I'm gonna go with a 4 because it was a bit slow in the middle of the book. I know our boy ST needed that rebound to getting back out in the field but shessh it felt drawn out. Though I feel like the last 100 pages took an extreme turn to the ultra action type book.

The book is smart, very in-depth with character development and provides scientific insight that feels believe (I think most of it is based in factual possibilty but I'm not a chemist) which goes to show the author went out of his was to really plant us firmly in brain of an undeniably smart main character, even if he is an asshole. Quite frankly I've never read an eco thriller so this was new one for and it was worth the ride in my opinion.

Ty Emily for letting me borrow the book!

This is billed as an eco-thriller and that is an apt description. There is science-y stuff here, but it is alternated with car chases, boat chases, explosions, murders, all of your standard suspense thriller building blocks. I would say it was easily 60/40 or better in favor of action over science, and I might have given it more stars for more science. I was just expecting more science, and I don't read a lot of "thrillers." But it's an excellent way to sneak in some science and hopefully get people more alarmed about polluting the environment. The main character is both intelligent and passionate about the environment, and the reader can kind of join him in his surprise when he runs across people who are either smarter or more passionate than himself. This is an action packed book about exceptional people.

I do not know of any author who so consistently picks a niche in the modern world and does such a great job in presenting in a sophisticated and humorous way where that niche's conflict/pressure points are. People have complained that sometimes Stephenson goes so deep into the story that it takes him 900 or more pages to tell it (Cryptonomicon, Reamde, etc). Zodiac is a mere 308 pages in my edition, and is a very satisfying story about how an intelligent if selfish graduate of chemistry and chemical analysis uses his skills to combat industrial dumpers of hazardous waste. Stephenson blends deep insights into the intersection of law, politics, native Americans, chemistry, media, scuba diving, sewage systems, Boston and a host of other specialized fields in writing this "eco-thriller". The fact he wrote this book in 1988 and is still so current (only exception relates to logistics of finding payphones--something I well remember but may seem a little curious to more modern readers) tips me to awarding that rare 5th star. I think this is a great intro to those considering whether to start their Stephenson odyssey.

I wanted to like this book...and for about 150 pages I did. It was kind of funny, had just enough action, and just enough science to keep me interested. Stephenson even made the whole PCB/pollution thing kind of make sense with some well written and well placed metaphors.

Those other 158 pages though? Eh, I've read better. First there was the main character who was a jerk and self professed "asshole". Nothing to like about him. Then there were the other slew of characters who were so cookie-cutter, so cliche, that they were replaceable and often confusing. And not only that, but most of their action and morals were more selfish than anything.

There was also far too much exposition and backstory to get through. This book is short at 308 pages, so please, explain to me why 108 of them are pointless set-up and history. Everything that is explained in that length could easily have been whittled down to 20 pages. 25 at the max. The same goes for the conclusion, but in reverse. It's wrapped up in 10 pages. I would have liked to see it expanded.

This is a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas meets 1980's thriller story. I couldn't help comparing Sangamon Taylor to Hunter S. Thompson, they both used whatever substance was at hand to fuel the madness. Sangamon Taylor's madness was fighting uncaring, corporate polluters and who wouldn't want to cheer for that. His methods and plans were equally ridiculous, inspired and undecypherable.

The story itself is loosely held together and mostly a vehicle for Sangamon's character who, although very entertaining throughout the book, gets old and tiresome at the end.
A bit too over the top for me to really love.

Every once in a while when I open a box from Subterranean Press, I discover a surprise tucked inside. Such was the case with Zodiac; I received a free surplus ARC of their special edition of this novel. I seldom refuse free books, and of course, it’s Neal Stephenson. So off we go.

Even when attached to a name such as Stephenson’s, a novel that bills itself as an “eco-thriller” does not earn eager anticipation from me. My opinion of thrillers is low in general, and when combined with ecological motifs, the result isn’t always pretty. True, I also have a marked preference for physics over biology, preferring those thrillers set in deep space, orbiting wormholes or derelict spacecraft and deploying nanotechnology. As much as topics like genetic engineering and environmental responsibility are important to our society, it takes a really skilled writer to pull off a story that I will enjoy.

So in Zodiac, our protagonist, Sangamon Taylor, cruises around in an inflatable motor boat. He is a modern-day crusader against corporate abuse of the environment, stepping in where the EPA cannot or will not go. Eventually, he stumbles on a secret that would make an upcoming presidential candidate look bad, and for that he must be eliminated. The bad guys frame Sangamon (or ST, as he calls himself) as a terrorist. That’s when the thriller part of this eco-thriller kicks into high gear; prior to Sangamon’s fugitive status, the book is a somewhat enjoyable but frustrating mystery. Once ST is on the run from … well, everyone, the plot suddenly picks up the pace.

Pacing was probably my biggest issue with Zodiac. Stephenson’s exposition runs to a tendency to rhapsodize as it explains science. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m reading in 2011 a book written for a 1980s audience, but some of it is old hat, and much of it seems superfluous. This is another issue I take with many thrillers: they don’t realize that, with exposition, less is more. The more detailed a scientific explanation in a thriller, the less realistic it sounds. There is a fine line between plausible explanations and unrealistic technobabble, and that’s the line most thriller authors walk. To Stephenson’s credit, he doesn’t so much cross the line as make furtive forays over it in the dead of night, only to steal back across the border before I can train my search lights on him.

Oh, he’s crafty. But when I start talking about interacting with the author in this way, often it’s because I spent more time thinking about how the book was written than about the book itself. Zodiac has a satisfactory story, plenty of action, and a nice science-fiction premise involving some scary PCB-eating bacteria. But with the intermittent motor boat chase sequences and ST’s smarmy observations about various other characters, I could never shake the feeling I was in some kind of pulp thriller. Don’t get me wrong: I understand that, for some people, this works, that this feeling is desirable. If you are one of those people, check out Zodiac.

Zodiac also bears its age well. You don’t see that too often with science fiction set in a contemporary period. It would be very easy to take the events in Zodiac and transpose them to 2011 without changing many of the details. The lack of constant cell phone communication was the most conspicuous incongruity—so pervasive are mobile phones these days that we take them for granted, even in our thrillers and action movies. Indeed, the absence of cell phones was constantly on my mind. I began to analyze what would have to change if the characters had access to cheap mobile phones, and that in turn reveals a lot about how our society has changed now that we use mobile devices constantly. Zodiac is that rare novel that remains relevant in the present even as it presents a useful study in history.

As a Stephenson novel, Zodiac shows its colours both in style and in its place in his oeuvre. It’s obviously an early novel. But it’s Stephenson through and through. The characters aren’t the greatest, but he somehow manages to use them and some fascinating science-fiction ideas to create a genuine thriller. I’m just not that big a fan of thrillers.

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Originally read in paperback. Re-enjoyed via audiobook. A very believable, timely book of ecological magnitude. Often Science Fiction takes us to unexpected futures and far away places in space. This happens in the Boston area, set it current times. With Flint, MI, Covid, and Crispr all having occurred since publishing, it takes the story from slightly hard-to-believe, to the realm of all-too-possible. The storytelling is a bit sophisticated, as Mr. Stephenson has a tendency to do, though this story runs smoother, aided by a more down-to-earth main character. Occasionally the action jumps around a bit, but overall very visual storytelling, intriguing characters, and dramatic plotline. I enjoyed experiencing this story for the second time.

Before he figured it out.

In here we read, see and hear the raw talents of mr Stephenson. The characters are herky-jerky and the plot frequently gets lost trying to associated all the smart ideas. But you can see his coming brilliance in snatches. It’s an exhausting read and could be so much better, but I’m glad he kept at it.

Fun almost eco noir writing style at times. This dude has the dream job. But damn this was a very optimistic view of the police and media’s sympathy toward environmental direct action

Early Neal Stephenson. The reason to read this book is the voice of the protagonist. Sangamon Taylor is a chemist and an environmental activist. I've read he is based around a person Stephenson knew in college; the rich characterization seems very authentic to me.

This is also an interesting time period for that sort of person; the book came out in 1988. This is a time at which the dinosaur chemical companies were moving toward greener chemistries and were stuck with numerous lawsuits and other actions over their not-so-green legacy.

Taylor works on toxics; his territory is the waterways of Boston. The title comes from the type of fast boat the environmental activists used in doing everything from hanging banners to taking samples to sabotage.

I'm a Ph.D. biochemist, and I can vouch that the chemistry was not only accurate but exactly what someone with this background would be thinking about. The love-em-and-leave-em attitude and the casual drug use and other self-destructive habits also helped build the persona.

However, there's a reason why Stephenson considers this and Big U as immature works, before he found his mature style. The thriller aspects of this don't make sense, surprisingly for Stephenson, because the science in the second half of the book doesn't make sense. The biotechnology and microbial ecology that the plot turns on couldn't happen. That's a no-no for science fiction; you can make up whatever you want, but if you are trying to describe actual science, it needs to be accurate.

The skullduggery undertaken by the companies may seem like conspiracy theory to those who didn't live through the time period, but I think what happened to the activists with the Mississippi Summer in the California Redwoods at precisely this time was as bad as anything that happened in this book. So, I have no problem with it.

This book could not have been written even five years later. Five years later, the environmental movement had kicked out the scientists. In the battle between what was called the "mystics" and the "mechanics," the mystics won. The founder and international director of Greenpeace went on to be a lobbyist for the biotech industry, because he saw what they were doing as more likely to help the environment that what the environmental activists had devolved into. This was the very last time period during which one could be both a mainstream environmental chemist and a environmentalist acceptable in radical circles.

Also, as far as literary technique, the slow build up of the world before the plot events really get going--that was acceptable in the 80s, but in our more rapid paced and text message-driven society, it wouldn't cut it.This probably wouldn't have gotten published today, at least in its current form.

So, to judge this work fairly, it must be remembered that what's portrayed is 1988, not the present day, and this was published in 1988.

In the protagonist voice, you see the roots of the Stephenson that came later: erudite to the point of nerdy, cynical, not above a funny one-liner here or there. I liked this voice.

As a thriller, it kept me reading, but I couldn't suspend disbelief. The Stephenson who constructed baroque plots that depended on consistent world-building (either science and history, as in Cryptonomicon, or science fantasy, as in The Diamond Age) hadn't quite developed yet.

So, if you have never read any Stephenson, start with Snow Crash, The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon. But this is worth the read down the line.

This was Stephenson's second novel and reads very well. I liked the protagonist and his crazy eco-terrorism story. The descriptions of Boston and Boston Harbor reminded me of my time there (I lived there for 6 months in the 90s), so that also played in the book's favor. As for his writing style, this one is loose and informal like in Snow Crash, but here there is no sci-fi, just eco-fiction. The science is well done as per usual with Stephenson and that also rises this book above the average. I think that I'll be thinking twice before eating lobster in New England though.

One thing that bugged me was how his Zodiac gets from Boston to New Jersey early in the novel - maybe a slight slip up or I wasn't paying enough attention?

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“Zodiac,” the second novel by acclaimed sci-fi author Neil Stephanson, could perhaps be best-described as a techno-thriller. The book follows Sangamon Taylor, a chemist and anti-pollution activist, as he investigates and them becomes ensnared in a scheme to cover up a major industrial spill in Boston harbor. As with some of Stephanson’s later books (e.g. Snow Crash and Seveneves), Zodiac is filled with well-researched technical detail and eccentric, but well-developed characters. I found it to be fast-paced and highly entertaining, though not as wholly-engrossing as some of the other Stephanson novels I’ve read. I would recommend it to fans of Stephanson or to anyone looking for a quick and entertaining read.