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Title: Disappointing, with a capital D For "Diamond Age was the best book he's ever written."
Review: I'm still trying to convince myself that going from his superb portrait of Nell in The Diamond Age to the rather weak characterizations of Amy and Glory in this book didn't bias the underlying humanist/feminist nature of my critical faculties unduly against this whole enterprise. And while I found his inability to write an ending only mildly exasperating with TDA, it was wholly unacceptable to me in this book. Because? It felt like nothing had happened. I know a lot of stuff happened around the characters, but Bobby and Randy and Amy didn't seem to grow from it. This is the one book of Stephenson's that I've read so far (up next, the Baroque cycle) where he's allowed the technology to overwhelm the characterization. It was disappointing, as he's always been excellent at balancing the two before.
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