Instruct: Classify a given review as either positive or negative.
Query: The best novel of the last half of this century

There is simply no better writer of fiction than Thomas Pynchon in the twentieth century. This novel exemplifies everything about his genius. It is easy for the typical reader with a "literary" background to be scared off by some of the technical, scientific, or mathematical imagery which Pynchon uses frequently, but to be scared off would mean missing the incredible story of Franz Pokler, the Nabokovian turns of phrase, the final secret of rocket 00000, which hits so viscerally after six hundred pages of foreshadowing that you want to throw up.