"Hello, I'm Hunter. And I'm a sci-fi guy."

Felt I had to admit that up front. But while it's possible that fact has made this story more accessible, I think I would have enjoyed it if it were the first sci-fi based book I had ever read. I also should note that I read Snow Crash just before reading TDA, but there was one a single, minor connection between the two, so it had little effect on my enjoyment, other than to know that I liked the author.

I enjoyed the main characters and their interactions. I loved the metaphor of the Book and its connection to the plot. I think he did a great job at times of visually describing the environment. The story certainly captured me, built a desire in me to find out what happens next. I plan to read another highly recommended book of his, Cryptonomicon, sometime soon.

I will be interested to hear from others that don't usually read sci-fi. Sales of his books would lead me to believe that most found it enjoyable, but you never know.

Hunter | October 20, 2003 11:45 PM

I must admit that I did not finish this book. I read the first 2 chapters, though. I read Snowblind by him, a while back, and he was a little too computer literate for me. I think I will eventually get into this book but have had too much work going on lately.

Misty | October 21, 2003 8:28 PM

well, The Diamond Age. I don't know what say, mostly because I'm not yet finished with it.

My first impression was that the novel is really, really out into the future. I was impressed with the technology and some of it was actually funny/amusing. I found myself thinking, "oh man, i can't believe they have this..." (like the gun inside one's skull and the 'sites for building muscle and so forth)

My second impression was that their world is frightening. Everything is computerized. And the whole Neo-Victorian society IS what scared me the most.

Stephenson did a well job creating a world and describing it well, a little too well. His imagination is infinite, it seems.

So, at the beginning I really got into it. I was anxious to find out more about this futuristic world and see where it lead to. I found the story much more interesting when it was about Harv, Nell, and Miranda, even the guy who died at the beginning...Bud. But when it got to Hackworth and Finkle-McGraw, it was less interesting. What I did find boring was when Stephenson dedicated too many pages describing the surroundings of the diamond age world--perhaps because I couldn't envision any of the things that were described. It was a little too far out for me to understand. In that case, I agree with Misty--he's too computer literate to find all of that stuff interesting.

i am still reading the diamond age, hope i can finish it. (sorry i'm cutting this short--bedtime [i was up--world series])

ana | October 22, 2003 12:49 AM

I tried.. I mean I really tried to read this book. I just could not get hooked into it. I enjoyed Noir but TDA just didn't do it for me.
: - )

Kate | October 22, 2003 9:19 AM

Sigh. :-)

Rich | October 22, 2003 10:10 AM

I got about as far into the book as Ana. I do like science fiction (anything Bradbury, C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet trilogy, Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow) but this booked seemed very, VERY science fiction. So much so that it was difficult for me to relate to it or put myself into it. The gun in Bud's head, the "microwave oven" that makes bed mattresses, the primer… I think I didn’t really get it because Stephenson writes in a “this is the way things are” manner, as opposed to a “things are weird here and I’ll tell you why” style. He expects the reader to keep pace and not ask questions. Not that the reader needs to be led around by the hand…

I don’t think I’m articulating myself properly. I think my main issue with the book was that I felt there was A LOT of new information to absorb over a relatively short span of the book. I will finish The Diamond Age, though.

Maybe the stars weren’t right this past month for SciFi…

amy | October 22, 2003 3:49 PM

I must report that I, too, was unable to get into the book. The writing was surprisingly readable -- from the science fiction I've read, I have an impression of it as containing inaccessible prose -- but I just couldn't get into a groove with it. Partially, that was because many sentences felt like someone took regular prose and searched-and-replaced normal adjectives with b.s. technical or faux-scientific terms. It just didn't feel genuine to me. Perhaps science fiction requires extreme suspension of disbelief, but I just couldn't do that easily here.

Andy | October 22, 2003 11:04 PM

agree with amy--there was ton of information to absorb, learn, figure out...re-read things over and over to understand...and for me, it couldn't be done in a month.

i'm still readin' though!

ana | October 23, 2003 1:37 AM

So far, we've read three SciFi books: Noir, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and The Diamond Age.

From what I read above, it seems like a lot of people had trouble getting into the most recent selection. When we discussed Noir, I remember my thoughts were that it was a good idea (fusing a dark detective novel with science), but I kept banging my head against the wall because the technology it contains is way too unbelievable. In Canticle, there is very little technobabble because the story is more about the human condition than science. Although I haven't read TDA, the comments seem to lean toward technology making it hard to read.

In just browsing the first page, I notice a slew of terms Stephenson made up: "mod parlor," "skull gun," "aero," "'sites," "yuks," "theezed," etc. If the whole book is full of stuff like this, I can see why it would be hard to read.

Rich, you obviously don't have a problem getting through something by an author who invents his/her own vocabulary. How do you do this? Do you just read the word then go on in the hopes of it being explained later? Or, do you possess some kind of inherent understanding of technotalk? Although I like SciFi, stuff that doesn't make sense really hangs me up. (Sort of like on Star Trek when they talk about modifying a tricorder to compensate for the phase modulation of the tricyclic plasma drive to maintain the integrity of a static warp bubble. Thankfully, though, there are lots of online Star Trek glossaries.)

marydell | October 26, 2003 8:10 AM

Hi All,

Sorry I'm coming to the discussion late - I was on vacation...

In contrast to what seems to be the majority opinion, I thoroughly enjoyed The Diamond Age. I am a Sci-Fi fan, but I'd never read anything by Stephenson before. (No real reason why, I just hadn't.)

As others have said, Stephenson writes in a hard SF style that isn't exactly the most accessible, so I can understand why it took some effort for some people to get into the novel. I read it in two days. Once I had started, well, I didn't stop because I liked the world that he built.

I have to be honest and say that I didn't care for some of the characters (Hackworth in particular); I felt like some characters were introduced only to give Stephenson an excuse to go on for a few more pages of expository world-building (Dr. X) but I really liked the world he created. I found the socio-political structures believable within the context of the science that he was basing his world on.

The exception to that was "The Drummers" - I felt that they were a little too convenient; they weren't explained well enough in a book full of exposition.

Other aspects that I enjoyed were the pacing and the setting. The way that the book began before Nell's birth and took us through her formative years was well-written; I never felt a lag or a gap even though we suddenly were taken from Nell at 4 to Nell at 8 and the like. As for the setting...to the best of my recollection, this is the first SF I've ever read set in China - I liked that because even though the novel was very obviously SF, I feel like I could go to Shanghai (I've never been) and find some of the landmarks that he refers to.

Not to mention the fact that in all the near-future, earth-bound, cyber-punk, neo-hacker, whatever SF I've read (Gibson, Sterling and the like) nobody ever takes into account that China and India are the most populous countries on the planet. I thought Stephenson did a nice job of realizing that even in an information age, numbers still matter...

And that's my initial impression of the book. :) I'm planning on reading SnowCrash next...

Joel | October 26, 2003 9:42 AM

Wow, discussion!

Joel, glad to hear you enjoyed the book. Thanks for commenting.

Mary, I think anyone that enjoys reading loves their language to some extent; the way this works with me is that I enjoy watching an author play with the language - a term like "theezed" is a good example; it appears to be a past-tense form of a shortening or corruption of "anesthesia." This sort of wordplay is very enjoyable to me, though the "polarity-reversal of the polyharmonic graviton flux" silliness of Star Trek gets under my skin as much as the next jaded watcher/reader.

I think the difference between Trek's technobabble and Stephenson's technical wordplay (and to a lesser extent that of Gibson and Sterling) is that he actually researches his concepts and builds his worlds accordingly. When The Diamond Age came out, the science Stephenson is playing with was considered to be fairly solid. We've learned differently in the few years since, but not radically so.

Simply, I enjoy being presented with a world strange both in concept and detail, and then trying to figure it out. I enjoy being surprised by a book. What you and many here seem to see as linguistic barriers I see as the happily-paid price of entry. Texture, to reuse a term.

The question that seems to bring people up short is along the lines of, "Well why doesn't the author just say things instead of fruiting them up?" I have the same question when I read authors like Austen and Trollope, so I suppose beauty is in the eye of the reader.

Rich | October 26, 2003 12:48 PM

In response to:

"The question that seems to bring people up short is along the lines of, "Well why doesn't the author just say things instead of fruiting them up?" I have the same question when I read authors like Austen and Trollope, so I suppose beauty is in the eye of the reader." - Rich

This seems to me to be a bit of a catch-22. People who praise Stephenson's world-building skills also find his use of newly coined words hard to comprehend.

However, it is because the author uses newly minted words that we are able to see his world so richly.

I read a lot of translated works; I read a lot of Japanese works that have been translated to English and I find that one of the ways an author can draw me into a story is to leave certain words or concepts un-translated. This challenges me, as a reader, to expand my definitions of characters, plot and theme.

I find that good SF does the same thing to me. Certain words or concepts are left untranslated, which serves to draw me into the story and participate more fully in what I'm reading.

My point being - when an author presents me with new vocabulary, I see it (much as Rich said) as the price for being able to engage a world/culture/class/context that I wouldn't normally be involved with.

I don't feel like I'm being very clear. Did that make sense?

Joel | October 28, 2003 11:04 AM

I agree wholeheartedly, Joel, and well said. :-)

Well! A person who "gets it."

Rich | October 28, 2003 12:09 PM

I see your points, Joel and Rich, but a good author can open up new worlds to a reader using character, plot, and setting. Sometimes, having to wade through invented vocabulary bogs me down because it can seem more like a trick (this is not exactly the word I'm looking for) rather than a legitimate detail that moves the plot forward. That's why I view a lot of technotalk as crapnobabble; it doesn't really mean anything and rather than bring the reader into another world, it puts up a wall between them.

This isn't to say that I don't enjoy a good turn of phrase. For example, I really liked how Jeter's Noir turned "connect" into a dirty word in an unwired world. Another example would be my love of The Lord of the Rings. Elvish is an invented language, but it helps keep the plot going because it makes sense to have different races speak different languages.

I also happen to hate Austen, Hardy, and Eliot. (However, I keep torturing myself with Eliot. I read Mill on the Floss in high school and hated it, but recently bought another copy because I keep trying to find merit in her work.)

My point, I think, about technotalk in SciFi is that some people have an inherent understanding of it. Most aficionados also like gadgets (Rich uses remote controls with his lights!) and other futuristic techie stuff, so it's easier for them to embrace the science in SciFi. A person who has a more casual relationship with technology can find it a little bit harder to absorb the way out there stuff found in most of these novels.

marydell | October 28, 2003 7:53 PM

Ahem. A "good" author can also experiment with language; future-based, past-based and otherwise strange-to-us locales will be strange in more dimensions than the characters and stories occurring in them.

There is a wall between us and people in circumstances different from ours. Ignoring the linguistic aspects of that wall would be like writing a Robin Hood story without thee-s and thou-s or a Sherlock Holmes story without by-Joves and bloodys.

Look at how slang has changed since the 1980s, let alone the '70s, '60s or '50s. If a 1950s teen character doesn't let rip with a "Daddy-O" or a longhaired 1970s college student punctuate his sentences with "man," much flavor (and believability, if not overdone) is lost.

Rich | October 28, 2003 8:56 PM

Rich! I wasn't implying anything about Stephenson when I used "good" as an adjective. Since I didn't read TDA, I certainly am not qualified to judge his work. I simply meant that sometimes invented lingo doesn't feel right, and you should know by now how easy it is for my "suspension of disbelief" mechanism to get knocked off the rails. If I don't buy into something from the beginning, I never recover.

Personally, I don't think there should be a wall between us and what we're reading. It's an author's job to suck us into the world s/he creates, and making it too hard to access is counterproductive. You, as a techie person, can relate much more easily to the language of Science Fiction than the rest of us.

(By the way, as a history person, I've read most of the original Robin Hood ballads from the 1400s. The thous and thees got added a couple of centuries later. And, few people know that he kept his booty for himself.)

marydell | November 2, 2003 11:16 AM