What do You think about Interface (2005)?
Entertaining book that captures the socio-political zeitgeist of the USA for the last ten years.For me, this book falls into the "mainstream fiction" category; a category of books that I don't often read. And with this expectation I embarked upon this novel and have been enjoying the mind candy aspect. But throughout this book I often found myself chuckling at the so very true social commentary. Great entertainment and great gallows humor as we all get to experience the decline of American civilization.UPDATE: Just finished this book; it was a lot better than I thought it would be. I liked the ending and the many eery parallels to current reality. Written in 1994, it seem so appropriate for today's political struggle between the few who believe in liberty and the status quo that believes in control and tyranny. Recommended.
—Mad Russian the Traveller
I have mixed feelings about this one. I've never before read any Stephenson, and this book was given to me as a gift. I think the behind-the-scenes look at politics was interesting, and the sci-fi / technology bend carried it along. However, I thought that the book was very slow to start, and took a long time to get to where it was going. Things finally picked up by the very end, but then the story finished rather quickly and abruptly. As far as structure and pacing goes, I think things could be a lot better.Stephenson has an interesting style as an author. He tries a fair bit of humor, some which of was entertaining, and some of which, while fairly witty, I just didn't think was all that funny. One thing I did appreciate about his style is that he didn't leave unanswered questions linger for very long. He was quick to provide answers and not force the reader to dwell on things for too long. The problem, again, is that the pace is just a little bit too slow for my tastes. I'm not sure how this book compares Stephenson's other novels, and I'm not sure what how much the co-author contributed to the actual writing. All in all, I'm glad I read the book. I hope that most of this book isn't true, because it would confirm my darkest fears about the political process and presidential elections.
—Matt Hartzell
I liked the writing style of Interface a lot, the book was a fast read. Many scenes were constructed very well and I really liked how evocatively the writer(s) managed to describe many seemingly mundane things and actions. The science was acceptable to me and, being a avid follower of politics and a political history geek, I also enjoyed the theme. The plot did have some plausibility problems, especially towards the end.But what really irked me was the pacing of the book: out of a novel of six hundred pages, about 450 were devoted to setting up the stage, while the action in the latter part of the book seemed to happen out of the blue, with inadequately explained consequences for the characters. There were too many point-of-view characters and while some were quite interesting, not all of them were sufficiently fleshed out.Despite the big negatives, I gave Interface 3 stars, mostly due to the writing style. This was the first Neal Stephenson book for me and I think I'm intrigued enough to try and read his most acclaimed works in the future.
—Tuomas
