- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Warner Books; Reissue edition (Oct 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0446673145
- ISBN-13: 978-0446673143
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 12.7 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,541,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As they say, dont judge a book by its cover, if you did you`d probably give this one a wide berth as it seems to be aimed at pimply pre-adolescent geeks. But that would be a mistake. Its probably one of the best sci fi novels i`ve read this year. Superb characterisation and some really witty writing makes this a great book.
With a definite micky take on cyber-culture this book is a riveting page turner - just cant wait for 2.0.
Format:Paperback
I must admit I wish I'd read Snowcrash before this, as then I'd have laughed even more, but even so, this book is great fun. As the 'hero' wrestles with his job situation (not good) love life (not good) and long-term prospects (not good) he runs into some wierd conspiracy theories, and his real ife gets inextricably tangled with his virtual life in, uh, interesting ways.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It took me a long time to finish this, because it completely failed to grip me. There's a promise of conflict at the start (bad job, bad boss, bad lodgings), but it's resolved all too soon and then everything's on the up-and-up.
Even the thieves leave things for him instead of stealing his stuff (he's supposed to be so badly off that they feel sorry for him). Raised a smile the first time, but when it's used as a running gag throughout the book...
Too many of the jokes were recycled. I'd certainly seen a lot of them before, a decade or more ago. and so will you if you've read much Dilbert or hung around places like the alt.humor usenet group.
The characters were ciphers; none of them engaged me enough to actually care about them.
Towards the end, I found myself quickly scanning pages to see if anything relevant happened, and then skipping ahead when it looked like more padding. It made no difference to my understanding of what was going on. Later, out of interest, I went back to a few skipped pages to see if I'd missed anything important.
Nope.
In the book's defence, I'd say that a lot of the things I saw as flaws were "deliberate" because it's meant to be zany and self-referential and ironic.
Unfortunately, that's not enough for me. There needs to be a credible plot and some engaging characters and a believable world as well, and I didn't find any of those things.
To give you some background: I came to this looking for "more stuff like Neal Stephenson". If you're in the same boat, I'd advise you to sail it somewhere else.
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