I thoroughly enjoyed Neal Stephenson's Zodiac and Snow Crash, and loved The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon. I completely & totally bounced off of the Baroque novels. I put the first one down at about page 300, only to have a friend tell me that "it really picks up after about page 400". Sorry, nothing should be that bloated.

The two novels that he wrote with his uncle, and published under the name Stephen Bury, are The Cobweb and Interface. I really enjoyed both these books when I originally read them, and when I was putting together a survival pack of paperbacks to read during our move, I put them in. I just finished The Cobweb, and loved it again. It has a suspenseful plot involving biological warfare, academic shenanigans with grant money, and CIA/FBI political infighting. I like me some suspense, but what makes me love this book are the characters, and the observations about people and cultures.

Part of the action takes place in a fictionalized Ames, Iowa. It's told from the perspective of a sheriff's deputy, Clyde, who becomes friends with a foreign grad student, and is seeing some odd things happening, all while dealing with his wife being called up by the Army reservers and caring for their baby. His campaign for sheriff is very funny, as is juggling stake-outs and a baby.

The rest of the action is in Washington, D.C., told by Betsy Vandeventer. She's an analyst at the CIA, and she "exceeds her task" and spots the games being played with money going to Iraq for agricultural assistance. She's a nice girl from Idaho, who is trying to shake off some of the nice. I kinda love that one of the main characters in the book is a young woman who is overweight.

One of the scenes I love is when a mucky-muck from D.C. meets with Clyde at a restaurant in Ames. Clyde is very uncomfortable when Hennessy ignores the "Please wait to be seated" sign, and walks over to a big booth that's out of earshot of the other diners. Clyde feels that everyone is looking at the 2 of them taking up a booth that should be saved for a bigger party. They happen to be discussing a plot for biological weapons, but that doesn't mean you should be rude Another scene is Hennessy managing to take control over someone else's meeting in Washington, by being quieter than anyone else. It's delicious observation of people's behavior.

The book is set just before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and was published in 1996.