The Robot vs the Dinosaur

There has been an almost insufferable amount of press on Jonathan Franzen's new novel Freedom, which will be released on Tuesday. The New York Times Book Review podcast from August 20th had an entire section devoted to the hype that's been surrounding the book. Time put Franzen on the cover. Sam Tanenhaus wrote an extraordinarily lengthy review of the book for last weekend's Book Review, and the novel is addressed again in the August 27th Book Review podcast. 

And that's just for starters. 

The...