Instruct: Classify the given review into positive or negative sentiment.
Query: mediocrity made pulp

What a dull, tedious, artless black brick of a book. Stephenson is not a bad a writer, but he's not talented enough to write a good book that's this long. He's no story-teller: his characters are cartoonish and forgettable, and he has no knack for language. But at least the book is funny in spurts.