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Fiction. Literature. Science Fiction. HTML:Vividly imagined, stunningly prophetic, and epic in scope, The Diamond Age is a major novel from one of the most visionary writers of our time Decades into our future, a stoneâ??s throw from the ancient city of Shanghai, a brilliant nanotechnologist named John Percival Hackworth has just broken the rigorous moral code of his tribe, the powerful neo-Victorians. He's made an illicit copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called A Young Ladys Illustrated Primer Commissioned by an eccentric duke for his grandchild, stolen for Hackworth's own daughter, the Primerâ??s purpose is to educate and raise a girl capable of thinking for herself. It performs its function superbly. Unfortunately for Hackworth, his smuggled copy has fallen into the wrong hands. Young Nell and her brother Harv are thetesâ??members of the poor, tribeless class. Neglected by their mother, Harv looks after Nell. When he and his gang waylay a certain neo-Victorianâ??John Percival Hackworthâ??in the seamy streets of their neighborhood, Harv brings Nell something special: the Primer. Following the discovery of his crime, Hackworth begins an odyssey of his own. Expelled from the neo-Victorian paradise, squeezed by agents of Protocol Enforcement on one side and a Mandarin underworld crime lord on the other, he searches for an elusive figure known as the Alchemist. His quest and Nellâ??s will ultimately lead them to another seeker whose fate is bound up with the Primerâ??a woman who holds the key to a vast, subversive information network that is destined to decode and reprogram th… (more)
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The lushness of the world has its downside, though. It's easy to open this book and get lost in its pages, as Stephenson clearly did as he was writing it, but it simply doesn't have the impact of a focused story. It deeply explores the question of what fundamental quality separates human beings from the increasingly complex machines we build, but so much of the plot seems tangential to this question, tangential even to the rest of the story. We watch characters move through this fully realized world with interest, but not much care. His treatment of the novel's characters is deft, but they don't feel nearly as real as the setting, a disappointment after Snow Crash.
Despite its flaws, it's always stunning to get inside Neal Stephenson's head. His view of the promise of technology for education and the failures of "artificial" intelligence are fascinating even to the lay-person, and his eye for immersive detail gets sharper with every book. I'm looking forward to his next tome.
The Illustrated Primer of the
Less arcane than Anathem, it also has a much faster pace to the story. The story is action driven, but in a controlled way. This gives the main characters a chance to develop and change to match their roles. I have come to realize that very well developed characters are a hallmark of Stephenson’s style.
I had some trouble with this novel that pulled it back from the brink of being truly exceptional. The ending left me cold. There is a great lead up to the conclusion, and the conclusion is definitive, but it was not satisfying . . . unless we will be visiting the heroine in a future sequel. I don’t think that likely, however.
Very deserving of four and a half stars, I highly recommend The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer to fans of speculative fiction, steampunk or cyberpunk genres.
This book starts with some
So far, so good - just the multi-layered complexity and mastery I have come to expect from Stephenson. Sadly, it fizzles out in the final 150 pages or so. The climax is just a little sketchy and more than slightly unbelievable.
The main plot line is a futuristic Pygmalion. More development of this theme to a more believable conclusion would have delivered a more satisfying read.
But, even a near miss by Stephenson is better than most other novels, sci-fi or otherwise, so I'll be back for more. (Read October 2011.)
That's the short version of The Diamond Age. This novel is genre creating in its scope. It has hints of cyberpunk, but is outdoubtedly something new. Stephenson learned a lot from Snow Crash, and presents many of those ideas in fresh and more thoughtful ways. Snow Crash was a great book, but in the face of The Diamond Age, it is inadequate. Part of what makes The Diamond Age superior is its characters. Snow Crash had Hiro Protagonist, one of the greatest sci-fic chracters ever, but Nell might just beat him out. She is a perfect protagonist for the novel and the fact that we see her go from child to adult, and really see the changes and growth that takes place, says a lot about Stephenson's abilities.
What makes Nell such an ideal voice is that this future, while better in some ways than Snow Crash, is still not a pleasant place. There are a lot of very horrific things going on in the world. When told from the perspective of a child, these are simultaneously softened, while also increasing the peril.
The other element that makes The Diamond Age work is the subitlte to the novel. At the heart of everything is the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. Created by the Neo-Victorian John Percival Hackworth for use by the child of their leader, the Primer is a fully interactive storybook that is intended to give a child immersive advanced education. It is not A.I. in Stephenson's world A.I. is impossible. Indeed, one of the arguments The Diamond Age makes is that A.I. can never replicate a human mind.
This is all revealed as the book progresses and as Hackworth attempts to steal the Primer for his own daughter. Surprise, surprise, it ends up in the hands of a non-Victorian child living in squalor. We see then that the real power of this book is more than anyone can imagine.
There's far more going on here of course. The novel is very layered. In the background, a new Boxer Rebellion is emerging in the Coastal Republic of China. Attempts are being made to create a new, far more dangerous form of technology that will supercede nanotech. A secret group of hackers may be trying to change the economic and political structure of the world. There are a number of subplots and far more characters that weave seamlessly into Nell's story. But by far the strength of the novel are the moments we see her interact with the Primer. I can't adequately describe it here, but it's a brilliant concept.
The only problems with the novel are at the end. The character of Judge Fang seems very important in the first half of the novel, but disappears by the end, despite events that would seem to require his presence. Would Fang really be okay with the horrible acts done in the name of the Celestial Kingdom? Also, a particular distasteful event which I won't reveal that happened to Nell at the end of the novel was unnecessary. And then there's the fate of the refugees. Nell escapes, but she leaves them behind, and their fate seems almost as bad as the death that faced them!
Trust me though, these are minor strings that Stephenson doesn't tie up. This is a superior novel, and the way it deals with culture is the most honest and illuminating treatment I've seen yet. Please don't listen to any reviewer that says the novel was anti-Chinese or that claims the novel suggested culture is in-born. These people clearly didn't read the book. The novel explicitly is arguing culture is learned, and for every villain of one particular culture there is a villain of another. What it is saying is that each culture views itself as superior and will eventually act as such, which may or may not be true, but Stephenson makes a good argument.
All in all The Diamond Age isn't perfect, but it's nearly so.
Loved Nell's story and 'watching' her grow up with the Primer. Didn't care much for the other stories.
All in all, I did enjoy reading this book. It is not one I will be rereading any time soon though.
But I have to admit that I had trouble feeling the need to turn the pages after
The book explores some interesting questions about teaching/technology: e.g., Must education be subversive? What should the role of human teachers be? What
I'm pleased to say that 'The Diamond Age' is in the first category, a survivor.
In a world transformed by nanotechnology and smart materials, the story is a Bildungsroman concerning a young girl from the wrong side of the tracks who comes into possession of a highly advanced nanotechnologically-enhanced book that was designed for a very rich client to give his daughter the necessary life skills to survive in a Balkanised, rapidly-moving world. The story follows two protagonists: Nell, the girl; and the designer of the book, John Hackworth (a fine name for an engineer, echoing Timothy Hackworth, a contemporary of George Stephenson). This is appropriate on a range of levels; the political structure of the future world now reflects a level of self-organisation based on self-selected allegiances according to class, skill or philosophical/political/ religious alignment and nation-states, though not dead, play a much reduced role in world affairs.
Hackworth has made an illegal copy of the book for his own daughter; but he loses this as a result of street crime and that copy passes to Nell. A further copy falls into the hands of Dr.X, a crime lord who has his own ideas about ways to wield power and influence in the real world, and how that can coincide with other ideas about displaced children. The plot beyond the story of Nell mainly concerns the interplay between these three copies of the book, the "Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" of the subtitle, and how they end up changing the world.
The world has also changed in other ways; China has in part turned back to Confucianism, allied with various forms of Chinese Communism, but always with an eye to a good business deal; whilst others have adopted neo-Victorian values, making this a book whose milieu is in a sort of Cyberpunk morphing into Steampunk.
It is a thick book, some 450 pages, but I found it fairly easy reading. My one observation is that the plot begins to race a bit in the last quarter, as the female protagonist reaches womanhood and her machine-led education comes to a climax just as the political situation undergoes a seismic change to a new reality. It was almost as if Stephenson was trying to tie the plot up - or at least bring it to a point where he could set it down and walk away from it without it looking too obviously abandoned - and I can quite see why his subsequent books are considerably longer. It's not the most blatant attempt to come in at a particular word-count, but I rather felt that that was what was happening. As it is, the main characters reach turning points in their lives and the life of the world, and there we leave them.
Still, this is one of the best science fiction novels I've read for a while. There are only a few signs of historical obsolescence; at one point, a company is referred to as a "zaibatsu" (a Japanese term for an interlocking business trust/oligarchy) which has rather fallen out of use in the 21st century (the word, that is, rather than the concept); and a particular manifestation of dust pollution is referrred to early on as "toner", implying that it is as fine and invasive as laser printer toner; the increasing roll-back of paper use in business will make this term seem quaint in just a few years' time, if it isn't already. And one of the groups mentioned a few times in the text calls itself 'Sendero', probably in reference to the 1980s Peruvian Maoist revolutionary movement 'Sendero Luminoso' ('Shining Path'). There were also a couple of suggestions, quite well buried, that the ambient morality of the world of the novel had perhaps turned backwards a little, and the implications of that for personal relationships might look distinctly 20th-century to us now.
But all in all, this is an impressive book. I now see where Stephenson gets his reputation from, and I shall look forward to tackling some of his other novels in due course.
"They believe it," the Constable said, "because they have been indoctrinated to believe it."
"Yes. Some of them never challenge it – they grow up to be smallminded people, who can tell you what they believe but not why they believe it. Others become disillusioned by the hypocrisy of the society and rebel – as did Elizabeth Finkle-McGraw."
"Which path do you intend to take, Nell?" said the Constable, sounding very interested. "Conformity or rebellion?"
"Neither one. Both ways are simple-minded – they are only for people who cannot cope with contradiction and ambiguity."
The actual Princess Nell parts got a bit long at times, and I am not sure I actually read all of them. But the book is engrossing and creates an atmosphere more than a story. The ending is a bit jarring, simply because it seems to come out of nowhere, but it is not as nonsensical as it seems: as the world spins out of control, we focus in on just one person. In the end, through all the technophilia, the book ends up being about one child's search for a mother, and the ending is natural when looked at that way.
The big
Presumably this is because Stephenson is most interested firstly in exploring the implications of his technology and social system (in the first half of the book) then in the second half, in unravelling the mess of plot strands he's tangled up and drawing them together into some sort of conclusion. There are signs of the plot bloat that comes to the fore in the Baroque Cycle; he doesn't really manage to tie up the threads in the space provided, but simply lets some characters wander offstage and hopes that we'll be distracted by the flashes and bangs going on at the same time...
Nothing is particularly thought-provoking or heart-wrenching, but it's fairly well-told and fun -- a perfect holiday read, but not something to spend hours searching for significance. Or writing a review about, for that matter.
The possibilities extrapolated with the advent of nanotechnology is fascinating and described
Overall really enjoyed the book, though not particularly satisfied with how the story was broken up. I am looking forward to re-reading Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash after picking this one up.