![]() ![]() It's not egregious enough to ruin the story, but brace yourself accordingly for some colorful language that might hit your ears in unpleasant fashion. Fair warning for some readers: there are a number of instances (though no more than you can count on both hands) where, as you might expect in a novel about a world with extremely loose moral fabric, some very uncomfortable slurs are used in mostly casual fashion. If you go in realizing how absurd it's all going to be, you will enjoy it far more. The writing is *very* straight, and all of the humor is in the subtext, like in how the Italian mafia just operates openly as a private corporation because 'crime' doesn't exist when the entire country breaks up into privately owned micronations, or how teenaged protagonist YT is constantly sexualized by older strangers because of how morally bankrupt society has become, or how our other protagonist (named Hiro Protagonist) is an unapologetic weirdo who thinks a leather kimono and a pair of swords is the peak of chic. I think the satire angle might be missed if you go in without knowing it. There are a handful of lore dumps where Stephenson clearly wanted to show his work that dragged a bit, but the bits and pieces from them are used well and come together for an explosive, white-knuckle final third. I took my time with it and I don't regret it. I went into this novel knowing only the elevator pitch: it was a cyberpunk satire novel from the 90s. ![]()
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