Gripping; I read it in three days. But sooo technical in tone. Which is typical Stephenson, and matches the climate-tech theme well (it felt hugely inspired by Ministry for the Future), but also meant that I was often skimming past words or even paragraphs. The gripping part, when Stephenson managed to advance it, was the plot.

I also will say that I loved all the characters, a sentence I would be qualifying in most circumstances but I think is honestly true here. Certainly the main characters. They just,, all had great idiosyncracies and backgrounds. The book uses multiple POVs, and the style of narration is basically the same between them - I wish it had been distinguished a tad more - but the characters themselves do behave different. Sometimes it feels as though they think the same, however.

Re: rigor, and the fact-checking responsibility of a (didactic) novel: all the technical details are dazzling, and create (for better or worse) a very particular atmosphere. But there was a small passage about climbing equipment, which is something I sorta actually know about, and imo it was oversimplified to the point of being detached from reality, such that the task the characters accomplished would have been actually 2 or 3 times as difficult/time-consuming. I hesitate to include this in the review because the description in the book is sparse, so I might be misinterpreting it; I'm certainly not at expert re climbing equipment, so could be plain wrong; and even if I'm right Stephenson very well could have put more research into the more plot-pivotal engineering details. But I think it's worth mentioning that - despite the fact that this book has 2 or 3 parts engineering/technology/history to 1 part story - the "nonfiction" parts may just be wrong. Slightly wrong, or completely wrong; probably everywhere in between, depending on which detail you choose.