The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer
- ISBN13: 9780553380965
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
In Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson took science fiction to dazzling new levels. Now, in The Diamond Age, he delivers another stunning tale. Set in twenty-first century Shanghai, it is the story of what happens when a state-of-the-art interactive device falls into the hands of a street urchin named Nell. Her life-and the entire future of humanity-is about to be decoded and reprogrammed….Amazon.com Review
John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of “A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer” for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw’s daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling neo-Victorian society. But Hackworth loses the primer before he can give it to Fiona, and now the “book” has fallen into the hands of young Nell, an underprivileged girl whose life is about to change…. More >>
The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer
Halfway through this boring book I decided to see what the reviewers here at amazon thought of it. Reading the worst reviews I notice that many people thought the book started out strong then got worse in the second half. Since my own experience was that it started out poor, I decided to give up at this point. I seldom give up on a novel. I picked this one up because I’m fascinated with the future of nanotechnology, and while there were some interesting tidbits scattered throughout this book, the plot was so boring that it just wasn’t worth it to continue.
Rating: 1 / 5
It is disconcering to find, that like in the world of art, the incomprehensible is seen as denoting a fine work. This read was tantamount to having a bad acid trip. The author has no concept of science and attempts to so confuse the reader that the reader is supposed to see greatness in a work that is merely jejune.
Rating: 1 / 5
This book started out with a remarkeable amount of promise. The opening third of it is very, very good. The details and crafted naturalness of the various plot threads is better than nearly any other SF writer out there… but then something happens. it’s almost as if the writer became so sure of his inate talent that he didn’t care to really think out what he was writing anymore.
He began clearly writing a modified victorian novel, complete with the pedigree prologue dovetailing into the main plot, but then- bam!
By the end, the neo-victorian structure of the novel is lost in a morass of plotting that no self-respecting novelist should allow himself anywhere outside of his own journals and musings, and self-stimulating pleasure.
Stephenson is not a bright enough person (his OS book, being a prime example of mediocrity and plagiarism in thought posing as an amusing parle with a man of mind), nor a skilled-enough craftsman to get away with it- not even close.
The originality of his idea (small as it is) is lost in a book this size. He would have been better off writing this condensed to about half the size- that would have suited the neo-victorian style he attempted here much better.
A real waste of money, again. I’ve learned my lesson with this guy- he’s just not a very good writer.
Rating: 1 / 5
I am a deep lover of Science Fiction. This book was a major disappointment, a waste of time, and can be categorized as pure goobly-gook! I wanted to like this book, but it was full of maddening obessive verbriage. The first 400 pages of the book was hyper-reflixive technology-speak. There existed no character development that emboided humaness nor humanity. I felt I should have been paid for enduring the torture involved in sticking with the book until the end. What a labor of false hope. At least the Science Fiction works of Paolo Bagigalupi’s (Pump Six) and Brandon Sanderson’s (The Hero of Ages) embraces eternal themes, philosophy and caringiness in their essence. I am so angry at myself for being fooled into reading this obessive junk.
Rating: 1 / 5
Just as my gramatical reference makes no sense neither does The Diamond Age. After reading Cryptonomicron, I thought I had found a new breed of sci-fi writer. Snow Crash was an interesting first step but clearly not the sophisticated production that Cryto is. Diamond Age fits no where in between either thematically or structurally. Stephenson falls back on the old sci-fi bromide that creates a future where they have superior technology but it adds nothing to the world the people live in. The characters live a less convenient life than we do yet have at their disposal technology to do away with all the ills of day to day life. Riding chevalines (horses) for God sake is but one instance of the banal existence these people subject themselves to and riding in airships (zeplins).
Maybe I don’t get this genre but Asimov certainly did it better. He took today’s technology and projected it into the future to show us how things could be. Stephenson throws out today to create a tomorow that’s worse than the past. This isn’t science fiction. Its just a disppointment. The promise of Snow Crash realized in Crypto is lost in this book.
Rating: 1 / 5