The Big U

Neal Stephenson

Oct 2009 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this eBook

The New York Times Book Review called Neal Stephenson's most recent novel "electrifying" and "hilarious".  but if you want to know Stephenson was doing twenty years before he wrote the epic Cryptonomicon, it's back-to-school time. Back to The Big U, that is, a hilarious send-up of American college life starring after years our of print, The Big U is required reading for anyone interested in the early work of this singular writer.

Ratings and reviews

To hear Wikipedia tell it, author Neal Stephenson was ashamed of this book. It was his first novel, written in 1984, and when Stephenson hit the big time it was a natural choice for the publisher to bring it back into print. Stephenson refused until he saw that copies were selling for hundreds of dollars on eBay. "[T]he only thing worse than people reading the book was paying that much to read it." If you're a Stephenson fan, read it. Yes, it's raw, but the genius of his later books shows through. The rawness is in plot and character -- not in writing -- so even though the book doesn't measure up to his later work, it's still a pleasant experience. The book reads like a cross between Tom Sharpe's "Wilt" novels and Stanislaw Lem. Specifically, the Wilt pattern of normal people reacting to strange events blossoming out of control -- and, like Wilt, at a university -- combined with Lem's absurdist-bureaucrat esthetic. Plus giant rats and a live action role player obsessed with them. And if you live in Boston, you'll never look at the Citgo sign the same way again.

Found this interesting mainly because I was trying to decide if it had anything to do with Boston.

About the author

Neal Stephenson is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the novels Termination Shock, Fall; or, Dodge in Hell, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (with Nicole Galland), Seveneves, Reamde, Anathem, The System of the World, The Confusion, Quicksilver, Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, Zodiac, and the groundbreaking nonfiction work In the Beginning...Was the Command Line. He lives in Seattle, Washington.