Product Description

The Gulf War is imminent and there's something mighty strange going on in the Agriculture Department of East Iowa University. When an Arab student turns up drunk - and dead - in the lake, redneck Deputy County Sheriff Clyde Banks gets a feeling he's on to something big. It's a suspicion shared by low-ranking CIA agent Betsy Vandeventer. Betsy's pretty big too - having once been a farm girl from Idaho. But before two great minds yell conspiracy theory, in steps top US policy-maker James Millikan. Here's a man well used to dictating the Middle East's future - from a comfortable seat at a top Paris restaurant. While shenanigans in the Midwest might not be exactly his style, there's a technique that serves America well in all matters of national security. It's called the 'Cobweb', and it backfires every time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #128217 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

From the Publisher
A gloriously prescient and satirically witty thriller of the first Iraq war, which suggests that Saddam was making biological weapons in Iowa, by the authors of Interface. A Manchurian Candidate for our time.

About the Author
Neal Stephenson is the author of The Baroque Trilogy (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System Of The World). His other books include Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and Zodiac, as well as Cobweb and Interface, written in collaboration with Frederick George. He lives in Seattle.

Customer Reviews

Great
I was surprised to see this book around as I thought I had read all of Stephenson's stuff. This was a great story, a real page turner. I thought it was let down (only very slightly I might add) with a couple of bits which seemed to fal into the "I haven't mentioned this before but I'll chuck it in now as it gets me out of a tight situation".

The plot was well thought out and slotted together very nicely and, unlike a few of Stephenson's books, the ending isn't a let down. I know he has a tendency to rush an ending but it didn;t seem like he did it this time.

If you liked Interface you will like this. It's easier to read than Cryptonomicon and far, far lighter than the Baroque Cycle, but Stephenson still manages to work his genious on a smaller stage.

An oldie dusted off for new fans of Stephenson...
Like another reviewer I was surprised not to have seen this book before; I thoroughly enjoyed Cryptonomicon though I must admit the Baroque Cycle bored and defeated me! However a quick search on Wikipedia reveals that this is actually a reprint of a book originally published in 1996 under Stephenson's pseudonum, "Stephen Bury" as "The Cobweb".

Anyway.

A highly enjoyable, page-turning thriller about a conspiracy to develop chemical weapons in the US during the events leading up to the first Gulf war. I know now we're all ever so jaded about "WMD" but at the time they were a very real and very plausible threat.

Ever the enemy of cliche, the heroes in this book are not strong-jawed tautly-muscled ubermenschen but just normal run-of-the-mill people; one of whom happens to work for the CIA and one of whom happens to be a somewhat unsuccessful deputy sheriff in a small town in rural America. As is often the case in Stephenson's books, quick wit, subtlety, and discipline win out over brute strength and violence (a bit like MacGyver really...).


In terms of his other works this book is most similar to "Interface", which was also co-written by Frederick George and shares that books scepticism about the intentions of those with governmental power. Stephenson excels at setting up compelling, parallel strands to a story that flirt with one another and reward the reader for noticing the links; they're rarely spelled out and unlike, say Dan Brown's work, the book is light on exposition. As one of his earlier works Stephenson only gives us two parallel threads to keep in mind, as opposed to the much more difficult Cryptonomicon which doesn't just have different threads but different decades to remember!

One thing that did confuse me slightly was the cover blurb describes it as a "wickedly satirical thriller of modern america". I didn't really find it all that satirical but enjoyed it very much nevertheless.

Alright I suppose
Having become a fan of Stephenson, first through the excellent, written for nerds by a nerd, Cryptonomicon, and then the Baroque Cycle, tomes so dense as to detectably curve space-time, it was great to see that Neal had a new one out. So I got it and read it. Throughout I was waiting for the stunningly big ideas to surface, or maybe just one big idea, but I got to the end and none arrived. I realised I had just read a well-written enough political thriller, with just maybe a bit of a satirical edge that you wouldn't get in a Robert Ludlum or a Tom Clancy page-turner but nonetheless that's all it was. Nothing more and nothing less. Exactly the sort of book I wouldn't have bothered reading if I had known. It's not a bad book, but in a finite lifetime in which only so many books can read this would not be on my list.

Another reviewer states that this is in fact a re-release of an earlier book written under a pseudonym, to cash in on Stephenson's new found popularity. I wish this had been made clear on the tin.