Cobweb

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View books by Neal Stephenson, Frederick George.

Pacy and engrossing - Rated
Cobweb suffers a little from history, as it was written during the first Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons were a real issue. Reading about them as a genuine fear, feels slightly awkward in 2007.

It is a testament to the authors that they manage to hold the reader nonetheless, with interesting characters, and a nice dry, cynical wit.

The story is sufficiently complicated to keep you guessing, and sufficiently clear that you can anticipate some of the moves (always makes me feel smug and clever when that happens).

Highly recommended for lovers of detective stories.

An oldie dusted off for new fans of Stephenson... - Rated
Like another reviewer I was surprised not to have seen this book before; I thoroughly enjoyed Cryptonomicon though I must admit the Baroque Cycle bored and defeated me! However a quick search on Wikipedia reveals that this is actually a reprint of a book originally published in 1996 under Stephenson's pseudonum, "Stephen Bury" as "The Cobweb".

Anyway.

A highly enjoyable, page-turning thriller about a conspiracy to develop chemical weapons in the US during the events leading up to the first Gulf war. I know now we're all ever so jaded about "WMD" but at the time they were a very real and very plausible threat.

Ever the enemy of cliche, the heroes in this book are not strong-jawed tautly-muscled ubermenschen but just normal run-of-the-mill people; one of whom happens to work for the CIA and one of whom happens to be a somewhat unsuccessful deputy sheriff in a small town in rural America. As is often the case in Stephenson's books, quick wit, subtlety, and discipline win out over brute strength and violence (a bit like MacGyver really...).


In terms of his other works this book is most similar to "Interface", which was also co-written by Frederick George and shares that books scepticism about the intentions of those with governmental power. Stephenson excels at setting up compelling, parallel strands to a story that flirt with one another and reward the reader for noticing the links; they're rarely spelled out and unlike, say Dan Brown's work, the book is light on exposition. As one of his earlier works Stephenson only gives us two parallel threads to keep in mind, as opposed to the much more difficult Cryptonomicon which doesn't just have different threads but different decades to remember!

One thing that did confuse me slightly was the cover blurb describes it as a "wickedly satirical thriller of modern america". I didn't really find it all that satirical but enjoyed it very much nevertheless.

Great - Rated
I was surprised to see this book around as I thought I had read all of Stephenson's stuff. This was a great story, a real page turner. I thought it was let down (only very slightly I might add) with a couple of bits which seemed to fal into the "I haven't mentioned this before but I'll chuck it in now as it gets me out of a tight situation".

The plot was well thought out and slotted together very nicely and, unlike a few of Stephenson's books, the ending isn't a let down. I know he has a tendency to rush an ending but it didn;t seem like he did it this time.

If you liked Interface you will like this. It's easier to read than Cryptonomicon and far, far lighter than the Baroque Cycle, but Stephenson still manages to work his genious on a smaller stage.