This is distinctly a debut book, and while this thinly veiled critique of the absurdity of Boston University is a fun ride, it’s clearly of a lower brow than the great novels that he goes on to creating for the next few decades. In some ways it gets a little preposterous at times, but you can see the linkage of story elements that Stephenson handles deftly and becomes he signature as he cultivates this ability beautifully in later books.

To it’s credit The Big U is both short and a fun read. It’s by no means stupid or poorly written. You may just be left questions the story that gets a it little dubious. Suspend your disbelief and you’ll be just fine, if you’re a Stephenson fan, read this one for fun- at least so you can see how far he’s come. Haters are gonna hate, but this book is hard to dislike.

Just finished the Go Big Red Fan prologue, and I think I can see why Stephenson sort of disowns The Big U. It's his first novel, published in 1984 when he was 24 or thereabouts, which means it was most likely *written* when he was 22-23, if not younger. But JUST BECAUSE STEPHENSON WOULDN'T CONSIDER WRITING SOMETHING LIKE THE BIG U TODAY, DOESN'T MEAN HE SHOULDN'T HAVE WRITTEN IT IN HIS TWENTIES. I'm only eight pages in but I think this book will be a lot of fun for the same reason another author-dissed first novel, n  The Broom Of The Systemn is a lot of fun: it was written by a young guy feeling his oats. That sense of play is irresistible to me.

01DEC10. I'm now 70-80 pages in and I have little to complain about and a LOT that's making me late to (and keeping me hurrying home after) work.

10DEC10. Sure the book has issues, but it was still a hell of a lot of fun to read. I created a web page for it. (You may find this image of the Plex helpful when reading.)

Clearly early work

I'm a big Neal Stephenson fan and thought I should read some.of the earlier books to be complete. Zodiac was really fun, but this one, while it showed some sparks, was quite a mess. The very long last chapter was quite a drag, and while I guess there was a resolution, the explanations were fairly trite. Yes, university life is silly, but for stuff razzing academia, there were much better bits in Cryptonomicon, Baroque, Anathem and even briefly in D.O.D.O.

This book.

This BOOK.

Holy shit.

It's complete and utter crack of the absolute best kind. It is fantastic and ridiculous and terrifying and beautiful and WHAT THE HELL, THIS BOOK.

I love it. I love it so much. Holy god.

SUCH CRACK.

I never really could get into this one.

An enjoyable, farcical, somewhat Pynchonesque debut novel.

While Stephenson has erupted into
a giant of the science fiction / fantasy world
these early novels paint a portrait
of the younger artist
who has yet to find his voice.

These two books..... ok cards on the table,
I do not really remember them all that much.
It was over 30 years ago.

They were clever and fun if a tad light.
The key to these is that they made me aware
of this soon to be incredible author
who is not amoung the best out there.

Neal Stephenson has stated, he's not proud of the book... and, it's not hard to see why. While it's still written with his trademark style, flair, and attention to detail, about half-way through, the book goes from amusing satire to something approaching outright farce; from there, the rest of the book honestly becomes a huge mess.

While some may say, that's the point, for the reader, the novel's tonal shift comes across as unfocused and somewhat undisciplined. Major characters become minor ones, so then the action revolves on minor characters that a reader may know little about, and wondering why they should even care. While some twists prove welcome, just to keep things interesting, after some reflection, they don't hold up well... and, you may find yourself wishing that the main antagonist succeeds, because he's the only one who truly makes any sense, at the end. (rating: 2-1/2 stars)

Though kind of messy, this book was fun. I don’t recall ever reading anywhere that David Foster Wallace was ever influenced by Stephenson, but I did find that both authors are similarly devoted to intricately building a slightly twisted version of reality in their books, and I absolutely love it! The plot itself may be “meh” but the world and characters he creates is worth the time.

If I didn't like Stephenson's stuff, I never would have picked up this book. Worst cover ever. It was fun to see where he started in this '80s written book on college life. It starts pretty straightforwardly enough, just pointing out the absurdities of college life. He pokes fun at the administrative bureaucracy from PC style grading to Reaganomics loving trustees to special interest groups fighting for grant money. Then there are the students. The factions include militant Stalinists, militant Mormons, militant feminists, D&D role playing nerds, mindless jocks and bimbos, etc... Sounds pretty normal, but things escalate quickly. Spoiler alert, things really escalate. It does get more entertaining and anarchistic as it goes, but overall, it's a pretty sloppy little book which is recommended if you like Stephenson (you need patience for all his millions of characters and obscure references and waiting for it all to fit together, but hey... this one wasn't 1000 pages). Others might find it to be cringy.

Hard to admire
I've enjoyed the other Neal Stephenson books I've read (most recently the detailed, sprawling Anathem ), and picked this up a year or so ago from a charity shop. It's impossible to approach it without knowing that (a) it was his first published novel (dating from 1984), and (b) when it went out of print, he originally wanted it to stay that way, and only sanctioned its reprinting when original editions began changing hands for large sums of money.

Having slogged through to the end of the book, I'd have to say that I agree with Stephenson's initial wishes. Billed as a satire of campus life, this starts out on just this side of credibility, but then spirals out of control as crazier elements get added: professors killed by falling pianos, ravenous giant rats in the sewers, nuclear waste dumps, students armed to the teeth and attempted gang rapes. If you're thinking it'd be pretty hard to make any of those things funny, you'd be right, particularly when you suspect that the author is trying to make a serious point about his own experiences as a student living in a large dorm at Boston University. As the action became more surreal and extreme, I became less interested in the characters or what was happening to them until I was able to reach the end and (it's not often this happens) close the book with a sigh of relief.

Originally reviewed 10 May 2010

I am a big Neal Stephenson fan, so I know I had seen this title somewhere in a list of his books, but I had never sought it out. However, when it came up as the "deal of the day" through Goodreads, I decided to pick it up. This is, I believe, Neal's first book. There are certainly aspects that seem familiar to his other early books, but there are a lot of differences as well. First of all, the book is bonkers. Ostensibly about a major American university, it certainly starts out with that premise and has fun skewering the buerachracy and ridiculousness that can be found on campus. It is also sobering in its portrayal of on campus sexual abuse which, it seems, hasn't changed much. Sure, there are some oddities scattered throughout, but it reads, for the most part, like a novel describing 80's university life in America. However, that changes about halfway through when the crazy gets going. At that point, I felt like it shifted to being similar to Neal's other books that all start off completely unfamiliar and force you to tread water until you can start figuring things out.

There isn't much "Sci-fi" in this book, but it does hold up very well for being over 30 years old. There are heavy doses of Stephenson's wry humor throughout. Apparently he's "not proud" of this book, but I enjoyed it quite a bit, even while shaking my head at the oddity of the final half of the book.