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augie_'s review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Gore, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Murder, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Blood, Violence, Gun violence, Drug use, and Death
janalg's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Graphic: Animal death, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, and Violence
Moderate: Xenophobia, Racism, Racial slurs, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Drug abuse, Gore, Addiction, Alcohol, and Classism
strawberrypinch's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Gore, Blood, Body horror, Gun violence, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Colonisation, Xenophobia, War, Death, Police brutality, Classism, Drug use, Cursing, and Drug abuse
Minor: Sexism, Genocide, Homophobia, Addiction, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual harassment, Car accident, Kidnapping, Medical content, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, and Rape
saturniidae's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
I'm still not sure if I'm supposed to see Hiro as the incompetent nerd way out of his depth he clearly is or if I'm somehow supposed to think he's actually cool.
The first half of the book does a good job of building the anarcho captialist hellscape that the characters inhabit, but the second half quickly spirals into an incomprehensible mess with muddled themes.
Really exemplifies why silicon valley techbros are how they are, if this book inspired them.
Graphic: Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Police brutality, Rape, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Ableism and Animal death
Minor: Racial slurs and Transphobia
No seriously this book's second half includes a 15 year old girl being brainwashed and groomed eventually culminating inbites_of_books's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.5
The first couple of chapters I really enjoyed. As Stephenson described this futuristic world where corporations are the leaders of the world and where it is better to work for the Mafia than to get an education and try to have a traditional job, I could see how our world could end up like this in a couple of decades. The idea of the Metaverse was also very promising and interesting but unfortunately that never really took off.
Once Stephenson started to try to add too much logic to this futuristic, sci-fi world, it started to fall apart for me. There were chapters where one of the protagonists (called Hiro Protagonist ha) is basically getting a lecture from an AI about religious history, linguistics, and anthropology. Which are very interesting on their own but basically took me way out of the story and made my logic mind show up and be like "this makes zero sense." Then, in the next chapter we are back into exploring more of the ways that this corporation-led world is messed up and following (or trying to follow) the ways that our main characters are trying to solve the mystery of a virus that is affecting hackers but is also a drug in the real world... There's definitely mystery and intrigue but I ended up just wanting to know what was going to happen in order to be done with the book once and for all without really caring much about the main characters.
I am mostly frustrated because Stephenson has some great ideas, some really promising characters, and it all just ended up going nowhere for me. Like Y.T. was a super interesting character, a 15 year old girl who is super independent and wants to live her own life and not follow in her mother's footsteps as a government worker. Meanwhile she's just a means to an end and like that's it? Zero character development for anyone here. Oh and another super interesting character was Ng, a man who is paralyzed and heads one of the best security systems and rides around in a car that's been adapted so he can use it as a wheelchair/transportation/apartment/storage of very cool weapon system. His character was probably the best one who had clear intentions and purpose and I wish we'd had more of him throughout the book (he would have been a great main character!)
So disappointing... I'm not sure I'd want to try another of Stephenson's works, but who knows, maybe if he's done something a bit more cohesive and less all over the place I'll give it a shot.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Classism, Drug use, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, and Sexual content
booksthatburn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
It's using and remixing available stereotypes to their limit to create cartoonishly distilled essences that allow for quick action in the partitioned but not wholly divided setting. There are stark boundary lines all over the place, governing laws, behavior, and life-or-death stakes for everyone within these borders, lit by each Franchise's signage and governed by their franchisee manuals. Where the grooves of life are so well worn around most denizens that they barely notice a disturbance to their routines, unless they’re the protagonist, Hiro Protagonist or perhaps the Kourier Y.T. There's a franchise for most things, and some of those things are racism. There's some fatphobia and scattered ableist language which seem to be regular levels of bigotry instead of forming the kind of pointed social commentary which underpins and incorporates the other -isms.
Hiro’s biracial identity (Black/Japanese) matters to the story and exists for more than the surface-level excuse to name the main character “hero protagonist” with alternate spelling. There are several moments where he figures out things based on how someone reacts (or doesn’t) to his appearance and background.
Y.T. isn't as introspective as Hiro, but she gets a decent amount of focus and her perspective is integral to the story, both as an active agent and as an observer with a very different point of view from Hiro, a non-hacker one.
As a cultural artifact, this feels more prescient than it perhaps has a right to be because a lot of people have tried to make things more like the world imagined here, and that's not always a good thing. Reading it now is strange because even something like the word "avatar" as a representation of one's physical self in a digital context was popularized by this book and so it doesn't feel new, though it was at the time.
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Gore, Violence, Gun violence, and Death
Moderate: Ableism, Xenophobia, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Sexism, Misogyny, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Animal death
Minor: Pregnancy and Excrement
confusedmuse's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Car accident, Cursing, Drug use, Gun violence, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Sexual content, Violence, and Adult/minor relationship