon) became ubiquitous, traditional governments were unable to collect taxes or enforce laws, and collectives called Phyles grew in their place. These are homogenous groups of morally/ethnically similar people, including the Neo-Victorians who appropriate the aesthetic of Dickens' London.
Anyways, all of this world-building is cool, but it doesn't really support a novel. Our story concerns a young girl named Nell with an absent father and a negligent mother, who comes into possession of a Primer, a sort of videogame/e-learning tool in the format of a book. With the Primer, she's able to stand out from the squalor she's born into, and rise above her station in life, eventually attending school in one of those Neo-Victorian communities. (Catching all those [b:Dickens|2623|Great Expectations|Charles Dickens|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327920219s/2623.jpg|2612809] vibes?)
Nell's fate is intertwined with Hackworth, an engineer who built the Primer, and a faction of Chinese revolutionaries who are unhappy with the status quo. The first half of the book bounces between Nell and these supporting characters, along with Nell's stories in the very-cool interactive Primer, with plenty of exposition for the world that Stephenson has built, and appears to be leading to some sort of collision between these pathways and appropriate rewards/consequences for the main characters.
Unfortunately, the book shifts tones abruptly at the halfway point (marked by the start of a second book within the book) and loses its narrative cohesiveness. Hackworth, who had made copies of the Primer illegally, gets involved in some shady business in an attempt to cover his track. This leads to him joining an underwater community and a weird mind-control/orgy subplot that unfortunately remains integral to the book's conclusions, despite its out-of-place feel. Major time jumps occur, a lot of characters from the first half of the book are never mentioned again, and characters seem to be engaged in these heroic journeys with no real explanation as for motivation.
In another example of the narrative messiness of the later half of the book, a bit character from the first half was a sort of playhouse director/producer. One of his actresses provided voice-overs for Nell's Primer. He returns in the second half, but as a super-hacker who obtains technology that was previously explained as impossible. Oh, and he's also a trained sharpshooter and nanotechnology expert.
It almost felt like Stephenson wrote these halves of the book separately, and the narrative incohesiveness really pulls from what could have been a great literary, speculative science fiction yarn. Stephenson is a great imagination and world-creator, and his books are always rewarding, but unfortunately the [b:hard-to-follow-motivations|830|Snow Crash|Neal Stephenson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1477624625s/830.jpg|493634] and [b:sudden lurches in story theme and tone|22816087|Seveneves|Neal Stephenson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1449142000s/22816087.jpg|42299347] seem to be a part of the bargain in the book. For fans of the genre, The Diamond Age is still a worthwhile classic, but the story's frailty in the latter half of the book make it a hard recommendation for general-audience readers.
From this premise, Stephenson builds a world quite different from our own, and it's a fascinating thought experiment. After the 3D printers (matter-compliers or MCs in Stephenson's jargon) became ubiquitous, traditional governments were unable to collect taxes or enforce laws, and collectives called Phyles grew in their place. These are homogenous groups of morally/ethnically similar people, including the Neo-Victorians who appropriate the aesthetic of Dickens' London.
Anyways, all of this world-building is cool, but it doesn't really support a novel. Our story concerns a young girl named Nell with an absent father and a negligent mother, who comes into possession of a Primer, a sort of videogame/e-learning tool in the format of a book. With the Primer, she's able to stand out from the squalor she's born into, and rise above her station in life, eventually attending school in one of those Neo-Victorian communities. (Catching all those [b:Dickens|2623|Great Expectations|Charles Dickens|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327920219s/2623.jpg|2612809] vibes?)
Nell's fate is intertwined with Hackworth, an engineer who built the Primer, and a faction of Chinese revolutionaries who are unhappy with the status quo. The first half of the book bounces between Nell and these supporting characters, along with Nell's stories in the very-cool interactive Primer, with plenty of exposition for the world that Stephenson has built, and appears to be leading to some sort of collision between these pathways and appropriate rewards/consequences for the main characters.
Unfortunately, the book shifts tones abruptly at the halfway point (marked by the start of a second book within the book) and loses its narrative cohesiveness. Hackworth, who had made copies of the Primer illegally, gets involved in some shady business in an attempt to cover his track. This leads to him joining an underwater community and a weird mind-control/orgy subplot that unfortunately remains integral to the book's conclusions, despite its out-of-place feel. Major time jumps occur, a lot of characters from the first half of the book are never mentioned again, and characters seem to be engaged in these heroic journeys with no real explanation as for motivation.
In another example of the narrative messiness of the later half of the book, a bit character from the first half was a sort of playhouse director/producer. One of his actresses provided voice-overs for Nell's Primer. He returns in the second half, but as a super-hacker who obtains technology that was previously explained as impossible. Oh, and he's also a trained sharpshooter and nanotechnology expert.
It almost felt like Stephenson wrote these halves of the book separately, and the narrative incohesiveness really pulls from what could have been a great literary, speculative science fiction yarn. Stephenson is a great imagination and world-creator, and his books are always rewarding, but unfortunately the [b:hard-to-follow-motivations|830|Snow Crash|Neal Stephenson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1477624625s/830.jpg|493634] and [b:sudden lurches in story theme and tone|22816087|Seveneves|Neal Stephenson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1449142000s/22816087.jpg|42299347] seem to be a part of the bargain in the book. For fans of the genre, The Diamond Age is still a worthwhile classic, but the story's frailty in the latter half of the book make it a hard recommendation for general-audience readers.
It started out okay, then it got really good, then struggled to plow through the last little bit. And I'm not entirely sure why. I like Stephenson, and for the most part, I was drawn in. I just wasn't invested enough by the end and perhaps expected too much from the ending? I liked it and its meta fictional qualities, as well as Stephenson's predictions about the future, it just left me wanting a little more.