The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (4 stars)

In The Diamond Age, Stephenson builds a fantastic world full of nano machines. The technology dominates all aspects of life: almost everything people need is built by a household matter compiler (think Star Trek replicator, or a really advanced version of current 3D printing).

The matter compiler in the corner of the kitchen came on automatically and began to create a pedomotive for Hackworth to take to work.

But it isn't all happy-useful machines. Advertising pervades almost everything, and humanity has split up into various tribes "phyles", largely along racial and socio-economic lines.

...it was rumored that hackers for big media companies had figured out a way to get through the defenses that were built into such systems, and run junk advertisements in your peripheral vision (or even spang in the fucking middle) all the time—even when your eyes were closed. Bud knew a guy like that who'd somehow gotten infected with a meme that ran advertisements for roach motels, in Hindi, superimposed on the bottom right-hand corner of his visual field, twenty-four hours a day, until the guy whacked himself.

Sounds exactly right. And there's something great about reading a novel written by a computer scientist, so many in-jokes and clever ways of describing how computers work. "Castle Turing" may be the most surreal way to learn low-level programming I've ever imagined.

...the language, which was extremely pithy and made heavy use of parentheses

In fact the majority of the novel is devoted to the description of how a young girl in poverty uses education gained from an incredibly advanced textbook "YOUNG LADY'S ILLUSTRATED PRIMER a Propædeutic Enchiridion in which is told the tale of Princess Nell and her various friends, kin, associates.." to escape a dangerous home environment and drag herself out of poverty and into a position of power.

Nell is a wonderful character, and in fact this book was recommended to me as an example of a strong female lead character, of which I have encountered very few but want to find more of to recommend to my daughter.

Nell's early life is scary and full of danger. Her escape from her family was intense, and an excellent read. As a reader you desperately want Nell to succeed.

There are many other characters that are well fleshed out, but some are unceremoniously dropped without any real explanation (e.g. Judge Fang). And others I expected to play a larger role but never do (Miranda).

Something about describing the Seattle area like this with "software khans" I found very cute:

Much of the Seattle area was still sufficiently rich, civilized, and polite that New Atlantans did not object to living there, and little Victorian mini-claves were scattered about the place, particularly east of the lake, around the misty forest domains of the software khans

Things get surreal when the Drummers enter the story. It started to read like Being John Malkovich meets Eyes Wide Shut:

Hackworth notes that all of them have erections, sheathed in brightly colored mediatronic condoms

The ending is just...terrible. I thought the concept was fine, the execution was just no good. Really rushed. Stephenson uses just a dozen pages to describe a war involving thousands of people that completely changes the entire world, which is completely inadequate when viewed in the light of the hundreds of pages he spent building the world and creating much less important plot threads.

But, ending aside, it's a great read. Here's my favourite quote:

The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.

4 stars.