Title: Zodiac Pdf
Meet Sangamon Taylor, a New Age Sam Spade who sports a wet suit instead of a trench coat and prefers Jolt from the can to Scotch on the rocks. He knows about chemical sludge the way he knows about evil—all too intimately. And the toxic trail he follows leads to some high and foul places. Before long Taylor’s house is bombed, his every move followed, he’s adopted by reservation Indians, moves onto the FBI’s most wanted list, makes up with his girlfriend, and plays a starring role in the near-assassination of a presidential candidate. Closing the case with the aid of his burnout roommate, his tofu-eating comrades, three major networks, and a range of unconventional weaponry, Sangamon Taylor pulls off the most startling caper in Boston Harbor since the Tea Party.
“[Stephenson] captures the nuance and the rhythm of the new world so perfectly that one almost thinks that it is already here.” —The Washington Post
A Fast Boat Trip Through Environmentalism and Human Greed There is some serious chemistry discussed, but the context allows for clear explanations of the bits you have to understand to follow the story. I had clear pictures of all of the scenes in my mind, despite never having visited Boston. The character were very human, with all of the good and bad aspects and decisions that goes with that. When a character misses an obvious shortcut to the solution, you know it's because of their personality, not a cheap plot device.An Okay Read But Too Long The author really knows his stuff....the chemistry of toxic waste and what happens when it is spewed into a harbor, specifically Boston Harbor. The story concerns a twenty-something, Sangamon Taylor (S.T.), who works for a non-violent, non-government environmental association (think Greenpeace). He seems to spend most of his time, at least at first, cruising Boston Harbor in his Zodiac, an inflatable boat, and diving in a homemade diving suit. This is so he can scoop up (sometimes into old peanut butter jars) proof that local corporations dump toxic waste into the sewers which in turn dump it into the Boston Harbor. As S.T. is tooling around in his Zodiac and collecting his samples, he lectures the reader ad nauseam on the chemistry and evils of environmental pollution. Parts of that are brilliant but many parts are plain boring. This book is my first foray into eco-thriller novels, and I am sorry to say that I'm not terribly impressed. S.T. himself would not be my first choice for a good guy protagonist: his language is, at times, disgusting, and his idea of relaxation is breathing Nitrous Oxide, or ingesting tabs of LSD that he keeps in his wallet. He's rude and ignorant to his some-time girlfriend and describes himself, seemingly accurately, as an *-hole. So there's that. The actual plot of the story is put together well, and very clever. I tried to like it but S.T. kept getting in my way. Also, it was far too long, and took me more than 9 hours to read....seemed like a long time since I was annoyed for much of it. I did learn some chemistry and was pleased when then bad guys finally got their just rewards. But I was more pleased that the novel had come to an end. At last.This is why we can't have nice things I got because I had read Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash and loved them both, even though they were very different. I didn't realize that this is a very old early work of his and it isn't quite as good. His writing has definitely improved since then.It's not BAD, though. Just not as good as I expected.The book is set in (I'm guessing) around the early 90s. There are payphones, answering machines use cassette tape, and hybrid cars don't seem to exist yet. So there's a bit of a mind bender in that it's sort of sci-fi set in the past. The genre is SciFi, but it's of that subset of SciFi that's really mundane-fi with a lot of science added on. In some ways that makes it more "pure" SciFi than the rest, but in another way it's almost not really SciFi at all. So bear that in mind if that's something that matters to you. The science in this case is biology, chemistry, and environmental science. And it's realistic science, or seemed so to me. Dumbed down for civilians, of course. Other reviewers have claimed it was error ridden, but I didn't see it. The writing style reminds me somewhat of a less focused William Gibson.The book is only 300 pages, but it feels much longer. It's a little preachy, and long-winded at times, but I never felt inclined to skip ahead. So it mostly works. I think it would have been better if it were shorter but I'm not too sure what parts would be the extra so it's hard to say for sure.The plot is okay, but just okay. It's kind of a plodder, they just keep doing the same thing over and over until they finally get it right. But there's conflict and action, and even (possibly fake) Mafia hitmen and Satan worshipping teenage psychopaths and other random stressors that make it seem new most of the time.I've never been to Boston, so I can't say how accurate the descriptions are. They certainly weren't detailed enough that I feel I know the city any better now than before. For a SciFi novel it was actually remarkably dry of imagery. (And that's a bad pun considering that half the book takes place on water).Overall I'd say I can recommend it only with serious reservations. If you're already a Stephenson fan then it is worth getting to round out your collection. But if you're new to this author then read his other stuff first.
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