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The Diamond Age

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The Diamond Age

By: Neal Stephenson
Narrated by: Jennifer Wiltsie
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About this listen

 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. Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Fiction Cyberpunk China

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)
All stars
Most relevant
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.

Good, but not amongst Stephenson's best

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

Good story, good performance, poor formatting.

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loved it, I was enthralled for many hours listening to the Audio version of this book while driving. Full of interesting tech and predictions of an enchanting and scary future.
At first I found the readers voice to be an odd match with the subject matter, but it soon became evident the Jennifer was a perfect match for this book.
Highly recommended

Really interesting book, like every by Stephenson

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could have used a good edit
performance was fine but sound quality was terrible
overall it was fine but not amazing

good story but drags in places

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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.

interesting idea, but a bit convoluted

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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

Inspiration on so many levels

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Hoo-wee. This was quite the experience. The themes are extreme, visceral and sometimes particularly graphic in the storytelling. The coming of age of quite a few characters are exceptionally told. 4 stars for everything because I found myself skipping forward over a few parts, and the audio quality was surprisingly inferior to other productions available. Jennifer Wiltsie however did a mindblowingly fantastic job at performing this, and I would give ten stars for performance specifically.

Be prepared to feel very strange and somewhat melancholic when thinking back on everything that happened in this story. I didn't feel negatively, but it certainly had my mind spinning and working hard to process the sheer volume of things that happened, which I think perhaps was Neal Stephenson's goal, or at least one of them.

Heavy stuff.

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if you like me have been searching for a female driven sci-fi this is the ticket

amazing !!!!!!!

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brilliant book. I've read it many times, but also a pleasure to listen to this very good reading.

one of Neal's best

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Beautifully written in blend of classical english, current colloquialism and invented words fused of terms that are obvious in meaning and give life to the futuristic content.

One of Neal Stephenson's finest visionary Scifi

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