Not much point reviewing this on Amazon - there are dozens of reviews up there, and anyway most of what I want to say refers to stuff that I've already posted (or will post) here on Vox.
It's another SF book voted as one of the best ever by New Scientist readers, and I would go along with that. Given that it was written in the early 90's it was remarkably prescient - not only about the matrix-type stuff, but also about the links between Pentacostalism. a US administration and an invasion of Iraq. On the other hand Stephenson's frequent references to video-tape show that he missed one technological revoltion that he should have seen coming, However, I'm trying to avoid writing a SPOILER here, so what I'm going to say now will only make much sense to people who have read the book.
I'm fascinated by the links to the pieces I wrote about memes and diseaes, and about Babylomian mythology (see my tags: "ishtar" and "memes"), long before I read the book, but also significantly after it appeared. It was clearly very influential among the hacking community of the 1990's and I'm sure if I had read it in say 1994, it would have shaped more directly the development of my own ideas (I suppose it could have shaped them a bit memetically!). I may never have written the pieces, or I may have written them very differently. There are also links to bits about gnosis in the soon-to-be-finished "The Smuggist Christian" - the follow up to "The Whole Truth v0" (tag: "smug") - which I will be putting up shortly.
See my review on amazon.co.uk.
On the other hand, It was lent to me by a friend, so I can't complain.
Once again, I've put up the audio book, because it has the cover of the edition that I read (which still has the bookstore sticker saying 95p, which shows how long ago my wife bought it.)
I actually disagree with Conrad's conclusions about evil, and the human condition, but the book is beautifully written, short and thought provoking.
Good title. Apparently it's a quote from Heine - must look it up in German*. Pretty good book too. It doesn't have to bee so much of a rip-off of GRR Martin, because the scene setting was done in volume 1, so he can get on with developing his characters here. The problem is (and it's the same with Ice and Fire) that the individual volumes aren't really novels in themselves - you would need to have read the whole series to make a serious judgement. Which means that the author has to have a conclusion in mind. Tolkein and Rowling clearly did, but it looks as though GRRM doesn't, as he can't be bothered finishing his latest volume, so let's hope Joe Abercrombie doesn't go the same way.
* Have done. It's "Man sollte seinen Feinden verzeihen, aber nicht, bevor sie am Galgen (gallows) hängen."
