Instruct: Classify the given review as either positive or negative.
Query: A Long, Hard Slog

Like many others who have reviewed this book, I am a long time Neal Stephenson fan and eagerly placed a prepublication order as soon as I heard about it, in spite of the mixed reviews it was receiving. Well, that turned out to be a mistake. The book is amazingly devoid of plot, the historical context is overdone (a certain amount is expected and fun, but this was ridiculous), and the characters are not engaging. I only stayed with it through the end because I was hoping something would happen to entice me to at least sample the next volume. Alas, nothing did. So I will wait on the sidelines while the life cycle of The Baroque Cycle plays out, and then hope that Neal can redeem himself in a future effort.On the positive side, my wife commented that I looked very studious walking around with this massive tome tucked under my arm. That hasn't happened since my graduate school days.