The Diamond Age, or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson: #tbt review

Can a book change, and maybe save, a girl’s life? What does the life of one little girl matter in a world of abundance and extreme social stratification?

Four-year-old Nell, a member of a dispossessed underclass in a world where abundance should be everybody’s birthright and education has become the scarce commodity that sets the classes apart, is dangerously ignorant. She's growing up with all the dangers and disadvantages of poverty in a world where there’s no reason for poverty to exist.  

Then she comes into possession of a wondrous stolen item. It's a technological marvel: a book that talks to her, changes itself to teach and entertain her, shapes her view of the world, and even cares about her, until she can not only survive her harsh reality, but, as she becomes a young woman, break out of it.

You've heard of smart phones? This is a smart book, and it’s meant to teach critical thinking to educated young ladies of the upper classes. But there's a person behind it; humans are hired as voice actors, and to fill in the gaps where an AI can't figure out how to respond to something. Miranda has a gig being the human voice behind these primers, and she's worried about Nell. Pretty soon her humanity starts to color the responses of Nell's primer, and that changes everything.

There’s a strong ideological statement here; the story aims to show the extent to which poverty, ignorance, and misery create the inability to rise above one’s parents’ station, rather than the other way around.

This book was my first exposure to steampunk, and my second Neal Stephenson, and I was in awe. There are so many ideas zooming around, and the world-building is so impeccable and complex, and yet Stephenson never loses sight of the human beings who make all of it matter.