This was really hard for me to get into, but the book is well worth slogging through that first chapter. As anyone who has heard me rant about Stephenson before will tell you, I think he suffers from lack-of-editor-itis, but for a nine-hundred plus page book, this didn't FEEL as long as it was. I understand Cryptonomicon felt that way for some people too. (I thought it was crap, but probably because I don't care for alternate history as a genre, and I was terribly disappointed that he'd decided to move away from sci-fi.)

Anyway, this is well worth a read. I almost went with five stars.