Submitted by Christopher Ware (May 15, 2001)When I picked up this book, I was hoping that it wasn't as confusing and as hard to follow as William Gibson's Neuromancer. I was pleasantly engaged by the first half of the book. Wonderful world building, attention to detail, and captivating characters. Unfortunately, it went downhill from there. After the halfway point, the book lost what little semblance of a plot it had to begin with. There seemed to be no motivation behind the characters actions. We seem to just be looking in on segments of peoples' lives with no ultimate goal in mind. At the end, there was no climax and no resolution. It was as if Mr. Stephenson couldn't figure out how to finish the book and so just stopped writing at the end of a random chapter. I finished the last page and, literally, asked myself, "What the hell was that! " I felt like Mr. Stephenson had just wasted 8 hours of my life. What a disappointment!
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