The Big U
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
The Big U (1984) is Neal Stephenson's first published novel, a satire of campus life. The story follows the misadventures of a socially inept Arab engineering student, a pair of brilliant lesbians, a hardcore war gaming club, and other misfits through a series of escalating events that culminate with a full scale civil war raging on the campus.
The book attacks and makes fun of just about every conceivable group at university, jocks as well as nerds and anything inbetween, even though the portraits of the nerds/computer scientists/role players tend to be a bit more detailed than those of factions probably further removed from the author's experience.
The events take place at a fictitious big university consisting of a single building (a central complex with four towers containing student housing), making the university an enclosed universe of its own.
Stephenson uses this fact to take what starts as a mostly realistic satire and move it further and further into the realms of fantasy, including near-intelligent rats and alternate realities merging with ours.
Even though the characterizations are mostly unfinished and the plotting is uneven to say the least, "The Big U" still manages to captivate and has many hilarious and entertaining passages.
This article is a stub. You can help BambooWeb by .
