A stunningly good vision of the near future

I'm a huge fan of Mr Stephenson's work, so expectations were high and this book doesn't disappoint.

I love that he has brought back a cast of characters from a previous book - Cryptonomicon - and so has all of that to draw on.

Without risking suppliers, let me just say that if you ever wonder where the whole Facebook / Election interference / Fake news / Populism thing might go in future, here is one very very clever guy's take on it. Well worth a listen in my opinion.

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Voice talent excellent, story lacking

Neal Stephenson has produced some excellent material, this is good at best. It is second rate fantasy in a wrapper of SF. However it is excellently performed

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The digital afterlife

I'm pleased I took a chance on this book despite some reviews. I thought the whole digital afterlife thing was great. The narration could have been a bit more dramatic considering the topic but it was okay. I found the more I listened the deeper I got into the story.

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Should be titled 'Fail'......

Not going to give any plot spoliers but this is definitely, in my meagre opinion, one of Neals least worthy offerings.

'Fall' is the sequel to REAMDE which, alongside Cryptonomicon and Snowcrash, is one of my favourite Stephenson novels and I was fully expecting Fall to build on and enhance the REAMDE story but, for me, Fall has had exactly the opposite effect.

'Fall' dives into a theme which is genuinely fascinating and thought provoking. REAMDE might seem like a perfect launching point for Fall, especially so given the industrial might and specialisation of Corporation 9592 but it instead managed to dilute and polute what was previously a strong and engaging story into something much duller, depressing and at times downright boring.

'Fall' also tips its hat to Randy Waterhouse, Amy (America) Shaftoe and Rudolph Von Hacklheber but luckily no damage is done to to the plot of Cryptonomicon or its glorious cast of characters.

In conclusion I think 'Fall' is a bit of a lemon. Unlike the rest of Neals books, which I have listened to several times over, I walked away from it several times, almost handed it back several times and decided to continue with it several times.

I won't walk away from Neal, I enjoy his stories far too much, but I doubt I'll listen to Fall again and I fear that Reamde is ireversibly altered for me to enjoy as thoroughly as I previously did.

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1 person found this helpful

far too long

I was looking forward to this as I really enjoyed cryptonomocon and reamde and I loved seveneves but this was just over long and baggy,

the whole thing would be much improved by shortening it by about two thirds, the whole Adam and Eve thing was just pointless, I found my mind wondering during long sections and the fact that I didn't seem to miss anything important just goes to prove it is too long

Also I'm sure I'm not going to be the only one that found meat space to be more compelling and interesting than bitworld. I would love to find out how the whole Ameristan thing played out.

this is the only book by Neal I won't be revisiting

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At some point it became boring

At some point I lost interest but I got to the end. All I can think is a Twitter account called I believe "s*y future" or something like that. The idea that humanity could reach a sort of eternal life only to relive the same crap and to go at war even in this new life is really depressing.

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Longwinded, a bit obscure, bad science, religious

I had hoped for better, another Dodge adventure, but this was mediocre: a bit of bad science, a bit of myth and religion, a bit of questing, too much verbosity but no real excitement. The whole premise of transferring persona on death to a computing infrastructure simulating an evolving Eden just didn't hold scientifically. Stephenson plays lip service to the complexity and computing power required to carry out such a simulation but requires a suspension of belief too far. Having an ideal opportunity to take this new world to new places imaginatively, he falls back on known myths such as Adam and Eve, fairies and gods.

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Only half-way through and flagging

SPOILER ALERT. I love this author’s work. I reread reamde and the baroque cycle in preparation for this title. To say I was looking forward to it would be an understatement of considerable size. When Enoch Root turned up I literally cheered out loud - and I so wanted to luxuriate in a second techno thriller so carefully mapped out that I could follow the action on google earth.
In the first third there was real near-future world-building, and it was fun stuff. Now I’m locked into a boring minecraft-like universe that is going to take all my strength to get through. Can I ever read Reamde again, knowing that this is what lies ahead of those characters? Oh Neal...

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masterpiece

Neal Stephenson weaves together the baroque cycle, the cryptonomicon and remade with Neuroscience trilogy and religion. it's brilliant.

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Not a classic

I'm a huge fan of Meals work and I've written everything he's published, but unfortunately for me I found the story a little too sprawling, and the switch between one world and another too much. I loved all the classic Stephenson attention to detail and time taken to delve into certain interesting things but story wise I felt there were huge chunks of irrelevant story, and that's not his usual style. I will be reading the sequel and I may have another pop at this in the future.

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