Edit: 5 years later I’m still pissed off about the plotting, the contrived af rape scene for the purpose of a very stupid plot point, which could have been done any number of ways. Boy, reading a review from 5 years ago is kind of cringe. Glad it’s here to remind me where I’ve been and that grammar is important, actually. I was having trouble remembering the rape contrivance and I chronicled it here. Helpful! Downgraded to 2 stars, as I the only lingering feeling I have for this book is how much it pissed me off.

OK. So overall I'm leaning towards 3/5 stars. I'll start with the stuff I didn't like first so it ends on a positive note. Warning: I go on a diatribe about the rape scene in the book and sometimes mention spoilers, though not enough to spoil the story at all, I think.

I've only read this and Snow Crash, but I think I just do not like his writing style. Everything is very passive and dispassionate. It was really hard for me to give a shit about any other characters besides Nell.

The details he chooses to provide often are really presumptuous of a shared headspace that he doesn't create, at least for me. Because of that it took me a while to finish the book, 4-5 days. I kept getting jarred out of the fiction until I could get back into it. This happened throughout.

Near the end Stephenson leans hard into the rape trope which is really upsetting in of itself. It pissed me off so much it was hard to enjoy the last two chapters of the book. Especially since it's two paragraphs, which,
- Spoilers -

is made clear later on in the fiction when he needed to explain the nanites in Nell's bloodstream. It also just felt super at odds with the rest of the story, even though it was used also to tell the reader that despite all her training with the primer, there's forces in the world that she can't surmount. Obviously super important since that in its entirety is 3 paragraphs including the rape she sees coming and dispassionately removes herself from. Only afterword easily getting a sword she uses to easily kill everyone.

His writing style also clashes with the theme of the book with being subversive of established cultures as every character in different cultures speaks the same way, except for Nell when she's younger. Who then speaks like the "Vickey's". Aside from the beginning which also includes a little bit of racist language when asians speak, not trusting the reader to be able to picture an accented Asian dialect not completely fluid in English.

I think it's safe to say that the story is more interested in viewing the characters and places in the world as an oversized chessboard, with the satisfaction coming from watching the story unfold instead of losing yourself in the character. That's not my thing, though. Especially with one of the main characters specifically because, aside from Nell once again, if you pay close attention exactly what the other characters say is most important to them is completely skipped over or glossed over in the story. Makes it particularly hard to care about them, right?

Also, the pacing off the book was really, really slow.

But this leads me to my next point segueing into the positive aspects of the story.

It was actually not altogether unpleasant for me to read a story like that even though it wasn't my preference. It was a really intricate story with a lot of moving cogs, that, when revealed (very fucking slowly albeit) was interesting. Even captivating sometimes. It allowed for me to actually finish the book.

World building was fantastic, the ideologies between each place was palpable. How each place looked when the characters were travelling through it, not the best. But when they're in a specific place interacting, it's pretty good.

The prose work was well done, in my opinion. It's an interesting story despite a bunch of things I dislike. I still enjoyed it and am glad I read it. Buttttt I'll probably not bother with any more of his stuff.