Unlike Neal Stephenson's many other books, this was just barely acceptable. I realize it's a cooperation with another author, but they made Interface together, and that was so good. By comparison, this book is garbage. It was quite well written, but the story just wasn't that interesting.

I enjoyed this political thriller, set just before the onset of the first Gulf War. It draws two very different threads, eventually weaving them into a single whole, although I'm not entirely sure how successfully. The first thread involves deputy sheriff Clyde Banks, his campaign to be elected sheriff and the discovery of a dead foreign student at the bottom of a local lake. The second involves Betsy Vandeventer, a lowish ranking CIA agent, who writes a report that ruffles some feathers and makes enemies in all the wrong places.

Of the two strands, I much preferred Clyde's story. His small town charm and solid mind, behind a dumb façade make him a pleasure to read. And the fact that he spends so much time carrying his infant daughter around in his car (whether on- or off-duty) just adds to the charm.

The CIA politicking in Washington left me a bit cold. I still don't know if I entirely understand it, especially the set-up with Betsy's social circle. I appreciate that it could have been deliberately worked to make the small town sheriff come out better than the conniving federal agents (whether they be FBI, CIA or any other TLA) and, if so, it worked on me.

I don't usually read present-day fiction, so it was somewhat odd seeing real people popping up in the book; both Tariq Aziz (the Iraqi foreign minister) and President George (H. W.) Bush turn up, in extended cameos. The closest thing that the book has to a villain is James Millikan. A top diplomat, who just wants things to stay under his control so that he can get on with having lunch in expensive restaurants with his friends (such as the aforementioned Mr Aziz). When Betsy's report suggests that the Iraqis may be up to something funny, Millikan immediately stomps on it, and 'cobwebs' the whole thing, which basically seems to involve wrapping everybody remotely involved in so many layers of bureaucracy that nothing could possibly get done.

And that's depressingly plausible. Despite the copious humour running through the book, the idea that very clever people are doing their best to stop others doing what's in the best interest of the country strikes me as wholly believable and wholly depressing.

Saddam, guerra nel golfo

New

Filled with humor and biting irony, "Cobweb" is the best book on the US government that I've read. It's also the best book on the Midwest, and the fact that it manages to be both at the same time is further proof (as if this were necessary) that Neal Stephenson is a treasure.

Fortunately for me, Stephenson spends most of his time in the Science-Fiction / Fantasy genre, but this book, written in his early days, is a classic thriller in the mode of John Le Carré and Robert Ludlum. Since that's not where I typically hang out, I'm not quite sure how I came across the book... but I'm glad I did. The setup is plausible, the stakes impressively high, the principle characters beautifully limned, and the observations on how the US executive branch works and mid-West life ring absolutely true and at times are painfully funny.

There are a couple of flaws (a few too many useful coincidences, and the ending is a little rushed and implausible), hence four stars, but I'd recommend it over most books I've rated with five.

Simply put, The Cobweb is an enjoyable read. It is clearly a work of fiction -- I found there were just too many coincidences that all tie up nicely for me to totally immerse myself in it as if it were a "real" tale. Yet ... there are plenty of interesting, humorous bits that combine to show the humanity (and humor) of the characters.

I enjoyed the book for it's portrayal of folks in the midwest as intelligent, practical human beings. It was an interesting juxtaposition to have the country lifestyle next to international politics and I was pleased that the book showed the two in harmony, not in contrast.

I read this book when it was published under the pseudonym "Stephen Bury" and I think that it's worth noting that while Neal Stephenson was one of the authors of the title, he's not the sole author. You can sense some signature bits of his humor and yet it's tempered with a second viewpoint and it progresses at a different pace than many of Stephenson's other works.

Sehr schickes Buch, von dem man einiges lernen kann was das erzählen von Geschichten angeht. Außerdem erkennt man viel von dem was Stephenson in späteren Jahren auszeichen wird: historische und politische Tiefe, mäandernder Schreibstiel, Figuren mit "diversen" Hintergrund.

Wenn man das Buch zusammen mit "Interface" betrachtet: Stephenson wollte wohl eine Karriere starten als Polit-Thiller Autor. Mit "Zodiak" hat er dann scheine Schreibe simplifiziert, wohl um massentauglicher zu werden. Mit "Cryptonomnicon" und "Baroque" hat er dann wieder aus dem Brunnen geschröpt, aus dem auch "Interface" und "Cobweb" stammen.

Die moderne Variante von "Cobweb" wäre dann wohl "Reamde": ein rasanter Thriller mit bunten Figuren und interresanten Orten und viel Bewegung.

Sollte "Reamde" als Hörbuch kaufen.

Neal Stephenson teamed up with his uncle, J. Frederick George (nee George Frederic Jewsbury), to write The Cobweb (1996), their second novel together. Stephenson is an outstanding master of novels involving new technologies and far-reaching prognostications—his 1999 Cryptonomicon is a wildly entertaining novel that introduced me to the notion of crypto-currencies in the context of WWII in the Pacific. His more sedate but chilling Fall; or Dodge in Hell (2019) probed the implications of brain-to-machine transplants to nullify death.

The Cobweb's Stephenson is not the modern Stephenson. Cobweb is an entertaining and often funny experience but it's a run-of-the-mill geopolitical thriller; a fun book, but not an unusually interesting book. The title comes from the phrase "cobwebbing" used in intelligence circles; someone has been "cobwebbed" if they are so entangled in an organization's unwritten rules that they become powerless to escape their fate, which is becoming a scapegoat.

The time is 1990—the year the USSR collapsed, the Iraq-Iran war ended, and Saddam Hussein was setting his eye on Kuwait. The U. S. has long supported Hussein but the relationship is wearing thin. Among the signs of wear is information that a $300 million dollar food aid program to Iraq may have been diverted to financing the development of biochemical weapons.

A meeting in Paris has been arranged by NSA Director (and Harvard professor) James Gabor Millikan to discuss Hussein's possible financial shenanigans). Millikin sees himself as uniquely able to divine the calculus underlying the motivations of geopolitical players. He wanted ton  

. . . achieve in foreign relations the elegant perfection that mathematicians achieved in calculating the digits of pi. He did not deal in terms of individual human beings; he did not, in the long run, believe that human beings had anything more to do with the carrying out of state policy than had ants and their little universes in affecting human life.

nShades of Henry Kissinger!

At the end of the meeting, Millikan refers the question to Betsy Vandeventer, a CIA analyst, for further study, not realizing that Betsy will become a thorn in his side. His selection raises Betsy's stature and she is on her way up after her much-detested boss implodes at the Paris meeting.

Betsy is an Idahoan whose brother, Kevin, is seeking a Ph.D. in veterinary pathology at the University of Idaho. Kevin is a struggling Ph.D. student who has submitted a rough draft of a dissertation to his advisor. His advisor runs a research mill that pulls in lots of federal cash and when he sees that Kevin might assist the cash flow he pulls Kevin's thesis out of the stack of unread theses and instantly declares it acceptable in meeting the requirements of the university's Ph.D. Kevin's familiarity with animal diseases will play a significant role in the story.

Betsy's rise from a CIA analyst into the elite atmosphere of organizational intrigue was the inadvertent effect of Millikan's revenge for her going "beyond her task" at the Paris meeting, that is, offering an unsolicited opinion. The assignment is his way of putting her in the spotlight as the scapegoat if things go wrong. In her new role, she learns that the real goals of a government agency are not serving the public welfare. The real goals are undermining opponents and ripping power from them, expanding your budget and power at the expense of others, ensuring the longevity of your department while shortening the lifetime of others, and—most important of all—ensuring that in every activity there is a scapegoat who will be thrown under the bus if it goes awry.

At the other end of the power spectrum, we meet Clyde Baker, a deputy sheriff in Forks County, Iowa. Clyde is an ex-high school wrestler now married to Desiree Dhout, whom he calls Big Boss. Desiree's six brothers were notable high school wrestlers and Clyde, a fellow student, fell in love instantly when Desiree turned on a male classmate whose left hand fondly clutched her buttock, pinning him to the floor and subjecting him to eternal shame.

Now Clyde is running against his current boss for county sheriff. Clyde's clever slogan is "Vote Barker," and he pledges to knock on every door in the county to meet the folks and get the votes. True, the bumper stickers he bought for voter's cars weren't water-resistant and fell off quickly, but his optimism remains high.

At the same time, Clyde is also actively investigating the murder of a Jordanian student at the local university. The student, Marwan Habibi, was working in an area connected with biological weapons. He was last seen being carried out of his laboratory building by Jordanian fellow students. Marwan's body was found in a stolen rowboat with its head bashed in by an oar.

These seemingly disparate people and organizations will come together to bring the low-level players (Clyde Barker and Kevin Kevin and Betsy Vandeventer) into the realm of the high-level players (NSA Director Millikin and the CIA. The murder of Marwan Obi and the shenanigans of Saddam Hussein will be wrapped together, and all will be well—for the moment! Meanwhile, we'll be chuckling at the book's wry view of the human condition.

An under-estimated Iowan deputy Sherrif, a Vakhan Turk terrorist and a junior CIA analyst attempt to save the world from botulism in this heavily satirical thriller. Stephenson's usual jaunts into expositional territory are kept to a minimum and are always relevant which makes this much more taut than most of his work and allows for a tense ending. Only Zodiac is leaner and faster paced, I suspect.

The most alarming aspect of the book is that the way that the government of the USA, the CIA, FBI, Universities and local Sherrif's departments are portrayed as operating is completely convincing and not in the least over-the-top.

It's well written and fluent political thriller populated by interesting character ... and that's all. Stephenson wrote better novels - Reamde is made in the same vein, but it is much more flamboyant.
But yet, it is still the Stephenson. Why I love to read his works is because they are full of clever people - heroes (as much as they are not very heroic, only ordinary people) are clever and villains are clever too. It's so rare to have a plot based not on people behaving stupidly, but smartly. As usual I liked the most the first part introducing characters and slowly building atmosphere.
Anyway, something was missing. Too much enthusiasm for American system and president replacing what would make the whole book less empty. The authors might borrow more from Le Carré and less from Tom Clancy.

Absolutely and totally delightful

If you like cloak and dagger novels then this book is certainly for you. Book has all the major acronym agencies involved with spy games, lots of thrilling detective work and finishes with all out brawl.