Humor, Espionage, and the Midwest

Loved The humor and every day slices of life of each of the characters. I thought the author did a great job in describing Jobs and their unpleasant Realities. I really enjoyed the characters in the story and we're rooting for them to succeed. Also some of the characters who I couldn't decide whether they were they were the good guys or the bad guys were just interested to try to understand It does make you wonder a lot of things about college towns and college programs and how much money influences everything.

I just became aware that Stephenson also sometimes writes (or perhaps wrote) under the pseudonym Stephen Bury, and that he had two books I'd never read or heard of. It was like Christmas came early.

As someone said below, a mediocre Stephenson novel is better than no Stephenson novel at all, and I'm not even sure I would call this a mediocre Stephenson novel. It's definitely an early one, and it's pure political thriller, not science fiction at all.

You can feel him bursting to get all his cleverness out at once. He's still developing his writing style. What later evolved into a charming style at this point sometimes comes off as pointless details and long, boring narration of everyday tasks. However, the characters are wonderfully Stephensonian. (And from this and Reamde, we learn never to be a weaselly guy who can't handle his alcohol and is ungallant toward women in a Stephenson novel.)

All that being said, I enjoyed this novel enormously. It was wonderful fun to read a novel that takes place in the Midwest, where I grew up, and Washington, DC, where I live now. The characters were well-drawn and interesting. Stephenson played with some interesting writing techniques, such as withholding key plot points but showing how characters reacted to them. If all political thrillers were this smart and funny, I'd read a lot more of them. (Or maybe I'm misremembering Clancy, and he was a real knee-slapper.)

I highly recommend this book for Stephenson fans, and those who might not yet be.

Witty, elegant prose illuminates the inner machinations leading up to Desert Storm

It's 1990 and this reviewer is carried back from his present to his past. A thrill ride sprinkled with whimsical dialogue. Any fan of Neal Stephenson's other works are in for a good read. From the beginning until the end it just kept getting better and better. I was sorry to finish this one. The characters were undeniably I bird with the American spirit.

Classic thriller Stephenson is fun Stephenson.

This is no Snow Crash or Diamond Age. Of all the Stephenson books I've read so far (published prior to this one) this is the worst of the lot. It isn't terrible, it's just not as good as the others. There is no signature futuristic alternate world, that Stephenson writes so well. I found myself getting bored with the book and not wanting to pick it up. It does pick up nicely near the end and kept me reading the climax.

Rarely, if ever, can a joint venture in fiction writing leave such a complete feeling at the end. One example is this one. Another is Interface, predictably enough by the exact same duo.

The writing is so seamlessly forged, it's impossible to tell where one author stops and the other begins. Fast paced, flowing, genuinely funny at times, witty and sarcastic in its entirety, it's one of those books easy on the eye, but engaging enough to let the reader finish it in one go.

Lots of main characters, intricately woven story threads, emotionally charged milestones, all culminating to an exhilarating end.

What it couldn't come clear from though is a couple of Hollywood traits: the honest hero through hell fire and brimstone escapes unscathed, America prevails above all in the end, and life goes on beautifully in rural undertones everywhere else...

The pacing was a bit wonky at times: when you're in a scene it's very carefully described and there are lots of details. To the point where it seemed slow at times. But between scenes time would elapse with almost no acknowledgment to how much time and very little elaboration or explanation of what happened in between. The POV skips around often and characters had feelings or beliefs but I didn't really know why because that part wasn't described. It was also a bit anticlimactic. But for all that, I still really enjoyed it. The plot is engaging and the characters are unique and drawn with humor and affection and a lot of detail.

Not as intriguing or compelling of a story as some of Stephenson's other works, but the interconnections between "normal" America and the politics of Washington D.C. are brought to light in a new and chilling way. The complexity of migrating through the CIA/FBI/NSA and staying sane are well documented, all while creating real and deep characters. The harshness of the rat-race, and the sliminess of small-town politics help paint this cobweb of a story.

It’s a good thing I picked up a used copy of The Cobweb for free from a writer’s group raffle because I would’ve felt ripped off if I’d somehow actually bought it.

It was an excruciatingly long and slow literary character study where almost nothing happens for three quarters of the book. When it finally gets somewhat active toward the end, I was still so relieved it finally ended, I almost wanted to scream with delight.

I had no issue with the dated material, with the book taking place during the first Iraqi war. Desert Storm and all that. It was that the book just blathered on and on and on, page after page with what seemed like no point at all. At a snail’s pace, things finally came together at the very end, but the actual story could’ve been told in fifty pages, at best. The rest was semi-humorous blathering.

The good features was solid third-person limited, past-tense with no noticeable head-hopping. That was the one redeeming feature that kept me from throwing the book down in frustration.

The other thing that gave a bit of redemption to this almost waste of time was that something finally DID happen in the end. However, it was hardly worth the week it took to suffer through the rest of the character study, and it certainly didn’t live up to the back cover blurb.

Nope, this one was a dud and a big waste of time. For literary fans only.

I've been reading the rest of my Neal Stephenson collection and keep hoping that there will be more science fiction in it. The Cobweb is not science fiction, but more historical fantasy, centred on events leading up to the first gulf war.

It turns out to be a quintessential tale of the farm boy from Iowa or Idaho or one of those who saves the whole country with his spark of American "can do". The American "can't do" is underscored by the countless American agencies such as the FBI and CIA who hamstring or "cobweb" one another in an attempt to corner the bad guys. Of course it all comes down to our deputy county sheriff... seriously... to save the day.

Ostensibly, this whole book comes off as a justification for the creation of the Department of Homeland Securities... or any kind of CIA that can operate within US borders (I thought they had the NSA for that). Oh well, whatever, so long as Washington creates new budgets and jobs for people who want to chase the Muslim Peril in small town USA, I guess this book would be required reading for the faithful.

Apart from the preaching, on its own it's an OK book. There is much suspense and intrigue and it's interesting to see how the Washington spy agencies eventually come to the same conclusions as the deputy county sheriff. I'll mark it as an OK read, but wouldn't recommend it over any other Stephenson book.

Very entertaining thriller with one of the best protagonists I've ever come across. Plenty of thrills, humor, and anything else you ever wanted in a story. The story is remarkably plausible, even after we failed to find any WMD's in Iraq. I wouldn't mind more books with this hero, either.

Stephenson is best known for his science fiction, which this is not. Don't let that stop you from reading it.

The story would make a great movie.

A decent techno-thriller. The two writers did much better when they published Interface.