Rob's Reviews > The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

I go back and forth with whether I liked this book or whether I liked this book a lot. With the exception of Stephenson's endings, I tend to find his werks very strong overall; these are compelling reads with digestible but thought-provoking questions and scenarios and some rather scintillating characters that are one part Jungian archetype and two parts original. Diamond Age shares those qualities with the rest of his body of work and yet somehow seems a bit... deficient?

It's clear that Diamond Age is the successor to the Snow Crash world, each critical variable accelerated along every axis. And that's where its strengths emerge; it's a bit more of a long-form treatment of the subject matter, takes a more delicate approach (e.g., Nell's story), and goes unafraid into some areas where you felt he might have tip-toed in some previous werk. But at the same time, when you put this one down, the classic Stephensonian termination shock gets a bit hyperbolic. There's a lot of slack-jawed: "But... What next?"

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re-read 16th July, 2011: If my notes are correct, this is my third time reading this novel. Which is quite a bit for a re-read (but not many for a Stephenson novel). Notably different this time around is that this is my first re-read of it since my son was born. That sort of thing probably winds up having an effect on how you read anything. This time around, it seemed to make all my feelings much more palpable. I was a lot more sympathetic to Hackworth, but also found myself cursing him that much more; I felt a more paternal interest in Nell, but also cringed that much more at her penultimate tribulations...

And/but just as before: I'm left thrashing between that 3-and-4-star range. The first half resonates even more strongly as time goes on; but something in that second half... I have a hard time making it all click. And it isn't just the Stephensonian loose ends. It's... Elizabeth drops out of the narrative all together, but not without these oblique and ominous references to CryptNet ("but she was never a major character"?); Fiona accepts a casted role with Dramatis Personae, but then what? (and/but/see also: D.P. seems inserted into the story briefly for the sole purpose of un-re-hijacking Fiona); if Nell knew there was so much danger in Pudong, why did she stay? (just to advance the plot?); &c.

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Further reading:
‧ "Steampunk Appreciations: Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age - Steampunk’s 22nd-Century Sourcebook" at Tor.com ()
‧ (at accrediedonlinecolleges.com which -- yeah, doesn't seem like a legit website, but seemed like a legit-enough list)