pacavegano@bookwyrm.social reviewed The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
None
4 stars
It’s mid-nineties cyberpunk. Rather more convoluted and odd than many of its kin.
Hardcover, 455 pages
English language
Published February 1995 by Bantam Books.
- ISBN:
- 978-0-553-09609-5
- OCLC Number:
- 314194775
- ASIN:
- 0553096095
- ISFDB ID:
- 1181
- Goodreads:
- 1056946
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4 stars
(6 reviews)
Neal Stephenson's dazzling novel Snow Crash set the science fiction world on fire, charting out the literary landscape of the next millennium with wild abandon. Now this acclaimed talent has again created a singular version of the future. Imagine Charles Dickens writing in the 21st century. . .and you begin to imagine life in The Diamond Age.
Decades into our future, a stone's throw from the ancient city of Shanghai, a brilliant nanotechnologist named John Percival Hackworth has just broken the rigorous moral code of his tribe, the powerful neo-Victorians. He's made an illicit copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. Commissioned by an eccentric duke for his grandchild, stolen for Hackworth's own daughter, the Primer's purpose is to educate and raise a girl capable of thinking for herself. It performs its function superbly. Unfortunately for Hackworth, his smuggled copy has falling into …
Neal Stephenson's dazzling novel Snow Crash set the science fiction world on fire, charting out the literary landscape of the next millennium with wild abandon. Now this acclaimed talent has again created a singular version of the future. Imagine Charles Dickens writing in the 21st century. . .and you begin to imagine life in The Diamond Age.
Decades into our future, a stone's throw from the ancient city of Shanghai, a brilliant nanotechnologist named John Percival Hackworth has just broken the rigorous moral code of his tribe, the powerful neo-Victorians. He's made an illicit copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. Commissioned by an eccentric duke for his grandchild, stolen for Hackworth's own daughter, the Primer's purpose is to educate and raise a girl capable of thinking for herself. It performs its function superbly. Unfortunately for Hackworth, his smuggled copy has falling into the wrong hands.
Young Nell and her brother Harv are thetes — members of the poor, tribeless class. Neglected by their mother, Harv looks after Nell. When he and his gang waylay a certain neo-Victorian—John Percival Hackworth—in the seamy streets of their neighborhood, Harv brings Nell something special: the Primer. And from the moment she opens the book, her life is changed. She enters a fairy tale in which she is the heroine, challenged with traversing an enchanted world in search of the fabled twelve keys. If successful, she could emerge with untold wisdom and power.
Following the discovery of his crime, Hackworth begins an odyssey of his own. Expelled from the neo-Victorian paradise, squeezed by agents of Protocol Enforcement on one side and a Mandarin underworld crime lord on the other, he searches for an elusive figure known as the Alchemist. His quest and Nell's will ultimately lead them to another seeker whose fate is bound up with the Primer—a woman who holds the key to a vast, subversive information network that us destined to decode and reprogram the future of humanity.
Vividly imagined, stunningly prophetic, and epic in scope, The Diamond Age is a major novel from one of the most visionary writers of our time.
Hajo Thelen reviewed The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Diamond Age > Golden Age
It's a long ago I've read this book.
I remember espacially the society Stephenson has createdd for this story.
The Victorian Age was seen as a Golden Age by the tech bros of the 90's. The society of this book is basically the Victorian Age pumpt up with nano tech stuff. A Golden Age++ or a "Diamond Age"
aolfreetrial reviewed The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Simultaneously better and worse than Snow Crash
4 stars
I have to say, this was a fun read. And like the author's book Snow Crash from 3 years prior, it features a young girl protagonist, nation-state world-building, a sometimes awkward treatment of Asia, and sections of excessive violence.
In some ways, the book aged a lot better than Snow Crash. The world has made VR a thing which means a lot of the computer-related predictions from Snow Crash feel laughable, but we're nowhere near the level of nanotechnology in A Diamond Age. Snow Crash is a book of the 90s. The Diamond Age feels good even today.
Where this book let me down, however, was in how the plot was woven together. There are a lot of interesting characters that never get the attention they should. I don't demand that all plot threads get tied up in a nice neat bow (I think Anathem even went a bit too …
I have to say, this was a fun read. And like the author's book Snow Crash from 3 years prior, it features a young girl protagonist, nation-state world-building, a sometimes awkward treatment of Asia, and sections of excessive violence.
In some ways, the book aged a lot better than Snow Crash. The world has made VR a thing which means a lot of the computer-related predictions from Snow Crash feel laughable, but we're nowhere near the level of nanotechnology in A Diamond Age. Snow Crash is a book of the 90s. The Diamond Age feels good even today.
Where this book let me down, however, was in how the plot was woven together. There are a lot of interesting characters that never get the attention they should. I don't demand that all plot threads get tied up in a nice neat bow (I think Anathem even went a bit too far in wrapping up the story) but what about Hackworth? Did the author just give up on trying to decide his fate? Did anything come of Miranda joining the Drummers? Who is the mysterious boss of Dr. X? Is CryptNet important or not? Did I accidentally only read half the book?
The author makes so much of these characters only for them to be inconsequential, as if he meant to write a book twice the size but had to abruptly end it mid-way (or wanted to leave room for a sequel). And even the parts that are fleshed out don't seem to fit together very well, and I'm sure you could come up with a long list of plot holes if you tried.
Nonetheless, the main character's story and the imaginative nanotech-based world make this a fun if imperfect book. Don't let me scare you away - you may like this one better than Snow Crash.
Antonis reads reviewed The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Plotty
2 stars
Quite a thick plot, lots of characters, many plot twists and more world-building in a single book than you can shake your nanobots at. Also, if you're interested in a fictionalized primer (ha!) on Turing machines, this is the book you're looking for.
