I love Neal Stephenson with all my heart. And maybe he did the job he wanted to here, because I really couldn’t stand the protagonist. I know there’s a camp that thinks there’s a brilliant 400 page novel in each of Stephenson’s 1000 page tomes, but I’m soundly in the full-length cheering section. This one seemed overedited. I wanted more character development. He was just flirting with going on long educational tangents with the few aside chemistry lessons here. Give me a fully developed exposition on the creation of the modern banking system or the evolution of the space station any day.

Holy Moly, a Stephenson book with a satisfactory ending! Well knock me over with a feather!

Seriously, though: this is more about the environment, and activism, than technology (speaking in the context of this book as a Neal Stephenson novel.) So it's a little bit less appealing. Though still sciencey, and also really gross and completely terrifying. We are all going to die of cancer or something else even more horrible. I'm glad I don't live in Boston.

Really seriously, though: Zodiac is about a really brilliant dude who works for the fictional equivalent of Greenpeace. He's the Waterhouse character of other Stephenson novels, but slightly less socially awkward. He's very likable (a comment I often make about Stephenson characters), and also very scary, as he makes clear just how awful (and routine) are the things that big corporations are getting away with.

Wow, that was an awkwardly worded sentence. Sorry, but it's after 2 am and I want to go to bed! Uh, read this book, it was good. 3.5 stars. The end.

Stephensons zweiter Roman ist deutlich disziplinierter geschrieben als sein Erstling »The Big U«.
Umweltaktist & Gift-Detektiv S.T. kämpft vom Schlauboot aus gegen große Industieunternehmen die gewissenlos den Hafen von Bosten verschandeln; freilich gewaltlos, mittels der Wirkung medialer Bloßstellung & kreativer Formen organisierten Ungehorsams & Sabottage. Lehrreiche und Dank gelungener Metaphern kurzweilige Ökologie-Ausführungen; großartige, teilweise saukomische Äktschn-Szenen.
Für Nebenbeileser vielleicht ein zu großes Kuddelmuddel falscher Fährten, Finten und Irrtümer, sowie einem ohne Notizen schnell ins Unübersichtliche geratenden Figurenensemble.

Nach Abbeys »The Monkey-Wrench Gang« mein zweiter Ausflug in das Genre der Öko-Terroristen-Romantik, und wie dieser absolut lesenswert.

I have read many of Neal Stephenson's other works, books written after he had firmly established himself as a top sci-fi author. Reading Zodiac, one of his early works, proved to me that his talent was clear from the beginning. This book reminded me of why I love Neal Stephenson. He writes with a lucidity that I don't find on the pages of many books.

In Zodiac, we follow the protagonist, Sangamon Taylor, as he attempts to right the wrongs of the Chemical industry in Boston in the late '80s. S.T. is a trip! His persona becomes the driving force of the narrative. A self-styled non-conformist, Taylor worked in the corporate world for years before he decided that that world wasn't his cup of tea. He took his chemistry background to work as an environmentalist, investigating chemical discharge for GEE, or the Group of Environmental Extremists.

Stephenson's scientific knowledge and investigative acumen shine as he guides the reader and S.T. through the uses of chlorine in the chemical industry. Throughout the text, we come to understand PCB's effect on the fishing industry, and in some pretty gruesome detail, how PCB's can turn fish livers into a soupy mess.

For me, the story hits its stride around the 200-page mark, then unravels slightly, as it tumbles downhill to the finish picking up a political thriller twist in the flotsam. I didn't care for that eventuality, but that's my problem, not the authors or yours. This book is a cubic ton of chemical fun, driven by an intelligent, nitrous huffing rebel. Pick it up, then sit back and enjoy some Stephensonian fun!

A late-80s "eco-thriller", Stephenson's second novel is about a schlubby nerd who happens to be a genius with organic chemistry and a tenacious crusader for environmental justice. What starts as a procedural drama with comedic elements, following a ragtag organisation of eco-warriors, ends up as a desperate fight for survival and the future of Boston Harbour's ecosystem. Really fun, though polluted with some weird everyman observations and ethnic archetypes that haven't aged particularly well. Strange reading this book 32 years later and seeing how much of the struggle for environmental justice has changed, and how much has stayed the same.

Well, I'm an unabashed Neal Stephenson fan, there's no getting around that. And for anyone else who's a big fan I'd definitely recommend the book, if nothing else to see the basics of his style in a still very formative period.

The is the earliest book of his that I've read. And since the last book I read by him was his most recent REAMDE, it was even more of an obvious chance to observe how his style has developed.

but yada yada yada.... right?

So ok, let's get past the fandom for a moment.

This is a pretty fun book. It's a unique twist on the hard boiled detective novel. But instead of solving murders or missing persons, the hero, S.T., solves and exposes environmental crimes. And instead of driving around a bad ass Ford Charger or something, he cruises through Boston Harbor on a suped up Zodiac inflatable, taking toxin samples while he's high and/or drunk as hell.

The story is fast paced, though a bit meandering at first. Plenty of action and good guys using a little smarts and a lotta guts to beat the bad guys. S.T. is a great narrator/protagonist, though not always believable. Particularly when and where he suddenly chooses to drop acid or shrooms. The minor characters are abundant, but usually pretty thin and underdeveloped. Especially in the shadow of S.T.'s dominating personality.

As with any Stephenson novel, at its core are some pretty cool and interesting scientifically-based ideas. And you can see the beginnings of many of the themes he goes on explore in greater depth in his later works: globalization and its personal effects, smart and brave people saving the world, nautical travel, old rivalries, smart men who are dumb about women, etc.

So if you are looking for a quick, fun, and intelligent read by an a now established author, written when he was still finding his voice, you'll dig this.
If your looking a mind-bending epic like his Anathem or Snow Crash, this ain't it.

Zodiac is the first book I’ve read by Neal Stephenson, an author I see mentioned fairly often, often with mixed reviews. My own reaction to this particular book is a little mixed.

The title, Zodiac, refers to a type of motorized raft the characters used. The story is set in Boston and is told from the first-person perspective of a character who tries to catch, publicize, and prevent corporations from dumping toxic chemicals into the Boston Harbor. Naturally the big, powerful corporation people aren’t happy and don’t take his interference lying down.

The book is probably better classified as a Thriller than as Science Fiction. There was at least one small science fiction element but, for the most part, it seemed entirely based on technology and scientific knowledge from the 1980’s, when the book was published. There’s a decent amount of science, usually explained well enough for the layman to understand, and I never felt like I was reading infodumps. I learned some things, and I liked that.

On the other hand, the story itself just wasn’t that appealing to me. Since the book is more story-driven than character-driven, it was hard to be too enthusiastic about it if I wasn’t enthusiastic about the story itself. I liked the main character well enough, but I never felt attached, and I didn’t feel much interest in the other characters at all.

As far as entertainment level, this was pretty middle-of-the-road for me. There were parts when I did feel more eager to learn what would happen next but, mostly, I didn’t feel any compulsion to keep reading when I had other things to do. Fortunately, this was a pretty short book. If it had been stretched out into a longer book, I might have had more trouble making it to the end.

Although this is one of Stephenson's earliest works, it remains an excellent and enjoyable book and if I say it's one of his best, it's only to demonstrate the strength of this work as opposed to criticizing later ones.

All the traits that Stephenson would earn his bones on are present here; the whip-smart discussions about interesting scientific topics, an incredibly intelligent and skilled protagonist who, despite his smarts, isn't above getting things wrong and making mistakes. True, the Stephenson trait of the ending being more of a stopping point rather than a true finale is here too, but in this shorter work, it's less of an issue. I think large doorstopper novels create the expectation of a Lord of the Rings style finale, but here, it's less frustrating.

It's hard to believe this book was written in 1988. Unlike many, many works that are set in their times, this doesn't feel dated, but it also doesn't feel removed from time.

I loved the plot and the protagonist. As an ecologically minded person and an ethical vegetarian, I'm used to seeing my archetype rendered in fiction as either an eco-terrorist villain, a wimp, or an otherwise clueless treehugger type deserving of only scorn. The fact that protagonist Sangamon Taylor is a smart, funny, asskicking type of eco-activist was a genuine delight and I desperately wish this was a character that Stephenson wrote a sequel on. Ah well, maybe some day!

Tres estrellas y media. Neal Stephenson de joven dándole una vuelta al género detectivesco, mientras lo mezcla con el ecothriller y la vida universitaria (que era la principal protagonista, esta última, de su primera novela, The Big U.
A Stephenson le queda un libro entretenido, en el que pasan un montón de cosas y aparecen un montón de personajes. En este punto de su vida está el autor a punto de conseguir ese estilo denso pero ultrafluido y divulgativo que ha conservado en años posteriores. Hay veces que notamos cómo le cuesta avanzar a la narración. Aun así, entretenidísimo.

Nobody gives a shit about their sins anymore. You think those corporate execs worry about sin?

Environmental catastrophe is a constant, and the cure for catastrophe can easily become another culprit.

A very underrated part of Stephenson's catalog methinks

Fast paced, humorous and info-dumpy, this is a through and through Neal Stephenson novel. The only reason for its lesser circulation is that the author was still obscure at the time. It merits its place on the shelf of any Stephenson fan, especially if they enjoyed Snow Crash and Reamde.