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dochappenin 's review for:
The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
by Neal Stephenson
How do you follow up one of the seminal cyberpunk novels of the age? By writing a futuristic story that features a talking duck, dinosaur, rabbit and doll. Stephenson crafts a world even stranger than Snow Crash (though possessing the same lack of geographic states boundaries) where nanotech is the key to life. But it's more than some cyberpunk dream, it's ultimately that rare female coming of age story that could fit right in alongside the boy's, relationships are out, knowledge is in for our heroine, Nell. It falls a little flat towards the end but the world is deep and rich enough, the characters engaging enough to be well worth the trip.