Zodiac

I love this book, and this audio production is great! Funny and scary and engrossing. One little bitty caveat: a couple words are not pronounced in the true local Boston fashion. For example, 'route' is pronounced to rhyme with 'stout,' rather than sounding like 'root,' the way we say it here. And the town of 'Natick' is pronounced to rhyme with 'static,' rather than as a slant rhyme for 'jaded.' Since I grew up near Natick, this kind of makes me itch every time I hear it. And the townie accents are close, but not perfect. But that's minor. This is a great performance of a great book, and I would love to hear more by Ax Norman. And when I look out my back window at Boston Harbor -hahhhbuh as it sounds here, I wish I could see S.T. in his zode.

I've read most of Neal Stephensons books now after being introduced to "Snow Crash" by a friend. This is one of Neal's earlier books, but if you like his works then this is a definite. The whole book is written first person.. almost a prose. An intelligent, stimulating read (listen) without the pseudo intellectualism we get from many writers these days. I wish I discovered this author a long time ago.

I first encountered Neal Stephenson when I read Snowcrash (highly recommended)and I was impressed. I then read Cryptonomicon (highly recommended) and am a fan for life. Zodiac is an earlier work, slightly less well written but nonetheless very entertaining. Stephenon's science background shows throughout and makes his story all the more engrossing. As is always the case with Stephenson the story is a mixture of clever and intelligent plot with Gonzo elements. He is sometimes a little gross but that's just part of the fun.

The narrator does a good job and I found him easy to listen to.

yes. I enjoyed the story; the jokes.

yes, it did. I found it interesting. I don't have an aversion to chemistry, so i found it interesting and 'educational'; the story itself is interesting and unpredictable.

any that contains a sarcastic remark by the main character. Hilarious.

not really.

i enjoyed the performance of the narrator. Very nicely done. It fit the mold of the main character.

This story makes you more aware of the dangers we unwittingly face with corporations that do pretty much whatever they like. I only hope we have a chance. Neal Stephenson has delivered again.

I think this book will make a great movie one day -- and it will probably make alot more sense to me then. But until then, I'm leaving this on my (imaginary) 'why did I buy this book' pile.
Its not that well written. It took me a good 2 hours (at least) to get 'into' the book. I did learn alot about scientific stuff (specifically chemicals) and how they affect the environment/water. It does have action in it, some suspense, alot of the main character's thoughts.

I liked the characters. I liked the plot IDEA, but it did not keep me involved (especially at the beginning). On a desert island, it would be an adequate book to read, but I think that there are other books out there that deserve your $$/credits more.

As pollution of the earth is still an actual issue, this book is current. Fast paced main character is certainly entertaining. Given the tactics and the way people communicate, one can date the book to be less recent (e.g. No cell phones etc) . This does not spoil the fun. Wel read and I do urge you to listen to it.

Damn Good Book

There are serveral it was a good mix of Boston Humor, some of which you really have to be from here to get.

No

Yes

There is one glaring production flaw. If the manin character is from Boston and the narration is first person I would have expected proper regional pronunciations of words. I don't mean Boson/Mass accents, a few characters use them and the narrator gets them mostly correct. However at one point the story moves to Natick. When the name of this city comes up it JUST HURTS my ears. The name is said as

I grew up in Massachusetts, and the guy who read this book needs a quick lesson. Route 128 is pronounced like "root" not like "rowte", and the "a" Natick is pronounced like in "ate" not like "at".

It is a wonderfully fun book and a great reading in general, but when you get to these words and mess them up so thoroughly, especially in a book which centres on the city, it ruins the experience for me.

Toxic Philip Marlowe.

It's hard to like any other character than S.T. in the book as it's told first person. That said, the character is a bit of an a**. But a funny one -- scrappy, too smart for his own good, egotistical, flawed, and almost always right. Or possibly always almost right.

The narration for this book was SO BAD I had a hard time listening to it for more than 20 minutes at a time. The narrator. Simply. Did not know. How to use. Punctuation. Very odd inflection patterns that added no meaning whatsoever to the sentences. It baffles me that this guy was actually hired to do this, and has probably done a lot of other books as well. I actually had to rewind a few times to make sure I got the meaning clear, and I have read this book myself at least 5 times. It was so irritating, I actually considered narrating the book myself and making my own personal recording to listen to. It's a real shame, too, because the book is terrific.

Not really a "moves you" kind of book. More exciting stuff, with good chase scenes (the Zodiac/Cigarette chase through nighttime Boston Harbor is a standout) and more than usual brain candy for what amounts to a noir-styled crime thriller. Also, having lived in Boston and its environs for several years, I enjoyed his detailed knowledge of the location, descriptions of the neighborhoods, and use of the geography to illustrate points or move the story along.

This is early Neal Stephenson, and it lacks what many fans of his work now seem to expect: a BIG IDEA that the story explains and works through as it progresses. It's true that his best books take unlikely ideas for novels (code-breaking, rational thought processes/logic + quantum manipulation of personal narratives, information propagation, virtual reality, a complex children's book/toy) and turn them into compelling and somehow edifying stories. However, this book feels just as "Stephensonian" to me as his later, more complex works, because it is at its root about someone who knows and understands something that other people don't. This person then acts in what to them is a totally rational way because of that knowledge, but seems crazy to other people. The thing is, what this person knows is usually something very geeky and specific having to do with something scientific in nature or related to how information is transmitted (codes, the internet, global shipping systems, etc.). In other words, this person has special knowledge because he or she has a *different way of knowing* than everybody else. Every Neal Stephenson novel has one or more characters like that at its core. Zodiac is no different.