Accept it for what it is. A fun satire of college culture. Some things in common with the rise and fall of dodo. Otherwise unrecognizable as a Neal Stephenson book now. But I think he should have disowned quicksilver.

This was a favorite of mine back in the 80s. Recently re-read it (listened to it on audible)- and was just as amused. Things drag a smidge more towards the end than I remember, but I enjoyed it.

There is one vivid character in this novel: Fred Fine, an excruciating portrait of a live-action gamer with severe delusions. He's the only one that Stephenson provides with sufficient narrative to generate something resembling empathy. Otherwise, the book doesn't really have "characters" so much as stereotypical ciphers for denouncing a wide range of unsurprising categorical college "types." Or maybe just social types. As Sarah aptly comments towards the end of the book, there's not much about any of this that is really specific to universities. Most of the book's parody could be set just as easily in a government or the military (one may indeed think of Strangelove or Catch 22), a corporation, a rereational facility, or perhaps even some horrible family. There are a few scathing bits here and there about the dead weight of emeritus faculty, the Vatican-like finances of higher education, and, also like the Church, the imperviousness of the university to the flows of history. These seem like side notes, however. The novel is pretty disappointing as an expose of the state of higher education.

So without much characterization or specific social critique, what is Stephenson actually trying to accomplish here? Mainly, it's an exercise in extended sarcasm.

Okay, I'll be charitable. The novel has domestic terrorism,the explosive demolition of towers (described eerily with the familiar pancaking effect) and a few other details that might seem prescient today. But in 1984, when S wrote the thing, I think this sort of thing was just boiler plate shock tactics for aggressive satirists.

If the work is precocious or interesting in any way, perhaps it is in anticipating the vapid tastes of "Generation Q" as one NY Times columnist dubbed us recently. The generation of quirk who prefer irony to insight, exotic meaningless details from other cultures coupled with strict accuracy regarding current technology (above all, weaponry), and above all, the reduction of individual psychology to "quirkiness": the unspecific, politically evacuated assignation of peculiarity and oddness. Spared the burden of having to think, as readers, about conditions whose severity might suggest a need to engage meaningfully with the world, we sit back and chuckle at clever takedowns of characters whose resemblance to anyone real is so vague as to be irrelevant. We are amused.

This was Neal Stephenson's first published novel (1984), written when he was 25 and just out of university. It is an accomplished over-the-top satire on the American university system that reminded me of J. G Ballard's dystopian 'High Rise' of 1975.

It is also the work of a bright young writer from a scientific and rationalist background letting off steam about the insanity and absurdity of the human species when it is purporting to use higher education for improvement but is doing nothing of the kind.

The idea of a modern architectural and institutional structure literally collapsing under its weight because of the raw human nature it seeks to contain is not original but what Stephenson does is make that raw nature the tribalism and conformity of American High School culture.

The theme is of often slightly mad (Stephenson makes use of the informal British word 'bonkers' at one point) individualistic heroes triumphing over the mindlessness of people who go to university not to think and learn but to continue their adolescence before they join conventional society.

It is not a great book, just a good one. Sometimes Stephenson lets his own rioting imagination sink into moments of obscurity or incoherence. But there are many moments of hilarity and even filmic excitement as this structure of competing conformities degenerates into violence and outright war.

I could spend paragraphs outlining all the standard tropes of social criticism he makes use of and makes fun of. The final stance is, of course, precisely that of the American liberal rationalist using science to conquer, in part by employing irrational religious enthusiasm against itself.

There is nothing philosophically new in this. It is all part of a liberal intellectual disdain for the mob and, to be unkind, a projection of the impotence felt by the rational individualist (who ironically 'conforms' to his own intolerant stereotype in this respect) in the face of mass society.

This is a book of class war, or rather of class propaganda, directed by one element of society - the technocracy - against the rest of humanity. The author is spokesperson for a rational elite despising the raw material which it has been tasked with overseeing using its own form of 'magic'.

The MegaUniversity becomes a dysfunctional whole, part of a wider society, yet separate from it. Stephenson intensifies its absurdities, viciousness, ignorance (ironically) and chaos. The cement to the story is a completely potty conspiracy theory over control of nuclear waste disposal.

He cites the bicameral brain theory of Jaynes more than once (not a theory I ever found persuasive) but this enables him to play with the idea (especially through the character of the insane Fred Fine) of the two worlds of reason and imagination losing their boundaries.

One of the charms of the book is its contemporary portrayal of the mind-set of the geeks and nerds (evidently one of the sets of hero that mirror the mind of the author) who would come to create our own digital and internet culture over subsequent decades.

It also fair-minded. This is no rant, in fact. The logic of capitalism is cynically argued and the University President SS Krupp, is presented more favourably than any of the social justice warriors avant la lettre of the Stalinist SUB. Indeed, Stephenson clearly quite likes intelligent authority.

Stephenson is also a sensible feminist able to have an easy laugh at the mother goddess types and the airheads but rightly horrified at the collusion of airheads in the exploitative sexual behaviour of MegaUniversity's jocks, curiously self-naming themselves the Terrorists.

The strongest character of all is in fact the lesbian former Student Government head Sarah, a high-achieving, grounded, brave young woman in despair at the conformity of the airheads in her Tower. She is central to the eventual co-operative triumph of reason over hysteria.

There are live action dungeons and dragons-type adventures in sewers, a clown corpse straight out of King horror, inept academics, gunfights in corridors and elevator shafts, a mad former College President stalking the university, electrocutions, bureaucracy and more, much much more.

There is too much to comment on in this book which has everything from giant radioactive rats to murderous food fights. It should just be enjoyed as a romp through American social behaviours with an inventive idea on almost every page and rather likeable gun-toting student heroes and heroines.

In the future, when an author thinks that his book isn't worth reading, I'm going to take his word for it. The Big U is too over the top to be an enjoyable, subtle satire of the large university life, although it had that potential in the beginning. On the other hand, the melodrama and large scale events are too trivial for the novel to be epic. The overall effect is pretty "meh."
The detail and fact finding that Stephenson is known for is all but absent in this book. The only signature Stephenson move that the Big U contains is the litany of story lines and multiple character narratives, but with uncharacteristic brevity and lack of details, the constant storyline switching is irritating and makes the novel shallower rather than deeper.
Also, Stephenson should know that his fans are the physics majors, hackers and LARPers of the universe and be a little more careful with the negative stereotyping

He should have called it The Big Red Go Fan. That is what this book will always be to me. Like Snowcrash, I will never forget it. Unlike Snowcrash, I did not like it. I LOVED Snowcrash. There was little character development. Then, I want action. There was action, but it was very strange action, which is what one can expect from a Neal Stephenson novel. I don't even remember the end. I should read it again. But I just can't make myself read the last few pages so that I can finish this review. Then why did I give it four stars? Was it well written? Yes. Did it tell the story of a year in the big university? Yes. Four stars. Did it do everything a four-star book does and bring that something extra that makes this book stand out as great? No.
It was very clever. However, it was lost in too many characters and subplots, which were never resolved.

Stephenson's very first book, from 1984, which he has since disowned, is much better and more entertaining than he gives it credit for! A campus satire and a bit of a mess, it hasn't dated that much and is great fun to read. It's also amusing to see early examples of Stephenson's later themes. The nest of computer hackers prefigures Cryptonomicon, the university sealed off from the outside world prefigures Anathem, and the wild action sequences prefigure REAMDE. And at 300 pages, it has the virtue of being quite short for a Stephenson book. Very glad I read it.

I like the way Stephenson writes, philosophy, fantasy, science and psychology all wrapped up in these action packed epics. It’s absurd, yes. A selling point, not a detractor. I’m a fan!

This is one of those books that makes me wonder how books are published, as in, what is the criteria? The level of frustration generated from having to read garbage closely condensed into quasi-narrative form exceeds what one person should have to endure.

That's not to say Stephenson isn't intelligent in his satire or poignant once or twice in 300 pages, but it's just such a bad bad read. Superfluous beyond regard, boring beyond belief, one would rather sit on transatlantic flights next to unchanged children playing candy crush on tablets.

This book is one of the funniest things I have ever read. It gets a little outrageous, especially in the second half, but a lot of this is just expanding on real-life ridiculousness which already borders on hyperbole. Anyone who enjoys satire and/or attended Boston University (on which it seems to be based, though BU is never named) should give it a look.

This is the story of a very serious student trying to navigate the bureaucracy of the ridiculous hyperbole of higher education that is American Mega-university, a sort of parody of every large American university.

This book is very entertaining, despite some very disturbing parts. This book is not nearly as good as Neal Stephenson's subsequent works but it is still entertaining and it really shows his promise. As his first work it is very reminiscent of Hunter S Thompson's first book The Rum Diary; they are both rough and do not live up to the later works, but they both show the promise of the author.

I read this book because I like Neal Stephenson.

Tres estrellas y media. Primera obra publicada de Neal Stephenson, en la que ya apunta maneras. A base de escenas disjuntas de un campus innombrado de los EE.UU. el autor construye un mosaico que al principio parece un cuadro costumbrista de la vida universitaria norteamericana pero que va incorporando más y más idas de olla (todos los estudiantes se ponen de acuerdo para tirar de la cadena de todos los váteres del campus a la vez, siendo el mecanismo de sincronización la melodía de inicio de un programa de la tele. Guerras de órgano de Bach con frecuencias que hacen resonar edificios abandonados. Ratas gigantes procedentes de experimentos científicos que pululan por las alcantarillas. Un virus informático que podría haber tomado conciencia de sí mismo. Y más. Mucho más.) que hacen que al final todo sea un caos, pero un caos divertidísimo de leer.