An extraordinarily fun book - Stephenson meshes hardboiled crime with the pacing of a thriller, and he populates the book with his typical nerdy, witty humor. It's not so much a sci-fi book as it is a thriller with a lot of hard science behind it. It is so delightful reading a Stephenson book narrated in the first person!

Zodiac was WAY ahead of its time upon publication in 1988. Computers, gadgets, pollutants and the corporations (legally inculpable for complex reasons) that dump them everywhere, you name it, Stephenson foresaw it.

Even 30 years on, this feels fresh and relevant. This was Stephenson's second novel, and is somewhat overshadowed by Snow Crash. I think in some ways, it's actually better!

It has sort of a similar protagonist, a slacker, Hunter S. Thompson gonzo Eco-Activist. Not terrorist, but a righteous dude who is out to punish the poisoners and not just murder them.

He gets wrapped up in a mystery full of Satan-worshipping PCP freaks, genetic engineers, and good old corporate greed. It's funny that the more things change, the more they stay the same. You could easily update this for a more modern age - heck, it'd made a good film!

And, on the range of good Stephenson endings to crappy Stephenson endings, this is about as good as Reamde. In fact if you liked that book, you'll like this one, and vice versa.

A few points off for some dated sexism/masculinity, but don't hold that against Stephenson - it's more about the character I think than anything he may have felt.

Neal Stephenson is a talented and multi-dimensional writer. Not only can he pen science fiction classics (e.g. Snowcrash) but he can also write enjoyable thrillers (e.g. Zodiac, the Eco-Thriller). No doubt about it...this Stephenson guy tells one hell of a yarn!

Republicans without a sense of humor should beware...this is NOT the book for you! It is unapologetically liberal in regards to the damage being done to our environment by big business. In this day and age when many liberals (I am talking about you Obama) lack the courage to fight for their beliefs, along comes protagonist Sangamon Taylor...the wise-cracking environmental warrior. I wish I could sick S.T. on real world "grovellers" like Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor. Alas, this is why "Zodiac" is listed as fiction...because in the real world, the bad guys often get away. :(

I haven't had this much fun since  Metzger's Dog. I wonder if Chinese Gordon and Sangamon Taylor are related somehow.

This book is a thriller, a detective story with science--lots of chemistry in fact--but it isn't quite a "science fiction" novel. Neal Stephenson has created a memorable main character, Sangamon Taylor, a chemist and ecology activist. The emphasis is on the activist. He lives in Boston, and gets around mostly on his zodiac, a small, fast boat. He is always on the lookout for polluting waste products being dumped by factories into the waterways of Boston.

Of course, he is not on the good side of the chemical companies that do the dumping. He is constantly being stalked and occasionally mugged or kidnapped or ....

However, Sangamon is a very clever fellow. He has to be clever, since he was invented by Neal Stephenson. He is very enterprising, and has a big mouth, though he is usually tactful. He knows how to evade his enemies--usually. And he knows that sometimes, offense is the best defense. You just can't go wrong with a book by Stephenson. While Sangamon is evading and investigating the bad guys, his good-natured witticisms permeate the dialogues. And, you can even learn some chemistry (by osmosis) from this book, as it is everywhere an important character in its own right.

I didn't read this book--I listened to the audiobook, narrated rather well by Ax Norman.

If not for the voice of Sangamon Taylor, Neal Stephenson's Zodiac would have been a relatively okay eco-thriller, but the book isn't just the voice of Sangamon Taylor, it IS Sangamon Taylor, and once again Stephenson's ability to create compelling leading men (think Hiro Protagonist in Snow Crash) makes one of his books superior to the pulp it was inspired by.

Sangamon Taylor is Boston Harbor's very own Toxic Avenger. Working for GEE -- a thinly veiled, fictional Greenpeace -- ST spends his days testing the waters in his Zodiac so that he can trace the waste dumping of Boston's big, bad corporations. He's already got two corporation kills on the side of his boat, and he's going for the kill that will make him an "ace".

ST declares himself to be "an asshole, I do it for a living," and he is to some extent. He hangs up on a cranky old cancer victim; he strings along Debbie, the girl he loves, and runs away from any chance of commitment with assiduity; he regularly partakes of any drug that doesn't break Sangamon's Principle of Simple Compounds, and even a few that do; he's foul mouthed, cynical and egotistical. But the very fact that he knows he's an asshole, and is the one to admit all of these flaws to his audience, suggests that he really isn't, and that little twist makes all the bad bits of ST more enjoyable than they should be and all of the good bits positively entertaining.

Or maybe there's just so much of me in the slightly overweight, Big Mac munching, bike riding, drugged up, hypocritical "invirinmentalist" that I have no alternative but to like him.

Whatever the motivation, ST is likable, and that likability allows Stephenson to do one important thing with Zodiac that other eco-thriller writers cannot: make the issues secondary. Eco-thrillers tend to be terminally preachy, particularly those written in the last twenty or thirty years. You open to page one, see the soapbox, and spend the rest of the book reading a never-ending, speechifying guilt trip. But Zodiac lets entertainment be the thing, and if you develop an increased sense of moral outrage at real world toxic dumping corporations then so be it.

Finally, here's one warning to those who may be fooled by Stephenson's body of work: Zodiac is, at best, Sci-Fi lite. But it isn't really even that. If you're looking for his Sci-Fi work, look elsewhere. If you are looking for Stephenson having fun, however, and writing so that you can have fun, Zodiac is the book for you.

incel james bond

Geeky in a good way.

The short version first . . .

My love of reading was clear to my parents and, eventually, to me as a youngster. Of course, I loved the comic books – graphical serials, in more common parlance – but I learned to love reading quite early on. My parents read to me all the time before I went to “formal school” to learn how to read, along with math, and writing, traditional 3 R’s and all that. The printed page though was always something with an almost mystical quality. I learned that it could transfer me from my room to literally anywhere and anywhen, and (of course) science fiction was always a source of exploring those niches of time and space where the Golden Age authors cared to take their audience.
Now we can see an entirely new constellation of authors, and with them comes a body of work devoted to the science of today, as the stories reflect a knowledge and an appreciation of the scientific explorations and discoveries of the Twenty-first Century. Neal Stephenson is one of the new authors who is at the forefront of today’s “hard science” fiction. His work shows his understanding and his appreciation of the new discoveries as well as the implications of these new understandings and their impact upon not only our now but also our future. Mr. Stephenson’s book, Zodiac is one such journey into the world of ecology and the plight of our world today with genetic engineering and exceptionally dangerous compounds designed to make a better tomorrow by destroying the world as we know it today. I know that sounds harsh and perhaps a bit too morbid, but the reality is even stranger than the fiction of Mr. Stephenson. Here’s what I know and how Zodiac shows me a way that fiction suddenly becomes the harbinger of the immediate and near future.

The first revelation from Mr. Stephenson’s Zodiac is the heroic protagonist, Sangamon Taylor or S.T. He tells the story as himself, so a first person perspective. He is witty, humorous, and occasionally just a bit overboard, but just a bit. He is an investigator of excellence, and he is exceptional in what he knows and how he can best leverage that knowledge to get the desired outcome, mainly getting rid of known and unknown toxic wastes from the place that humans frequent. The story takes place in Boston and in its general vicinity. There are several local manufacturers of industrial chemical agents of all kinds from simple to exotic, and harmless to incredibly toxic to all lifeforms. He knows what to expect and how to avoid dangers known to be associated with the substances he expects to find in the locations he frequents.

S.T. has a small team of friends and fellow workers who know how he works and what he needs from his team without necessarily asking for it. They appear to have worked together in the past, and it looks from the reader’s perspective, they are as knowledgeable as S.T. is, although their skillsets are generally complementary rather than contiguous, so they bring a larger array of abilities to play in any given situation. They are, therefore, a crack team of investigative and scientific professionals who want to help GEE (the environmental group that funds their cases and their needs for equipment and consumables). The primary tools of their trade are semi-rigid boats called Zodiacs. They are very maneuverable in the waterways they frequent, but they can just as easily handle an open water situation or two as well. While they rarely use explosives or other “offensive” chemical agents, they are not ill-versed in these devices or ways of handling chemicals with extreme prejudice, although their preferred method of work is to get rid of toxic agents leaving just enough for the press to know who found what, where, and that only a small trace is left to verify that the larger cache was easily imminently deadly in the quantities dispatched by their operation.

Mr. Stephenson has a knack for getting the reader’s attention using snappy asides and humor to get through tough scenes with just enough left over to make a sarcastic comment or two in the end. Zodiac is also replete with a host of big chemical companies (all with fictional names to protect those under indictment and fines). The real science of this work comes down to the use of bioengineered organisms which use some form of chlorine for their bodily needs, either as nutrition or as a means of getting a covalent form into a less toxic ionic form. The processes of dealing with chlorine also look to the potential that these compounds can also potentially trigger a chain reaction with seawater where the result is a dead body of water be it a pond, a lake, or all the water on Earth, especially where the tools being used are genetically altered to provide either the covalent or ionic forms of chlorine. Suffice it to say, the good guys win, but not by much; and the bad guys lose, but only missing a catastrophic, read as apocalyptic, end In the way they had both ends of the equation resolved, but not knowing that the solution was killing all seawater lifeforms all over the Earth, in cases where things got going too well, and the balance between the two states of chlorine was just about equalized. Fortunately the Earth did survive to live another decade or two.

Recommendations? First, the book is clearly a 5-star read. Zodiac is funny, told with a humorous tone that prevails throughout, even in the most dire circumstances. There are messages if you want to find them, and you don’t have to look too hard for them. For example, genetic manipulation of organisms with only a single cell is not easily accomplished, but it can be easily turned into a dreadful weapon. A weapon that used in the wrong circumstance with the right kind of vicious evil, could be one which could wreak havoc far beyond the confines of a small area. Indeed, it could cascade rapidly to cause a major global catastrophe. It is a read for the science minded, especially those who want to know what science can do in the wrong hands. When that happens, hopefully you will have some one like S.T. on your team. If you don’t, at least try to find someone as funny as he is. It will ease the catastrophe of the biological meltdown easier to tolerate.

n  n
Review of Neal Stephenson's Zodiac by Richard Buro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142913.Zodiac.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.groveatlantic.com/#page=inforights.

Avant toute chose, je me dois de prévenir le lecteur innocent que, même si Neal Stephenson est à mon sens l’un des plus grands auteurs de Science-fiction, ce roman n’a aucunement sa place dans une collection de science-fiction, qu’elle soit éditoriale ou bibliophile. Bon, maintenant, je ne suis pas éditeur, et il y a peut-être un secret que Pierre-Paul Durastanti aura la bonté de me révéler. Toujours est-il qu’on peut considérer ce roman comme un bon techno-thriller écologique, ou autre chose, mais pas comme de la SF de mon point de vue. Cette précaution prise, passons à l'avis.
On suit dans ce roman les traces d’un éco-guerrier, pendant américain de nos faucheurs en liberté (1), personnage complètement rock’n’roll et chimiste à ses heures. Ce brave bonhomme a décidé un beau jour de combattre la pollution chimique à Boston, et en premier lieu les gros industriels bien gras qui marchent gaiement sur le droit environemental (parce qu’il y en a un outre-Atlantique, oui monsieur). Bien sûr, à force de chercher, on trouve, et notre héros découvre plusieurs méfaits d’importance, et a au moins une fois l’occasion de sauver le monde, face à une menace qui m’a bizarrement rappelé La musique du sang. Le tout se terminant dans une ambiance franchement hard-rock (2) et un bazar digne des meilleures productions de Catherine Dufour. Vous vous en doutez, ça m’a plu. Ca m’a plu avant tout parce que je suis fan du style de l’auteur, aussi bien dans ces romans que dans son histoire de l’informatique (3). Ca m’a aussi plu car le thème du combat écologiste m’intéresse d’autant plus qu’en France, on a essentiellement droit de ce côté-là à un Asterix ridicule et à un parti … euh, comment dire … politique digne des monty pythons. Oh, et puis ça suffit non. je sui fan de Neal Stephenson, ce bouquin est de lui, il me plaît, quand bien même ca n’est pas de la SF, et la vie est belle.

(1) Quoi qu’en fait non, pas du tout
(2) Les anciens frassiens se souviendront que je suis particulièrement fan de ces groupes qui sautillent sur scène, juste vétus d’un pagne en peau de bête, en poussant des beuglements apocalyptiques et en faisant l’amour à leur guitare d’une façon très SM (à peu près comme le morceau de Manowar que j’écoute en ce moment).
(3) In the beginning was the command line

Of all of Neal Stephenson's works, the one I've heard mentioned the least is Zodiac, and now I know why: it's not a good book. A self-proclaimed (on the front cover) "eco-thriller", the book delivers in spades on the "eco", with things like toxic chemicals and what compounds they're made of constantly being referenced...but it doesn't deliver at all on the "thriller" aspect, because the book is incredibly boring and uneventful.

The story follows a group of ecoterrorists who do things like clogging pipes emitting toxic waste with cement, shackling themselves to city hall to get the government's attention, and trying to ruin the reputations of big chemical companies by exposing how much they're polluting the environment. Eventually, the main protagonist finds out that someone is poisoning Boston Harbor with a ton of PCBs, which are man-made chemicals that cause a number of severe health problems in humans and animals. This leads him down a confusing, uninteresting rabbit hole and conspiracy as he tries to uncover the truth.

One of the main issues with this book is that the characters are either dull, or terrible, or in several cases both. The main protagonist, Sangamon Taylor, is extremely arrogant and even describes himself as "a professional a**hole". So he was mostly just irritating, and I didn't care about him or his mission in the slightest as a result. That's a big problem, because that's 100% of this book; it doesn't have any side stories or subplots like many other novels do.

The book was well written, as pretty much everything I've read from Stephenson is so far, but the story was way too boring. Something like 80% of this book is just Sangamon driving his motorized Zodiac boat around the Boston Harbor, collecting samples and talking to lobstermen who work the harbor. The book is entirely filler, as nothing interesting ever happens. And even when something seemingly interesting does happen, like Sangamon being chased and shot at on the waters of the harbor, or an assassination attempt playing out, Stephenson fumbles it and the execution is just dull. This whole book is generally as dull as watching paint dry.

Can't say I'd recommend this one. It was a 308-page book that felt like a thousand-page slog. Very mediocre and not worth your time. But if you're a Stephenson completionist, I guess you have to read it. That kinda sucks, but such is life, right?

I had to start with that, as I had no idea what Zodiac was about. It fit a prompt that I had for a reading challenge, and every other book that I came across that fit the prompt, I didn't really want to read. This is my second Neal Stephenson book, and well, I will say, I would probably read more of his. I'm in no rush, and his writing style is definitely not entirely for me, but I can appreciate it.

As for Zodiac, this was definitely a book, and things definitely happened. Honestly, this book was just a little out there for me, and I kind of kept losing track of what was going on because it felt very repetitive. I did like the characters, which is about the only thing I really came away with from this book.