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Fall; or, Dodge in Hell cover art

Fall; or, Dodge in Hell

By: Neal Stephenson
Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
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Publisher's Summary

A New York Times Notable Book

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Seveneves, Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon returns with a wildly inventive and entertaining science fiction thriller - Paradise Lost by way of Philip K. Dick - that unfolds in the near future, in parallel worlds.

In his youth, Richard “Dodge” Forthrast founded Corporation 9592, a gaming company that made him a multibillionaire. Now in his middle years, Dodge appreciates his comfortable, unencumbered life, managing his myriad business interests, and spending time with his beloved niece Zula and her young daughter, Sophia. 

One beautiful autumn day, while he undergoes a routine medical procedure, something goes irrevocably wrong. Dodge is pronounced brain dead and put on life support, leaving his stunned family and close friends with difficult decisions. Long ago, when a much younger Dodge drew up his will, he directed that his body be given to a cryonics company now owned by enigmatic tech entrepreneur Elmo Shepherd. Legally bound to follow the directive despite their misgivings, Dodge’s family has his brain scanned and its data structures uploaded and stored in the cloud, until it can eventually be revived. 

In the coming years, technology allows Dodge’s brain to be turned back on. It is an achievement that is nothing less than the disruption of death itself. An eternal afterlife - the Bitworld - is created, in which humans continue to exist as digital souls. 

But this brave new immortal world is not the Utopia it might first seem... 

Fall, or Dodge in Hell is pure, unadulterated fun: a grand drama of analog and digital, man and machine, angels and demons, gods and followers, the finite and the eternal. In this exhilarating epic, Neal Stephenson raises profound existential questions and touches on the revolutionary breakthroughs that are transforming our future. Combining the technological, philosophical, and spiritual in one grand myth, he delivers a mind-blowing speculative literary saga for the modern age.

©2019 Neal Stephenson (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved

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Don't Bother

TL:DR
Neal Stephenson, you've gotten away with a lot of crap writing because there has previously been enough redeeming elements that have made your work worth reading and even elevated you to great heights in the cultural pantheon (*wink*), but I'm calling you out on this novel. It's bad. Do better.

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Usually I'd say I'm a fan of Neal Stephenson and I'd recommend some of his other works, like Seveneves, as worth reading overall, despite some major flaws. But in this case I feel obliged to warn other people not to waste their time with Fall.

I didn't end up finishing it. I *very* rarely start a book without finishing it and I've never abandoned a book after getting more than half way through it, but I'd been trudging through without joy for hours already and when I saw that I still had over 7hrs left to go I just couldn't go on.

The performance is fine: pretty good in some parts, pretty bad in others (I was personally offended by the "Australian" accent). So I'm focusing my critique on Mr Stephenson (and his editors).

Now, I can't fault Stephenson for writing from a male point-of-view. He is a man and he has the right to write as such. But when he attempts to write from a female perspective I have to give the feedback that he does not do a good job.

Far worse than his lack lustre embodiment of women is his frankly egregious preoccupation with binary gender and heteronormativity. I actually found it sickening how obsessed he seems with the idea that "souls" would not only have a (binary) gender to start with, but that they would express that through appearance and behaviour in "traditional" ways such as females manifesting long hair and doing "crafts" while males have short hair and forge weapons.

When he describes a transgender person's "soul" as constantly switching between male and female at a whim I actually had to pause the book and take my headphones off for a moment.

Now, there's certainly a very interesting philosophical discussion to be had about what gender and sexuality mean to a person if they were boiled right down to their "soul", but Stephenson never explored anything in this space. Binary gender was assumed, heterosexuality was inevitable (to the point where incest is just a normal thing, apparently).

And here we have what my biggest criticism of this book really is: there are so many extremely interesting concepts touched upon in this book but none of them are explored satisfactorily (read: at all).

The first third(ish) of the book is the strongest. There's a pretty rudimentary discussion of the concept of consciousness and you'd think this would be the primary premise of the whole novel, right? What are "you", do you die every night when you fall unconscious during sleep, are you a new person each day, are you the sum of all your memories, are you "you" if you have no memory, and so on. And for a split second it seems like this is going to be the discussion, but then there's a whole lot of something else and then, again, for a moment it seems like that concept is going to be picked up and explored but then it just... isn't.

Also a strong plus at the start(ish) of the book are the ideas about social media, "post-truth", what to believe and so on. But after kicking off the discussion with an interesting scenario he immediately drops the whole thing and jumps ahead in time/

There's a fantastic scene in there about Ameristan and it's probably my favourite part of the book. But it seems completely pointless in the context of this novel.

Stephenson seems to have wanted religion to be the main theme, specifically Judeo-Christian ideology, but apart from the great Ameristan chapter he completely fails to say anything of interest on this topic. At the start of the book the main character, Dodge, is reading books about Norse and Greek mythology and there's a few "cameos" from those throughout but that's about the depth of it. Yeh, I get the whole Greek gods vs Titans scenario he plays out in bitworld but I don't think retelling a story is the same thing as exploring it. I would've been interested if Stephenson had asked questions about what these old stories tell us about the people who told them and believed in them and therefore what they can tell us about humanity that endures through the centuries. But, nah, instead he just spends mind numbing chapters having his numerous and mostly pointless characters roleplay Greek mythology and Judeo-Christian creationist stories WITHOUT insight, fresh perspective or critical examination.

I get the feeling Stephenson THINKS he was saying a lot more than he is. Maybe he believes he did have interesting and valuable contributions to some of the big topics in modern conversation in this novel. But...

Yes, this was a rant. I've certainly read bad books before, and usually I just get to the end, remove it from my library and just forget about it. But in this case I felt compelled to not only leave a negative rating but to also write out some kind of warning to plead with people not to waste their time on this book.

If you made it all the way to the end, thank you so much for your time. I sincerely hope you pick a different novel to enjoy today.

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dull dull dull

dull dull dull dull dull with some big ideas that dont get fully developed. Definately not Stephensons best book.

refund time.

The review by Bronwen above is excellent and says it all, and is well worth reading. I wish I had written that.

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disappointing

I have read several of Neal Stephenson's books and have lked all of them...until this one...The beginning of the book is great. But the frst third of the story does not have much relevance for the rest of the storyline. Sofia's travels through Ameristan have no bearing on the remainder of the story. After that "meat space" related things become boring and only relate to what is happening in "bit world". The bit world is unimaginative and frankly, I don't understand why it's possible to just create a house, but not a TV, or tablet, car, etc. Just because I know that someone makes them, I personally just go into a shop and buy these things. It would not upset my worldview if there wasn't a complete chain of supplies for items. It simply doesn't make sense to me that modern day people imagine themselves to be in a medieval type setting...
so...I am sorry to say, that I didn't like this book at all...

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Tedious

The last good book I read by this author was Anathem. Since then he seems to have lost his way by forgetting how to tell a succinct compelling story.

Some good concepts and an interesting reveal for one of his most used characters. However the interesting aspects are glossed over and instead the story descends into a long drawn out mix of fantasy world mixed with ancient myth that is depressing to listen to.
Good if you need to something to put you to sleep.

By the end I'd lost track of who the characters were and I really didn't care.

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What happened?

Neil Stephenson is one of my top sci-fi writers, but this book is awful.

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An hour of good story in a few days of book.

Felt like a chore to finish. A few good ideas diluted with a whole lot of blah so that after a while I just didn't care about any of the characters.

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could bring myself to finish it

I'm a huge fan of Stephenson. This book even starts well but about half way through it starts drifting off into aimless irrelevance and after 3-4 hours of that, for the first time ever, I have up on one of my favourite authors.

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  • 14-11-2020

Great book, terrible Australian accent

Like all of Stephenson's work, this is exceptional. Going into any aspect of the work would ruin many of the surprises in store, however, so I'll say as little as possible.

The Australian accent attempted by the narrator for one of the characters, however, was abysmal.

Valiant attempt, but please don't do that again. Just say they're Australian and we'll fill in the blanks.

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Not great

struggled to finish, good ideas but the main plot stretched out for far too long

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Disappointing!

Couldn't listen beyond chapter 2. Highbrow rambling about nothing! Narration was good. Save your money

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