What can you say about a writer who notices that the standard Chairman Mao picture shows the Buddha's evil twin? Insanely great.

Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age is more like his Cryptonomicon than it is like Snow Crash: panoramic and cast-of-thousands, after the manner of War and Peace, rather than character-focused like Tom Jones.

In a world where nanotechnology has transformed the nature of the economic problem and information technology has made the nation-state obsolete, Stephenson imagines the origin and operation of "phyles": groups primarily defined by culture rather than territory. Among the most successful are the neo-Victorians, or "Vickys."

Stephenson's take on the Victorians is the same as mine: they were wierd and scary, all right, but they knew some things we've found it was dangerous to forget. If you like the riff on hypocrisy as much as I did, you'll want to read the corresponding chapter in Judith Shklar's Ordinary Vices, which seems to be its source. And the update on Judge Dee is utterly wonderful, with the Confucian classics given loving attention.

I can't say any more without giving away the plot. Read it, is all.