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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
informative
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Classic Stephenson for all its strength and flaws. I continue to have issues in how he writes women. Eagerly awaiting the rest.
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
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
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A different topic for the author but undeniably Stephenson. I look forward to the other books in the series. It's obvious that someone finally got to Stephenson and told him his massive tomes needed to be broken up into trilogies. Normally you can tell when an author is trying to stretch an idea into three books but Stephenson's books are so dense breaking it up is a good thing. It makes it more digestible and easier to get into for those that aren't used to 1,000+ page books.
adventurous
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Neal Stephenson is a horse girl confirmed.
Having read Cryptonomicon, which was so adamant about being something more than just a historical novel, it's kind of delightful in its own way to see Stephenson writing what appears on the surface to be a much more conventional historical (+spy-ish) fiction, with all its cliches, like cameos of historical figures that the perfect reader gets a rush out of recognizing paragraphs before they are named by the author. On the other hand, there's not quite enough exciting action in this volume (let alone weighty character relationships that, to be fair, probably never were author's strongest suit, although some character stuff here is solid) to make up for how places where Stephenson struts his stuff as a science popularizer (or just a Wikipedia-brained freak) are minimized compared to the earlier novel.
Also doesn't help that rarely do you see a beginning of the trilogy that makes less bones about being just a first third of a story. It's very common and sensible to end a novel that will have continuation on a cliffhanger but when it has to do with a character that was first introduced 10 pages prior... Come on, that's not how it's done!
PS. Or is it not even confirmed as a trilogy and may prove longer? If so, God help us all.
Having read Cryptonomicon, which was so adamant about being something more than just a historical novel, it's kind of delightful in its own way to see Stephenson writing what appears on the surface to be a much more conventional historical (+spy-ish) fiction, with all its cliches, like cameos of historical figures that the perfect reader gets a rush out of recognizing paragraphs before they are named by the author. On the other hand, there's not quite enough exciting action in this volume (let alone weighty character relationships that, to be fair, probably never were author's strongest suit, although some character stuff here is solid) to make up for how places where Stephenson struts his stuff as a science popularizer (or just a Wikipedia-brained freak) are minimized compared to the earlier novel.
Also doesn't help that rarely do you see a beginning of the trilogy that makes less bones about being just a first third of a story. It's very common and sensible to end a novel that will have continuation on a cliffhanger but when it has to do with a character that was first introduced 10 pages prior... Come on, that's not how it's done!
PS. Or is it not even confirmed as a trilogy and may prove longer? If so, God help us all.