I can’t recall ever having been so sad to see a book end. Especially since, with this volume’s appendices and extensive Arban glossary, it looks like the reader has a while yet before reaching the end and then BOOM suddenly the glossary is staring her right in the face from the facing page. Ah, me!

Like all Stephensons, this will be a book I read over and over again. There is always and ever only one first time, which makes this bittersweet.

It was worth waiting for, though, this book. Most assuredly.