Zodiac is a wild ride about an eco-detective named Sangamon Taylor who lives in Allston, a suburb of Boston. Although written in the late 1980s, the book's themes of corporate negligence, exploitation, and emphasis on the bottom line are still relevant -- and perhaps not so eye-opening or unique today. What gives this book so much interest is S.T.'s narrative voice. He's a brilliant, foul-mouthed young scientist who tracks down the bad guys dumping PCBs and genetically modified chemical toxins into the Boston Harbor. The story is a page turner, but sometimes I found myself totally lost and taken advantage of. Sure, S.T. -- and by extension Stephenson -- is so smart he's almost prescient, but I wish he'd filled in the dots a bit more. Sometimes I felt a bit sideswiped by the narrative. Also, while S.T. is a great character, most of the rest are not. Since it's told from first-person, this is somewhat understandable; however, S.T.'s love interest, Debbie, is a non-entity. Even for a rather plot-driven narrative, a bit more characterization would have been nice.