Stephenson's first published work is a bit uneven - the first half is an amusing satire of big campus life, and the second half pulls out all the stops, with an all-out war erupting, complete with mutant rats, nuclear waste, foreign nationals, bizarre cults, lots and lots of weaponry & violence - and of course, some heroic geeks.

Once again you can see the germ of his later works. Not the best but I enjoyed it.

Had I not been reading this one for book club, I probably would have bailed on it. Though I enjoyed some moments and jokes, overall I found it chaotic and not overly compelling.

5/10

Not bad for a debut novel but I can see why Stephenson disowned this book and tried to remove it from printing.
Some of the Stephenson’s signature style peeks through but overall it’s pretty underwhelming in every aspect. Definitely do not recommend this one as an intro to his work.

Perhaps it is to much a product of another time but the jarring shifts of storyline between characters and the frequent jumps in time with no backfilling of the story made this book a chore to read.

The first half of Neal Stephenson's first published novel is a satire of college life that matches too many of my experiences. I filled in my neighbor's doorway with empty soda cans one night. Someone covered by dorm room with TP when I was out of town. I played in large, multiplayer wargames and trekked to a minicomputer's terminal room. I also hazily recall sword fights in basement tunnels and water guns shoot outs on dorm floors. One year, the student government voted to disband, because it was powerless. For the experience of soul-crushing architecture that Stephenson describes, I can thank Todd for inviting me to his dorm room in U of I's Florida Avenue Residence (FAR) tower. The novel's second half highlights political and financial tensions in running a place of higher education. For example, would you accept military funding for research, or would you pay a living wage? In my day, it was would you invest the endowment in businesses working in South Africa under apartheid? Stephenson's Big U ultimately collapses, but I'm heartened that the DJs at the campus radio station, 90.3 FM, same as my WBCR, and the wargamers and sword-savvy SCA folks save as many students as possible.

When I first read this book 20 years ago, I was amused but didn't take in much to carry with me through the decades. There was D & D and some computery stuff. It was cool but disorganized. I also know that Neal Stephenson would later have disowned this book if he could have. That was the sum total of my thoughts regarding the first novel of one of my favorite authors on picking it up again. I was therefore pleasantly surprised by this re-read. Far fetched and exaggerated, ridiculous and over-done yes, but the plot still hangs together, albeit more like a string of beads curtain, disparate strands connected but not operating together. It is more of a pastiche, a sandbox of styles and subjects. It is a satire on one level, poking fun at the modern university and all of its protected enclaves of political and bureaucratic silliness. It is also a black comedy, a character study, a love story and the triumphal cry of a nerd taking fictional revenge on a system that held back rather than facilitated.

Dated -- the word summons a faint taste of must to the nose. The computer descriptions alone -- tapes, computer stacks and accordioned piles of printer paper -- bring the decades into sharp focus, but for me the moment of extreme dated-ness came when a character tuning the radio slips past a ball game and "Chambliss gets a base hit". Trouble is I remember who Chambliss was. I thought he quit playing in the '70's, but apparently I was wrong.

What animates this ragtag novel is the kernel of Neal's voice. His characters have a buoyancy, a basic engaging-ness which sometimes substitutes for depth but which carries the reader along. It reminds me of how I feel when I am confident, rather than doubtful. It is a natural element of Neal's writing, that travels through his books like a current of electricity keeping all the ideas and outlandish plot points animated and interesting. It is alive and well here in his first effort.

(Begin rant) There is also the emergence of one of the least fortunate of Neal's memes -- the rape as crucible syndrome. It is about as subtle as a bulldozer. Neal does not write well rounded characters in general, and more his women tend to be flatter than his men. The catharsis that brings about the realization of a new sexual orientation (or anything else) does not need to be a wrecking ball. In fact, the confusion that usually results from such a traumatic experience tends to muddy rather than clarify. The problem is not the event, which is a natural extension of the horrific dorm life Neal is describing, it is the unrealistic way motivation and self discovery are piggy-backed onto it to the exclusion of most of the horror, evil hostility and recrimination that turn inward from such an event. (End rant.)

For such an obviously dour yet fantastical realist, Neal's characters are often the best of people. It is an unusual combination, and for many I believe it is the winning one. The world of computer geeks has changed. It is business now, not youthful idealism come true anymore. Tech has been assimilated by gray-suited greed, like a snake that has eaten something a little to large for comfort and bulges in the middle. All of which makes this read at times like an old newspaper article about the glories of Soviet Communism or the Wonder of the Plastic Age. Computers are wide awake and living among us.

Neal Stephenson on the other hand is still dreaming.

The Book Is Always Better Than the Film

First; Neal Stephenson is one of my favourite authors and I've enjoyed everything of his I've read... up to now. He was quite right to stop this being reprinted - it's early stuff. A good first effort and he obviously learned a lot from it. But now he has such a large following it was inevitable that people would want to read this... but I should have gone with his wishes and ignored it.

It's jittery and scrappy. Lots of ideas that don't gel and themes that stop and start. It lacks continuity - it just doesn't flow well. So much is introduced and at this stage he couldn't juggle all those balls with the same skill as he does now.

Ideas are introduced here that appear in his later work but thankfully he hasn't used satire so much in his later books (here it's weak and only half formed; no bite).

Not many books take me as long to read as this did... it's hard slogging through half baked dough.
Only for the real fans... and only if you want to marvel at how much his writing has improved from this starting point.

Neal Stephenson held of the publication of this book for a long time as it wasn't up to his standards (something like "there's a lit of other books that deserve the attention"). He was right.

Strictly completionists only material.

Still kept my attention - and the story is sort of unique (a university complex spinning completely out of control including giant mutant rats, a radio active dump, communist infiltrant and lots of deadly violence).

Pretty much impossible to describe without giving much away - weird, surreal, political with sci-fi and fantasy overtones. Life in a University as it descends beyond chaos to civil war, madness, and very close to total destruction. Unions and eastern European influences too. Captivating and astonishing - a self contained entity complete with warp drive - or not...

***TW: there is a bunch of sexual violence in this book which I think is dealt with ok (the author seems really critical of rape culture in universities and there's lots of women-taking-revenge kind of stuff), but it's confronting.***

I liked this book. Yes it was at times stupid and messy, and read kind of like he wrote it in two months on a typewriter when he was twenty-four, and a good deal of it devolved into this macho-nerd frothing over weapons and battle tactics. But as a kind of dark parody of university culture it was pretty funny and searingly critical. Like most of Stephenson's books, came to a rapid stop instead of actually ending in any real thought out way. I kind of didn't mind because the whole thing was a mess. I mostly read it to see what he was writing 20 years ago, and I got pretty much what I expected. As with any Stephenson book, I have many criticisms but it's enjoyable to read something where you can hear the writer enjoying themselves so much.

Great writing and imagination but I was looking for a reality connection and never got the point.