TCWriter

This was a thriller with almost no real sci-fi component (not that there's anything wrong with that). That said, I didn't love this book; the narrative was epic in scope, but not quite coherent enough to get me to believe it. Still, it's a fun read -- if you're a fan of Stephenson's writing style, which is not compact. In fact, at several points in the latter half of the book I found myself rolling my eyes during one of his frequent digressions; I was tired of the delay, and ultimately caught myself simply wanting the book to end. One note; Stephenson focuses on the firearms in the book (the book involves terrorists, operatives and survivalist-style American groups, so no surprise), but he needs a better fact checker. He wrongly keeps calling ammunition magazines "clips" and at one point suggests some thirty feet away from a 12 gauge shotgun was outside its lethal range (dead wrong). I read the ebook version (Google eBooks via Powells) and though the formatting could have been better (especially nice would have been one-line breaks between sections). Ultimately, this feels a lot like a Clancy style technothriller with a pinch of near-future sci-fi thrown in -- but written in a looser style than Clancy's. It was fun, but dragged on, and I prefer a more compact writing style.