I couldn't finish this book. I kept waiting to be somehow brought into it, but it was a chore the whole way. With 150 or so pages left, which is nothing in the scheme of things, I gave up.
Maybe it was the wrong way to start with Neil Stephenson. While reading this book, I had furious resentment that I wanted to write uot. Now, though, I now can't even remember enough to really begin. So, we'll leave it at me having a blah, unfinished brick on my bookshelf.