Rating: 
Summary: Interesting premise, poor execution
Review: The Diamond Age is one of those books that starts great, and ends extremely poorly. There are basically two books here, divided nicely by Stephenson into parts 1&2. Part 1 is great. He builds some interesting characters, living in a fascinating framework. Part 2, unfortunately, doesn't live up to the premises set in the first part. Characters come and go, seemingly randomly. Groups of people form strange "human computers". Stories in the "Primer" end up turning into a long diatribe on computing theory, rather than something that would be expected to help a young girl grow.Unfortunately, this seems to be a problem that Stephenson has. He can create these incredible worlds and premises, but his ability to take them to a good conclusion is poor. Cryptonomicon, in my opinion, suffers from much the same problem. It was a great trip, but when it finished, you realized that you hadn't really gone anyplace.
Rating:
Summary: Shows Stephenson's strengths and weaknesses
Review: Typical Stephenson strengths: ideas. Lots of them. Great ones. They come at you like bullets. Typical Stephenson weaknesses: plot, as in "lack of." The story stops (not "ends," "stops") two-thirds of the way through the book. It's less coherent than _Snow Crash_, Stephenson's (outstanding) previous book. How this book works for you depends on how you feel about that tradeoff.
Rating: 
Summary: The Value of Education
Review: This book made me realize the benefits of education. Nell is no one, she is poor, crude, and is really going nowhere. However once her brother Harvey steals the Primer from Hackworth, he gives it to Nell and her journey begins. The book starts by teaching her the basics. She cannot read, so it reads to her. It teaches her defensive tactics so she can keep the book. It teaches her what exactly is sexual abuse, so that she stays healthy. This is only the beginning, though. As she gets older, the lessons become less about "reading, writing, and arithmetic", and more philosophical, moral, and ethical. She learns about people and why they leave, and how that can be better in the end. She learns about trust, and how important it is to trust the right people.
Two other little girls have their own copies of the Primer, and it gives them lessons that are tailored to them. To Fiona, Hackworth's daughter, it teaches her magical stories and new realms of thought. It develops her imagination, because that is what she is interested in developing. In the end, she becomes an actress. For Elizabeth, a granddaughter of a prominent man, the book creates a world where she is the ruler. She learns about the idea of loyalty and obedience. She later joins another group, an information cult called the CryptNet.
There is another difference in their education. Elizabeth was taught by hundreds of different people. She became disillusioned by what she learned, and went off to find another group. Mainly her father, who is a strict Victorian in principle, but who has the soul of a dreamer, taught Fiona. In the Primer, he was only the dreamer so Fiona became a dreamer. And this translated to acting for her. One woman, an actor named Miranda, taught Nell. Early on, Miranda realized that she was raising someone's child, and she took it seriously. She gave up a lot of things to be there for Nell. Because of this, Nell grew up the most intelligent of the three. She grew up and took her place in history, which was to destroy existing society and change the world.
I have really enjoyed this book. I read it the first time when I was in high school, and I loved it. I just reread it for this review, and I still love it for different reasons. I like the message that education, while incredibly valuable, will only take a person so far. After that, their cunning, morals, and ideas must take them the right way. Elizabeth reminded me of children who are raised by schools and universities. They are taught by lots of different people who don't really know them. Those types of students become disillusioned and rebel. Fiona shows what happens when there is no balance; she was taught only fantasy and so she immersed herself in it. Nell had balance; her individual story had an overall fairy-tale theme, but it was filled with martial arts, logic games, and moral/ethical lessons. She also had a mother figure, someone who cared for her, at least intellectually. I liked the idea of all the different societies trying to exist. I can see after all the moral corruption, a group of people going back to the Victorian ways. In someways, it is like Reagan's economic world with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. However, in the end of the book, the idea of the future with the Seed (a way of making everything organically), of a society that can take care of themselves, that can go back to farming ways. This idea of a future is the best I have ever heard of. I can only hope that one day it comes true.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Snow Crash...
Review: ... In my opinion, The Diamond Age provides characters that are richer, more human and that the readers can understand and relate to better. Take Nell for example. I felt bad for her when people treated her unfairly, and cheered her on along her quest to free her brother. And Harv, Nell's brother, what brother wouldn't want to protect, teach and provide for a younger sister when all they've got is one another? John Hackworth is touted as a nonotechnological genius, but I thought that for him being a good father was more important than inventing some grand device. Lord Finkle-McGraw I can picture as the benevolent-yet-mischievous grandfather every person would love to have. I could go on and describe each and every character in this book and someone they remind me of in my life, but I won't :). The Diamond Age envisions an extreme and futuristic world where all facets of life revolve around nanotechnology. This future world isn't one happy world. In fact, most of it is downright depressing. People are differentiated depending on what phyle they belong to. Beggars and thetes (people who don't belong to a phyle) line the streets. There is no privacy out in the open. Everything is watched. Punishment in the form of caning exists. Death by remote control is possible. It is, however, an incredible world as well. Almost any object from clothing and food to entire floating cities can be created using a device called a Matter Compiler (MC for short) that obtains its source of materials (atoms) from Feeds (think of these as huge pipes that tunnel through major cities). This is the world that Nell, the main character and a thete, grows up in. Her life would've been inconsequential and she ignorant were it not for a book (entitled A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer) her brother gave to her. This book, the Primer, is a wonder of nanotechnology and advanced enough to adapt itself to Nell's surroundings and circumstances in life. It teaches her everything from reading to self-defense. The Primer is not merely a device though. It also enables ractives (interactive movies) to be shown. From interacting with the Primer... Exciting stuff! The many plot twists are sure to captivate readers from beginning to end. Perhaps even make the reader want to reread portions of the book to see how brilliantly the plot comes together. "Wow!" was what I said as I put down this book. I'm sure you will too. LEAP rating (each out of 5):
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L (Language) - 4.5 (incredible descriptions of Stephenson's vision of the future)
E (Erotica) - 2 (some abuse)
A (Action) - 3 (nanotechnology plays a big role in the action)
P (Plot) - 5 (so many sub-plots that dovetail to a cataclysmic ending)
Rating:
Summary: the book of all books
Review: I like books. I loved this concept of an evolving, sentient book that the reader could keep reading for years. The style itself is a delicacy, sophisticated but not pedant; interactions between people feel right and the description of the cultural settings of the different colonies (phyles) is brilliant. A great book!
Rating:
Summary: Diamond Age? Just buy it!
Review: A wonderful mind-romp - just buy it! (I am in no way related to or...)
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Ideas But Poor Plot
Review: The ideas in this book are very interesting in terms of the interactive storybook as well as other nanotechnology references. The bad thing is, as with too many hard sci-fi stories, the characterizations are paper thin. I wound up not caring about any of the characters except the little girl but her story is poorly intertwined with the others subplots. The novel just meanders along and completely loses direction at the end. I can't honestly tell you what the point of the book was. Interesting science ideas don't mean anything in a weak plot.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderfully inventive
Review: I have read this book, and also listened to the unabridged recording (from amazon's partner...) and enjoyed it both times. If anything, the story and the ideas get better upon repeated readings, as there is a LOT packed into these pages. Much like his previous book "Snow Crash" (which I also enjoyed, but not as much as The Diamond Age), the book seems to careen out of control in the last chapters like a runaway truck, but not in a bad way. It is true (as other reviewers have said) that the book sort of ends abruptly, at least to the extent that not all the plot strings are tied up (the major ones are) and you can tell these people have an uncertain future - but I think that just makes it more realistic in tone. In that respect it is like the movie "American Beauty" - it ends in a logical place, but there are many things which were not fully resolved. BTW, even if you don't normally like audio recordings, I can highly recommend the unabridged versions of this book and Snow Crash - they are very well done.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: I was a bit thrown at first, secretly desiring another cyberpunk escapade, but this is a wonderful story, touching on varied and always interesting subjects. Worth your time.
Rating:
Summary: 21st Century Nanotech
Review: This novel largely centers around the life of an underprivileged little girl named Nell, whose brother steals an interactive primer from a wealthy man and gives it to her, and she uses it to improve herself over the years as she grows up. This is all mostly centered in and near mid 21st century Shanghai, there are many groups of people organized in like-minded 'phyles', one of the most prosperous being the Neo-Victorians, these people having adopted the Victorian way of life as being conductive to a proper and cultivated lifestyle. Neal Stephenson uses many characters in this novel and he is adept at character development and story telling. In the world he created here there exists much strife and poverty, even though matter compilers are able to make food and many things for free. Stephenson uses his imagination to great effect when detailing what nanotechnology (if you don't know, this is the science of manipulating individual atoms into hopefully useful devices) may be capable of doing for us about 50 years from now, the plot of the book centers around this technology. I found this novel to be a very long and tedious read, toward the end I just wanted to hurry up and finish it as I got bored with it. The writing style in my opinion is not smooth and flowing, and I thought the ending was a bit odd. Nevertheless, I gave this book four stars due to the leading-edge speculations about nanotechnology and it's effects on society at large.
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