On the Earth of the Diamond Age, mankind has developed and perfected the concept of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is based around the concept of using microscopic computers to allow people to literally make anything possible. Often times, the tricky part of designing an object is making it heavier than air so it won't float away. Matter compilers can create any object with the proper program, and a pair of wooden chopsticks has flashing advertisements running up and down their sides. As backlash to this technological heaven, the elite members of society borrow their culture from the British during the Victorian era. These Victorians -or Vicky's, as some derogatorily refer to them- place value in items that are hand made, and pay exorbitant amounts of money for such items.

This novel varies from many typical science fiction novels, in that its focus is not on the technology or the rich, but rather on a single girl from a dysfunctional family in one of the poorest parts of the world. Nell, comes across one of three copies of the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, a book of sorts intended to educate a young girl. This book, while itself not a technological marvel, displays a true ingenuity in its content, as any good book. Through the use of this book, Nell is taught the lessons that one misses in school, the lessons that truly allow one to become successful in life. Through the characters and the primer, the reader gets many insights on what makes a person special.

Reading through other people's reviews of this novel, I see that I am not unanimously supported in my opinion of this novel. Many people cited its length and lengthy description as the book's downfalls. I can understand these comments, although in all honesty, to eliminate the details would eliminate any science fiction this book had and reduce it to merely a trashy sci-fi pulp novel. Clearly, Stephensons' goal is to accomplish far more than a simple adventure. In my eyes at least, the best of science fiction is to envision brave new worlds and use the different setting to critique our own society. Those who want a book they don't have to think about, will not enjoy this book. For them, there are summer movies and Dean Koontz.

One person felt the characters were dull and two-dimensional, which I found to be an entirely bogus comment. Each character is full of his or her own quirks and agendas. From the exceptionally rich Victorian technology tycoon to the Neil's thug-like yet compassionate older brother, the characters all manage to be completely original and completely realistic. Most importantly, each character inspires a bit of emotion in the reader. One is disgusted with Neil's mother and sympathetic for Nell. So, while some readers found the characters to be a fault, I found them to help draw the readers into the novel and provide the reader a familiar point so they don't get lost in the futuristic world. After all, unlike technology and trends, people for the most part do not change.

In his first novel, Snow Crash, Stephenson proved that he is perfectly capable of crafting an exciting adventure story. However, Snow Crash had nowhere near the insight or vision that he achieves in the Diamond Age. In the Diamond Age, Stephenson holds nothing back, and refuses to dumb down his book to make it an easy read. It is definitely difficult for anyone not into pure science fiction. However, anyone who makes it through the book, will find an entirely elaborate world and many insights to our own world, ranging from critiques of modern education to the depressing lack of subversiveness in our culture. Those that enjoy the true science fiction genre, will find this book to be nothing short of brilliant.


One of the Finest Books of Science Fiction I've Ever Read   January 24, 2000
 86 out of 95 found this review helpful

For months now I have been slogging through volumes of mediocre science fiction/fantasy, watching and waiting for that one, elusive, world class work. This is it. While the plot revealed itself slowly through the first half of this book, it remained engaging, and by the time I roared to the finish I was actively grieving the completion of the "read". "More! More!", I was screaming. This incredibly entertaining, future view of the world with competing phyles and nanotech warriors so abundent that they swirl through the air like pollen has placed this book near the very top of my all-time best books list. And for all the techno-babble and cyber-backdrop, what most carried the book forward was that Stephenson brilliantly developed the main characters. I really cared what happened to Nell, Miranda, Hackworth, etc. Their victories were my victories, their failures saddened me. Take "Snow Crash" and give it more depth, refinement, meaning, and maturity. Then you'll have this satisfying book in your hands. Tim Powers, move over, Neal Stephenson has just become my favorite author!


Good book, but some flaws   January 14, 2001
 22 out of 23 found this review helpful

I've just finished reading the previous 178 reviews, and have to agree with the main themes:

1) The ending is abrupt and leaves major storylines unresolved.

2) The book is not light reading. It reminds me of the old Far Side cartoons which were hilarious to some but incomprehensible to others.

3) The peek at a possible future is excellent, especially the use of nanotechnology.

Most of the reviews speak of the "Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" as a book that teaches a girl how to survive on the streets and to be an independent thinker. What they don't mention, and what I think is vital, is that one of the main themes in the design of the book was "subversion". The book was meant to guide a young girl on her path to becoming a free-thinking and subversive woman. Such a person would inevitably become a force, either positive or negative, in the book's rigid society.

Having read 3 of Mr. Stephenson's books (Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, and Diamond Age), I must agree that each one has a somewhat abrupt ending -- although Diamond Age seems to be the worst. In general, Mr. Stephenson tends to leave storylines open and let the reader's imagination take over. While this is a valid literary style, it quickly gets annoying.

While Diamond Age may not have been a straight cyberpunk novel, the environment is certainly similar to what you see in William Gibson's Neuromancer. In essence, future society has broken down into "tribes" with a significant barrier dividing the upper and lower classes. The story contains quite a bit of the Oriental class (caste?) system that you see in cyberpunk, and it also adds a Victorian class system that isn't much different.

I noticed that a significant number of reviewers were upset because Diamond Age wasn't as "good" as Snow Crash. I agree. This book is NOT another Snow Crash, nor is it a Cryptonomicon, and I enjoyed both of those books more than I enjoyed this one. That is not, however, a reason to give the book a bad review.

In general, I enjoyed this book but did not keep it after I finished reading it.


Better than Snow Crash...   April 17, 2002
 19 out of 23 found this review helpful

... In my opinion, The Diamond Age provides characters that are richer, more human and that the readers can understand and relate to better. Take Nell for example. I felt bad for her when people treated her unfairly, and cheered her on along her quest to free her brother. And Harv, Nell's brother, what brother wouldn't want to protect, teach and provide for a younger sister when all they've got is one another? John Hackworth is touted as a nonotechnological genius, but I thought that for him being a good father was more important than inventing some grand device. Lord Finkle-McGraw I can picture as the benevolent-yet-mischievous grandfather every person would love to have. I could go on and describe each and every character in this book and someone they remind me of in my life, but I won't :).

The Diamond Age envisions an extreme and futuristic world where all facets of life revolve around nanotechnology. This future world isn't one happy world. In fact, most of it is downright depressing. People are differentiated depending on what phyle they belong to. Beggars and thetes (people who don't belong to a phyle) line the streets. There is no privacy out in the open. Everything is watched. Punishment in the form of caning exists. Death by remote control is possible.

It is, however, an incredible world as well. Almost any object from clothing and food to entire floating cities can be created using a device called a Matter Compiler (MC for short) that obtains its source of materials (atoms) from Feeds (think of these as huge pipes that tunnel through major cities).

This is the world that Nell, the main character and a thete, grows up in. Her life would've been inconsequential and she ignorant were it not for a book (entitled A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer) her brother gave to her. This book, the Primer, is a wonder of nanotechnology and advanced enough to adapt itself to Nell's surroundings and circumstances in life. It teaches her everything from reading to self-defense. The Primer is not merely a device though. It also enables ractives (interactive movies) to be shown. From interacting with the Primer... Exciting stuff!

The many plot twists are sure to captivate readers from beginning to end. Perhaps even make the reader want to reread portions of the book to see how brilliantly the plot comes together. "Wow!" was what I said as I put down this book. I'm sure you will too.

LEAP rating (each out of 5):
============================
L (Language) - 4.5 (incredible descriptions of Stephenson's vision of the future)
E (Erotica) - 2 (some abuse)
A (Action) - 3 (nanotechnology plays a big role in the action)
P (Plot) - 5 (so many sub-plots that dovetail to a cataclysmic ending)


Yes, the ending is rushed--but what a ride!   January 12, 2004
 19 out of 25 found this review helpful

Stephenson has undoubtedly created one of the most intricately designed futureworlds imagined during the last decade, and the plot and characters of "The Diamond Age" are equally complex. The first forty pages work as a preface of sorts: even though the main character, a petty criminal named Bud, quickly bites the dust, his story sets the scene, introduces elaborate technological advances (nanotech viruses, surgically implanted weapons, and fully--and I mean fully--interactive media), and posits a nightmarish tribal society divided into such "claves" as the Vickys (or neo-Victorians), Parsis, and Hindustanis.

After Bud's trial and gruesome execution, the focus shifts to his daughter Nell. Lord Finkle-McGraw hires John Percival Hackworth, a pseudo-intelligence (A.I.) engineer, to create an interactive primer that will not only teach Finkle-McGraw's granddaugher useful lessons but keep her removed from the "degeneracy" of society by making her life "interesting" and "subversive." Finkle-McGraw has chosen his engineer all too well, however, and Hackworth performs his own act of subversion: making a duplicate of this book for his own daughter, Fiona. His crime fails when he is mugged and the book falls into Nell's unwary hands by way of her brother Harv, a street tough.

The rest of the story intertwines these female-male, daughter-patron strands from three different levels of society: impoverished Nell and Harv (and, later, Constable Moore, a Dickensian father-figure), middle-class Fiona and Hackworth, privileged Elizabeth and Finkle-McGraw, along with an ingenious assortment of supporting characters. There's Judge Fang, a strict by-the-book disciplinarian whose Confucianism allows him a soft spot for the care of children (including Nell); Miranda, the mothering "ractor" who provides the human voice behind Nell's interactive primer; and Dr. X, an underworld baron whose real allegiances are rarely clear even to his allies (or to the reader). The political and social intrigues greatly enliven Stephenson's philosophical ruminations, and there's too much going on to summarize in any meaningful way.

Still, in spite of everything it has going for it, "The Diamond Age" has its flaws. I enjoyed the first half of the book immensely--it reads almost like a political thriller--but "Part the Second" falters. Things take a bizarre turn when Hackworth is ensnared by the "Drummers," a communalistic underwater tribe that exchanges digital information by collective sexual osmosis. At this point, for my tastes, things get a little too New Age "touchy-feely" (excuse the double entendre), and the book never entirely recovers.

Other readers have noted that the finale is confusing, open-ended, and rushed. (And here I will be careful not to give anything away.) My initial confusion dissipated after I reread the last fifty pages, and the intended ambiguity didn't bother me since I don't mind certain things left to my imagination. Yet it's true that everything is too hastily wrapped up. There are several problems: first, Stephenson is unable to describe adequately a climactic confrontation involving armies consisting of hundreds of thousands of individuals; the mere dozen or so pages he devotes to this war resemble the confusion of a street brawl rather than the chaos of all-out battle. Second, even as he's trying to describe the battle, he's introducing new characters (such as Colonel Spence) right up to the penultimate chapter.

Third, and most seriously, although one of the strengths of the first half of the book is its character development, Stephenson pretty much abandons his protagonists and nearly all the supporting roles. Actors enter and leave the stage without rhyme or reason (Judge Fang, so fully developed early in the book, doesn't even appear in the second part). In the end, even Nell, Hackworth, and Miranda become little more than political symbols or plot devices. Adding to this impression: the last pivotal twenty pages are related from the point of view of a heretofore minor character, a strategy that only diminishes the book's emotional impact.

Those who expect their books to have satisfying endings, then, might well come away disappointed. I suspect, however, that if you read "The Diamond Age" knowing that the finale isn't entirely fulfilling, then you'll be able to sit back and enjoy the ingenious ride that makes up most of the book.