SciFi and Fantasy eBook Club discussion

We've started in on a new book so what do you think? I started The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson really yesterday and I'm about 13% into it.

So far, I'm liking that its fairly comfortable ground in that it reads like the other 4 or so books I've read by Stephenson. The characters are well drawn. The world is believable and slightly bizarre. The pacing is good. You know, Typical Stephenson.

Being so early in the book, I'm still in the period he's setting up the story and introducing characters so I'm not sure what the plot is yet. (view spoiler)[I have to say that I love that he started with a character, built up a rapport with with him (even though he's awful) and then killed him. That was very true to his writing style but I still wasn't expecting it. (hide spoiler)]

I finished it yesterday. I almost gave up as I wasn't getting into the characters and nothing was happening. At around 17% though, the primer showed up, and all the plot lines came together and then I couldn't put it down.

That's what I've seen with other Stephenson books - nothing happens for a while and then suddenly you're sucked right in ....

I didn't like it. It was my first Stephenson book and I just couldn't get into his style of writing. He seems to get bored with his characters very quickly.

I've read Stephenson's Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon so this is my 5th book of his. In this book, I'm at 26% now and I'm still waiting for something to happen unlike the previous 4 where the story started moving fairly quickly.

I found myself reading a plot synopsis online - which is never a good sign. The book looks interesting still but I never quite got into it yesterday. Maybe I need to read something else and then pick it back up....

Hmm...sounds like I may save my money and pass this one up (pending a sudden influx of more positive reviews). With my current schedule, if the story, characters, and writing aren't going to grab me pretty quickly, I'll probably never finish it. :-(

I did think it was a very worthwhile read. I really liked the world building, i.e., the effects of nanotechnology on society. Also, I thought Nell was a great character.

One thing I didn't like was that he used a lot of words that weren't in the Kindle dictionary. (I didn't look any farther than that.) I don't know if he made them up or they were just super obscure, but that got a bit tedious, when I couldn't even figure out from context what he was trying to say. What is the point of writing so cryptically?

I listened to the unabridged audio in 2004 and truly enjoyed it; I like it more than Snow Crash. The details are foggy, of course, but I don't remember an especially slow beginning.

Donna wrote: "What is the point of writing so cryptically?"

The joy of writing and reading, I think. Good prose can be highly enticing.

But Greg, how did you handle the cryptic words if you listened to it? I agree with Donna - they really do jar while you're reading. I did allude to that in my review as well.

Greg wrote: "The joy of writing and reading, I think. Good prose can be highly enticing. "

I enjoy thought-provoking writing, but some of his sentences were thought-stopping for me.

I'm enjoying the world building quite a lot (love all the description) but I don't really care about the characters much. They are far less interesting to me than the world they inhabit. Hopefully that'll begin to change

Anissa, That's a good description. I'm still at 45% and I keep setting it aside. I love the world and the flavor of the book, but I"m not really interested in the characters themselves.

It's been a while since I read it. It was just OK. I liked it enough to read the entire book, but it was a little slow in places, and often confusing.

Bigal-sa wrote: "But Greg, how did you handle the cryptic words if you listened to it? I agree with Donna - they really do jar while you're reading. I did allude to that in my review as well."

After eight years, I don't recall being troubled by cryptic words. But maybe I was at the time. However, I generally just listen straight through with an audiobook and try to understand unknown or obscure words from the context. It's kind of like Shakespeare on the stage: I don't have an Elizabethan vocabulary, but I can still understand what's being said.

Geoffrey wrote: "Anissa, That's a good description. I'm still at 45% and I keep setting it aside. I love the world and the flavor of the book, but I"m not really interested in the characters themselves."

I finished this morning & have to say, most of the characters just never clicked for me. They remained cyphers who happened to be there & felt interchangeable. As much time as we spend with Nell, I still don't feel like I got to know her & somewhere along the way, I stopped caring to. I will miss Hackworth, Nell, Miranda & Carl Hollywood as much as I will Duck, Dinosaur, Peter & Purple.

It was mostly an interesting story but I think the characters really made parts of it drag a bit. Stephenson crafted his world extremely well & I do suppose that I would read another of his novels just for that.