Rating: 
Summary: Where's a scissors, or a hatchet, when you need one?
Review: A few friends agreed to finally take the plunge and tackle "Atlas Shrugged"--which I've put off since having it thrust on me in college 30 years ago. I tried, I really tried, and I'm proud to say that I made it to about page 800. But, my God, didn't this woman's publisher employ an editor? Let's put aside the shrill rants and endless--and I do mean endless--philosophizing. Let's forgot the "characters", which are nothing more than silly embodiments of her ideas. Let's try to ignore the Captains of Industry business and the "world grinding to a halt" nonsense. But, how can you ignore the sheer length: unedited rambling; recycled tomes, regurgitated descriptions; numbing detail; and the florid prose? I admire the woman's chutpah, but it's a pity she couldn't write. This book is horrific!
Rating: 
Summary: Worth Reading
Review: Yes, this book is long, but it isn't that bad. You can skip over vast sections and still get the point. If you are interested, you can go back and read the filler pages for extra detail. There are some who say this book is as important as the Holy Bible. One thing that the two books have in common is that you can open the book to a random page and read a few paragraphs and gain 'inspiration' (for lack of a better word).The biggest problem with this book as a novel is the characters. You can't really tell the personalities 'looters' apart (Wesley Mooch, Orrin Boyle, Balph Eubank, Kip Chalmers, et al). You also can't even tell the personalities of the heroes apart either (John Galt, Ellis Wyatt, Owen Kellogg, Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia, et al). The only major character that seems like a real person is Hank Reardon. I won't give my opinion on the ideas contained in the book. I am only giving my opinion on whether the book is any good. I will have to say the book is enjoyable, and worth 3 stars.
Rating:
Summary: If zero stars were possible....
Review: First off, Ayn Rand is not the greatest thinker of the 20th century, no matter what your trendy friend wearing a Rocky Horror Picture Show tee-shirt says. She is at best a romance novelist with wooden writing on par with Danielle Steele on her worst day (everybody is always seeing so much cliche emotion in the eyes of the heros). Rand was not even very original, copying objectivism from Thomas Jefferson who said it better anyway the first time. Anybody who thinks that Rand solves all problems (and combats socialism and censorship though any non-Romantism novel or movie is hated by all Objectivists I've noticed) isn't thinking about all the contradictions in her philosophy. For instance one must think on their own and be different, and yet everyone of her hero characters acts exactly the same (perhaps an example of her poor use of characterization)and their enemies never get a chance to speak, leaving out the possibility of free thought. The reader is constantly being assaulted by Rand's beliefs, never getting a chance to think differently. Objectivism has as many contradictions as the bible, with all the blind followers of it believing every word Rand ever muttered without thinking about there own philosphy of free thought and originality. Besides all of this, the novel is plotted horribly (putting in Gault's speech right in the middle of the action slows everything down and bores the reader), showing that Rand really just was a fourth rate writer with some ideas that attract certain people like moths, or perhaps lemmings, following Rand over the cliff of logic, swallowing every contradiction as fact. Admit it, even if you're a die-hard Objectivist who believes everything Rand ever said (kind of a contradiction though), Rand was a horrible Romance novelist. Read some Fabio and get the same experience.
Rating:
Summary: Weak, even for a Nietzschean
Review: Atlas Shrugged is neither a masterpiece of philosphy nor a great novel. I do not hate Ayn Rand, I just pity her and her followers, for they consider this book one of the greatest works of philosophy ever written. This is just a popular novel, and as far as philosophy is concerned, Nietzsche's philosophy on the individual remains unmatched to this day. Thanks to posterity, Atlas Shrugged and the other works of Rand will, sooner or later, fall into oblivion, for that is what happens to everything that pleases only the common herd and the pseudo-intellectuals.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great book!! I loved it and every objectivist will!!
Review: This is one of Ayn Rand's finest works. The best character is probably Ragnar Daneskjold, the genius considered to be a pirate by the people. He sinks every ship that is targeted to help people who dont pay for their help.
Rating:
Summary: Quote
Review: To those who believe that Rand is excessively extreme, I will quote her, twice. "There are two sides to any conflict, one is right and one is wrong, but the middle is always evil." "In any compromise between bread and poison the only party served can be death." If these seem vague or incorrect, I would suggest rereading the book or thinking logically. Because, after all, if you can't give reasons for your thoughts, by what right do you give your thoughts at all?
Rating:
Summary: Ayn would NOT be pleased . . .
Review: People either love this book or hate it because Rand intentionally left no middle ground. And to the very end of her life she judged everyone on earth by their reactions to her work. (She even developed a "theory" of aesthetics to justify her practices: see THE ROMANTIC MANIFESTO.) Whether or not one agrees with her is the ONLY thing that mattered to her. For Rand, people were little more than receptacles for "ideas." And the world divided very neatly into the select few who agreed with her vs. the evil majority. She would most certainly NOT have been more interested in the amount of thought and discussion that she has provoked than in the number of people who end up buying into her philosophy. In ATLAS SHRUGGED, everybody who doesn't buy into her philosophy winds up DEAD. Surely no one familiar wish Rand's work can realistically imagine her saying, "Well, the world's gone mystical-altruist-collectivist-irrationalist, but gosh, at least I provoked some interesting discussion, and that's what really counts!"
Rating:
Summary: Nothing New, Really
Review: As an anarchist opposed to capitalism (as all true anarchists are), I found Atlas Shrugged to be tedious and half-baked: sure, if the world were made up of nothing but statist liberals and "communists", there might be some truth to the assumption that either you're an individual out for yourself, or had to be a member of the "unwashed masses". But the reality is that for over a hundred years before Atlas Shrugged was written, anarchists like Peter Kropotkin, Mikhail Bakunin, Errico Malatesta, Max Stirner and others were affirming that the rights of the individul were paramount, and that even capitalists were oppressing people, not just government. This fact was lost to Rand, who saw a Bolshevik under every bed. Rather than be drawn in to the Ayn rand cult, read a book by Kropotkin, Proudhon, or even Noam Chomsky.
Rating: 
Summary: Ayn would be pleased...
Review: Suffice to say that I loved this book - the only reason it gets not the last star is that in a couple of parts - Ayn beats the reader over the head with her ideology and I found that a bit insulting. I am writing this however, to comment on the reviews written by other readers (and I know that this may be a breach of protocol here - bear with me). People either love this book or they hate it. People either agree with Ayn Rand or they disagree with her... and strongly. There is little middle ground. Her work has provoked a lot of thinking and conversing between these two camps of intelligent people. However, whether or not one agrees with her seems to matter not in this case. Simply that she has made people think about their lives and their beliefs to me is the most important hallmark of her work. She (I believe) would have been more interested in the amount of thought and discussion that she has provoked, than in the number of people who end up buying in to her philosophy. To stimulate such a great number of people to think so much about things of this importance is an incredible achievement don't you think?
Rating:
Summary: best fictional novel of the 20th century
Review: I think Atlas Shrugged was the best fictional novel of the 20th century and perhaps one of the best of all time. Rand's literary skill surpasses just about anything else I've read.
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