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The Diamond Age cover art

The Diamond Age

By: Neal Stephenson
Narrated by: Jennifer Wiltsie
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Publisher's Summary

In Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson took science fiction to dazzling new levels. Now, in The Diamond Age, he delivers another stunning tale. Set in 21st-century Shanghai, it is the story of what happens when a state-of-the-art interactive device falls into the hands of a street urchin named Nell. Her life, and the entire future of humanity, is about to be decoded and reprogrammed.
©1995 Neal Stephenson (P)2001 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews

  • Hugo Award Winner, Best Novel, 1996

  • Locus Award Winner, Best Novel, 1996

"The Quentin Tarantino of postcyberpunk science fiction." (The Village Voice)
"[He] is the hottest science fiction writer in America." (Details)

What listeners say about The Diamond Age

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Audio quality is poor

This is one of my favourite books.
But the recording sounds poor. Like a very low bitrate.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Ken
  • 01-12-2019

Great Great story and narration, bad formatting

Story was fantastic but would have given 5 stars if it had an ending. Narration was good but was hard to get past her ridiculous pronunciation of "primer". The way the whole thing was put together was atrocious. It wasn't properly separated into chapters so there was chapters over 8 hours long. The last "chapter" was titled "End Credits" and had over an hour of story on it. Also the recording broke down into static in several places. It was wose than amateurish and I don't know how this passes quality control.

So, yes it's a great story but buyer beware.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Dr
  • 09-11-2018

Good, but not amongst Stephenson's best

This story feels like a bridge between the raw and exciting writing style of Snow Crash and the more polished Stephenson works like Cryptonomicon or Seveneves. The author's polymath ability is on display, but the premise and setting of the story require full suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader.

Jennifer Wiltsie is one of the best female narrators I've heard, but is let down by poor audio quality compared to audio books recorded in the last 5 years or so.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Original complex and engaging

I really enjoyed this book. Intelligent plot with great original worldbuilding. Interesting characters. Ideas of collectivist vs individualist cultures, class and the nature of family.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Inspiration on so many levels

In 1995 when I first read The Diamond Age - it inspired me to create a wealth of resource material for computing teachers and students. I can't thank Neal Stephenson enough for launching me into my 2nd career, and one day perhaps into a 5th career in nano tech. This audio version is wonderfully narrated by Jennifer Wiltsie, enriching Stephenson writings even further! Absolutely brilliant. Kind Regards Jennifer Elwin

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book, good narration, awkward mispronunciations

Love this book, read it multiple times and this is a highly enjoyable adaptation

However, the word "primer" is a fairly frequently used one in this story - the narrator pronouncing it as "primmer" (rhyming with "shimmer") is astonishingly distracting

All else is love

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Brilliant Stephenson completely ruined.

The audio quality is just abysmal. Copied from a cassette tape and compressed to death. The chapter tortured are wrong, more than once, the audio breaks down into static! It's just rubbish. I can't believe they charge money for this garbage copy.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Kye
  • 19-02-2021

Good story, good performance, poor formatting.

The story and narration were both enjoyable but the chapters in audible are completely wrong making it very difficult to navigate around the book.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great story - low quality audio

This was a fascinating story, yet the audio quality was not the best.
I’m guessing the recording was done a long time ago.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

interesting idea, but a bit convoluted

I liked the whole nano tech stuff and the potential for us as well as the political future. but he develops the story well and the all of a sudden wraps up all the loose ends and the story is over.

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