This book has sat on my shelf for about 10 years and I've just now read it...not Stephenson's best work, it's attack of environmental issues felt sadly mired in the time-period in which it was written. It has a few gems here and there in the writing, but overall it feels pretty uneven. At the very least, though, it has an ending that doesn't implode, so it has that going for it over other Stephenson novels.