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The Diamond Age cover art

The Diamond Age

Written 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.

What the critics say

  • 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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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

this amazing book must be re-recorded

what more can i say? it's a great book. this recording is, by contemporary standards, garbage.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting but weird end

Just like all of Neal’s books, he builds these elaborate set ups that somehow culminate into a collision of multiple different characters meeting up into an epic action movie sequence. The premise was definitely a slow build up for what I thought was a crazy turn of events. Totally recommend it if you can get through some otherwise slow plots.

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

Amazing.

One of my favourite books brought to life by a lovely and subtle performance.

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

better than I remembered. . . .

And "Fiona" was the code name used by the developers of the first Kindle. Epic.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great book - bad recording with audio glitches

I'm 14h through the book right now. The book is great - typical Neal : separate stories converging in a masterful way.

However, at around the 13h mark, the audio becomes really hit or miss. Every couple of minutes, you get some weird corruption / compression artifact. I've deleted the content and redownloaded, Switched to high quality, to no avail.

I've just reached out to Audible to hopefully fix that or get a refund because now I'm missing critical plot points every 3-4 minutes.

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

So good

Really good story that makes you think and examine the world like good sci-fi should.

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