The Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson

Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash was undoubtedly one of the sci-fi books of 90's, and personally I consider it to be maybe the best cyber punk book out there. However I burned my hands on Cryptonomicon few years after Snow Crash - one of the few books I've started but never finished... I know some people love it but I just couldn't keep up with the numerous storylines, timeliness and characters... My biggest disappointment probably was though that I was expecting it to be sci-fi which it isn't. Of course that my fault there - I like to read my books so that I know next to nothing about them in advance and it usually works... unfortunately not so in the case of Cryptonomicon.

In any case, it put me off Stephenson for... well, years. He does get a lot of praise though so I decided to give him a second chance and queued up The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer for my iPod which I find a perfect media for books I might (or I'm afraid I might) otherwise get tired of. The book is read by Jennifer Wiltsie and she is one of the best narrators I have come across so far - I was initially put of by a female narrator, but since the main character is actually a small girl it works very well. She really got into the characters and clearly "got" their internal logic and emotions - the scene where Miranda is trying to get Nell to leave her house because of the mortal danger the little girl doesn't (want to) understand must be one of the most intensive scenes I heard - and if I had been, say, driving a car I would have surely crashed as she really could make me forget about anything else.

The Diamond Age takes place in Snow Crash universe numerous years later, and even shares a minor character. Nation states are dead, replaced by tribes - the major ones being Han (Han Chinese), the Neo-Victorians (mainly Anglo-Saxons, but also others who identify with the culture), and Nippon (Japanese). In the world where nanotechnology can be used to make anything, the question is not so much what can be done with it - but what should, and anything hand-made is valued above all. Most of the book's events happen on mainland China - but it gets points from me for the major events in Vancouver, in fact a stone throws away from us in Stanley Park. The main character is a small girl called Nell who happens to come to possession of an interactive book meant for a Neo-Victorian small girl called Young Lady's Illustrated Primer that is intended to guide the girl through life and raise her beyond her glass ceiling. Back story includes some social commentary about the struggle of power between East and West, and follows some minor characters who are struggling to understand what's going on. Nell's story is very much one of survival against all odds - she comes from very poor conditions, with a single mother who doesn't want her children or the responsibility and her string aggressive boyfriends who use their fists to rule.

I get a big kick out of the world this novel takes place in. I love the sci-fi elements with the nanotechnology, and I really appreciate Stephenson's cultural knowledge and understanding when describing the Chinese characters (I wish Orson Scott Card had some of his finesse). But despite the sci-fi backdrop, it's most of all book about people. Nell (and as a lesser character, Miranda) must be one of the best female characters as written by a man and her story is truly captivating. The Primer has been written very cleverly into the the main story and although it at times feels like it's irrelevant - it never is in the end, and the stories are always fascinating. If I have one gripe about the book it's the ending that kind of just happens - but it can be argued that the issues raised can't really be solved and happy ending just wouldn't have been right. There are changes - but they rarely are exclusively either good or bad.

Well done, excellent book. Neil Stephenson is in my good books again.

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