News You Can Bruise for 2006 May 26 (entry 0)

(2) Fri May 26 2006 08:05 PST The Big U: Neal Stephenson says people shouldn't buy The Big U. I bought it anyway (it was at the used bookstore for $3). Sumana said I shouldn't read it. I read it anyway. I can see why Stephenson doesn't want people to buy it, but it was pretty fun. It reminded me a lot of a Gordon Korman novel (cue more anger from Sumana), only much more violent. I liked the brain reprogramming mechanism a lot better than the one in Snow Crash. The main problem was the extreme heavy-handedness. I think it would work well as a "young adult" novel a la Korman; I remember heavy-handed satire working better on me when I was a "young adult". Now, I can only find solace in the opiate of scare quotes.

Comments:

Posted by Adam G at Fri May 26 2006 13:50

It had an ending, though! A rather satisfying one, I thought, at the time I read it.

Posted by Leonard at Fri May 26 2006 15:27

Yes, definitely a book where "blow something up" works as an ending.