I listened to this on audiobook via Audible.

Jennifer did an excellent job in narration, filling the role of the (re)actor of the primer, and all of the other roles, with professionalism, warm and believability. I think this gave the narration a layer of depth that would have been missed had I read this story myself the first time through.

The audio sample rate of the book felt 32k mono, even though I downloaded @ the highest quality. I have a hunch this may have been one of the earlier titles added to Audible's library.

I had to remind myself this was sci-fi/"math-fi" in that the story used the characters to explore ideas (& in-jokes) concentrated in computer science & nanotech ramifications, not as ends to themselves, hence why the ending may have felt rushed: the ideas and technologies explored trumped the individuals storylines. However, everything was technically wrapped up; the tech's storyline has been told, but what of the characters'? Quite a lot of trama took place so close to the denoument, I think the reader was left to surmise each character's eventual outcome. It would have been nice to have a few more chapters to see how reunions unfolded.

Nor, for example, to have to surmise the difference between those genuinely embracing Confusion principles (or Vicky, Nipponese or any other ideology) vs lipservice: dark satire at best, with our protagonists as its butt. I think a lot of the satire and comedy would be easy to miss and many looking for a more perfect world will be let down: Stephenson does not pull his punches and chooses realism over perfect happy endings, especially where theres a chance to force further reflection in the reader. Nell and her friends and family are still vulnerable regardless of the best of training or future tech. Many of the characters suffer for no larger purpose. We're all still bound by our nature and impulses, regardless of our nobler intentions.

I'd really love to see a sequel, but the adage "always leave them wanting more" has seldom been as literal.

3.7

This started out as one of the best Steampunk and best Cyberpunk novels I'd ever read. However, after the first 100 pages, the story seems to drift and never really finds a true path.

Stephenson creates an amazing not-too-distant future where nanotech and cyber-upgrades are commonplace, all of which are used by a society in a neo-victorian future. The visuals in my head were absolutely amazing. Men and women in full Victorian garb and sensibilities coupled with cyberware and robotic public transportation.

Unfortunately, despite this large creative world, the author seems to focus narrowly on a story revolving around a few people who don't quite intersect. There is a plot, and it does follow with action and reaction, but it just seems like a missed opportunity. He really should have focused on the big picture, or created a completely different story arc to follow as this one falls short of the potentially grand and amazing story which the world would have yielded.

The idea behind the Illustrated Primer mentioned throughout this entire book is clever, but doesn't really feel overly unique in the grand scheme of things in a world filled with weird tech. It's a real shame that the story had to verge on the surreal towards the end; with oddly named factions, naked kidnapped girls, and manically confused individuals taking the lime light. It was difficult to tell if the narrative took place in the real world, digital world, or was some sort of fever dream.

I absolutely love the Cyberpunk aesthetic, but with this book finished, I'm left again feeling that the visual media produced after these novels is superior to the novels themselves. However, I fully accept these books (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Neuromancer, Snow Crash, etc.) as being the inspiration and cornerstones of which all the genre was built upon and therefore owe them due credit.

I find it hard to believe that The Diamond Age is rated higher than Snow Crash. The latter having a much more cohesive plot, and memorable characters to boot. At some point I will visit Stephenson's Cryptonomicom, but I think I'll leave it for a few years as I explore other genres.

Technology and society are extremely interlinked. Without The Pill we wouldn't have had the women's right movement we had; without automobiles, no suburbs.


But when technology progresses to the point it can give us whatever we want, how does the society cope? When nanomachines can provide anything with minimal cost, what does that do to states and communities?


Some people imagine that the end result is fully automatised luxury gay space communism. But others are more cynical. Idle hands are, after all, Devil's playthings. Shouldn't we expect that when we have nanotech cornucopias, people will automatically descend to hedonistic decadence?


Stephenson is obviously more on the cynical side, but he doesn't stop here with the thought process. After all, human societies have coped with the advent of new technologies earlier. Why not again? And if unlimited freedom will ruin the moral fabric of people, well, perhaps the fittest communities will be those that curb the freedom to tolerable limits.


Hence in the Diamond Age we find the most prosperous societies to be Neo-Victorians - a phyle (to use Stephenson's terminology) that lives according to morals, mores and codes of the Victorian ages. There are also Confucians, who abide by the teachings of the Analects. In either case, the society provides strict standards, which make it possible to live a moral life - and thus a more meaningful and productive life.


The main plot of the story is a retelling of Pygmalion: a low-born girl gets her hands on a AI-powered ebook called the Primer, that is supposed to teach young Victorian girls how to become the best they can be. Her life is transformed in many ways, while there are large societal upheavals around her.

Very engaging, liked it a lot.

Neal Stephenson Checklist

1. Doorstop? No! A slim 499 pages!
2. Predicts future tech? Yes- personalized news feeds, 3D printers, cryptocurrency.
3. Breakneck pace? Yes.
4. Infodumping? No, it didn't feel that way to me, especially compared to Snow Crash. It felt like all information was embedded in the plot. Some readers disagree.
5. Goes off the rails halfway through?Again, no. The plot skips 9-10 years, but it still felt like the same story to me. Some disagree.
6. Abrupt ending?Definitely.

Two controversial bits:

1. The Drummers- A lot of people object to this part of the plot for various reasons. It touches on loss of self and drugged-out, too-high-for-consent sex. I agree that it is uncomfortable, but it still fits the overall book. It did not seem left field or out of place to me.
2. The ending- I'm not convinced the good guys won. The Seed might be a great, democratizing influence. Victorian society was stiffly hierarchical, and the Feed was a way to maintain that. Seeds might have opened the world up in some great ways.

L’educazione salva le bambine
Libro abbastanza indescrivibile, sembra scritto con la tecnica del telegrafo senza fili: il primo scrive una parte, poi copre tutto tranne l’ultimo rigo. Il successivo non rilegge e continua per un altro po' e di nuovo copre tutto tranne l’ultimo rigo. Così si parte da una specie di cyberpunk, si procede con steampunk, poi diventa una fiaba per bambini, poi un romanzo di formazione per adolescenti, poi fantasy per giovani adulti, splatter geopolitico. Le uniche costanti sono la protagonista Nell e la sua mentore Miranda.
L’ autore è unico ed ha una fantasia smisurata e notevoli conoscenze nel campo dell’informatica, dato che il libro è stato pubblicato nel 1997.
E’ interessante che si cimenti in un libro tutto sommato al femminile, anche se a ben vedere quello che colpisce di più è l’idea dello sbriciolamento politico e sociale in un futuro con enormi disparità economiche, in cui la gente vive asserragliata in microcosmi protetti dalla tecnologia, come in vari paesi si vive già ora.
Fra queste enclavi c’è quella dei Neo Atlantidei, detti dispregiativamente Vittoriani per lo stile di vita al quale si ispirano: un’idea certamente limitata e conformista che però nessuno ha sostituito con qualcosa di migliore in termini di civiltà (secondo un personaggio). Un’altra idea certamente non nuova ma con risvolti interessanti è che la situazione sia smossa dalla divulgazione di un libro: contrariamente al solito, non contiene una religione monoteista, ma è un oggetto interattivo che offre educazione e sostegno alle bambine: 250000 neonate cinesi che invece di essere soppresse nelle campagne sterili da genitori miserrimi vengono prelevate e allevate fuori dalle acque territoriali (!). L’educazione salva le bambine: il numero e la concordia in un ambiente non guidato dalla sopraffazione può cambiare il mondo. Prendiamolo come auspicio futuro, dopo l’era del silicio, l’era del diamante.

I absolutely adore everything Stephenson writes, and this book is no exception. As with every Stephenson book, it has its fair share of ideas: how children find their role in society; comparing Victorian, Confucian, and 20th century society; what makes a human more than a computer (a theme present in every Stephenson book). As sci-fi, it works at least 5 times better than Snow Crash, whose ideas about future society seem downright silly compared to this vision of the future. The things this book does with nanotech still seem somewhat feasible, even 13 years after the book was written. The book begins sounding like a cyberpunk novel (especially with brain-implanted guns and silly slang like "ractives"), but it loses this feel in a hurry.

This book surprised me, because when I reached the end I realized that the majority of the "action" had taken place off screen. This is a book about causes, not effects. The majority of any plot takes place in the fictional world of the primer. Major events are mostly reduced to meetings between the major players. We don't ever really learn a lot about the Fist except as a force that occurs naturally, like a thunderstorm. The Seed plot isn't the ticking time bomb you would expect it to be. Sure, they "save the day" at the last second, but the event is hardly worth mentioning. The last section of the book is an action scene, but it functions more as a denouement than a climax. I'm of the opinion that the people who say that Stephenson can't write endings are simply thrown off by this (and of course, other books are different) unorthodox presentation. Sure, Stephenson likes writing about cool swords, but he cares a lot more about ideas and character, and I trust that when he ends a book, he doesn't have anything else interesting to tell us.

I also have to say that I was quite fond of the puzzle sections of the Primer, as they reminded me of the ICFP Programming Contests and text adventures, both of which I enjoy.

The dystopian aspects of nanotechnology run amok are imaginative and impressive, the idea of a media industry built around new (inte)ractive forms interesting, the global political situation extrapolated from a very nineties mindset, characterization in the novel is shallow, boring and disappointing and the plot absolutely deficient. I concur with the many other reviewers who point out that the second half of the book simply falls apart.

In short, I veer between giving the book two stars for its entertainment value, three stars for its backdrop and one star for its squirming, fragmentary pulp plot full of loud explosions signifying nothing and the cardboard cutouts the characters rapidly morph into.

I bought a used copy of The Diamond Age : Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer in March, after having read & very much enjoyed Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash. Oddly enough, Stephenson's books seem to be summer reading for me, or at least that's how it works out.

As usual, Stephenson drops us into the middle of the story, with little explicit explanation of what's going on. John Percival Hackworth, neo-Victorian nano-engineer (makes perfect sense in the novel!) is putting the finishing touches on the primer of the title; a wholly remarkable supercomputer designed to teach through stories *. It was commissioned by one of the Equity Lords of the region for his granddaughter; however, John decides to make a copy for his own daughter. Things get complicated when Dr. X, a grey market entrepreneur who John enlists to make the copy, decides that the book will assist in a project of his own. Along the way, the original copy ends up in the hands of Nell, a child from a dysfunctional, low class family with very little hope for the future... at least other than what the book provides. She becomes the main character of the story, with her adventures, both real & fictional providing the impetus for the plot.

The parallel stories of Nell, John and Dr. X, and the book itself (telling stories that tie nicely into the current events, at times) weave around and through one another, spanning a period of about a decade. The clave environment will look familiar to readers of Snow Crash - and the concept of the neo-Victorians is explored to a satisfying depth. Stephenson has put a great deal of thought into this environment, and it shows; however, he rarely fails to provide enough detail for new readers to catch on quickly. The technology could easily overwhelm the plot, but Stephenson manages to keep it under control throughout the threads of the story, whose pace speeds up considerably at the end, almost as if he realized he had a lot of plot points to wrap up; this seems to be a minor flaw of his work, IMHO.

Recommended to fans of more positive uses of nanotech & those intrigued by the ideas of culturally based (vs geographical) nations.

* - I'm now torn between wanting a copy of the Primer vs the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

This book is so out there it is hard to summarize, but it is set in the future, where empires have shifted, and a nanotechnologist created an interactive book that gets stolen. That doesn't even start to explain it. This book was intriguing and interesting. I'm really falling in love with this author and his world of the future.

This is tough for me to rate... I adore SP's thought process, writing style, and all together supernatural skills at keeping us entertained, but this book was too undefined and had no finish to speak of... It was not without interest or ideas, on the contrary, but it was not as developed as I have come to expect from him... I still love him, just not impressed with this one...

DNF at page 108.

Impossible descriptions, tons of weird words... I don't understand that fictional world. It's too dense and complicated for my taste. Maybe I'll try it again after a while, but I'm not sure yet. I feel that it's not my kind of book.

I'm not saying that's a bad book (I haven't made enough progress), but I have a lot of books to read. I think I should focuse in those that I'm really interested in.

Este libro fue publicado en 1996, y me ha encantado, porque sin proponérselo y sin proponérmelo, me ha conducido a un ejercicio de memoria. No sé cómo sería el estilo de vida en Europa, Norteamérica o Asia para la segunda mitad de la década de los 90s o la víspera del nuevo milenio, pero para mí, en Colombia muchas cosas eran ciencia ficción. ¿un computador en la casa? Impensable ¿Windows 95? ¿Qué es eso? ¿D.O.S? ¡¡¡aburrido!!! Los artilugios tecnológicos no acompañaron estos años de mi vida y esta falta de dependencia me ayudó a desarrollar otros aspectos de mí, quizás a valorar cuestiones “simples”, como el esfuerzo, la paciencia, los amigos, la familia, el aprender de otra manera y aun hoy conservar los diccionarios.

Y creo que en esto radica una gran parte de mi fascinación por esta historia, comparar el presente y encontrarme con un autor visionario en una historia que fue contada 20 años antes y hoy no pierde vigencia.

Pero creo que el autor no quiere solo perderse en la parafernalia tecnológica, y la introducción de elementos filosóficos y socioculturales completa la obra, le da profundidad al escenario y los personajes y en conjunto terminamos no como invitados en este mundo futurista, sino que nos convertimos en ciudadanos de este.
No puedo hablar de la carga filosófica, porque soy ignorante de la materia; sin embargo, estoy un poco más familiarizada con lo sociocultural. Si nos ubicamos desde la tecnología, esta se vuelve el paradigma del progreso y estaríamos frente a una verdad de Perogrullo, pero si pensamos en el paradigma social ¿A dónde nos lleva esto? En la modernidad, al Estado – Nación que hoy sigue vigente, en el futuro, el autor destruye este paradigma, no para diseñar algo mejor que el Estado – Nación, sino para volver al sistema de organización en clanes ¿retroceso? Solo si se piensa en términos de “evolución” social o culturas “superiores o mejores” que otras. Al destruir el concepto de Estado – Nación, también hay que re evaluar el concepto de territorio y frontera, por lo que el componente de la noción de clan encaja con este nuevo (¿?) modelo de organización y aunque hay muchos clanes, con diferentes características, estos comparten un espacio y aparentemente lo hacen en paz, pero hay una guerra fría entre ellos, el poder de los clanes, su poder económico pero no político, se concentra en la tecnología, en la adquisición de la misma, lo que marca una diferencia en la calidad de vida. Así mismo, la tecnología viene acompañada de innovación y educación. La educación se vuelve uno de los ejes centrales de la historia, porque la educación va a moldear el carácter y a ampliar los horizontes en este mundo.

Estoy segura que hay muchísimo más que extraer de esta lectura, y por eso estoy segura que volveré a leer La era del diamante.