Neal Stephenson
Author of Snow Crash
About the Author
Neal Stephenson, the science fiction author, was born on October 31, 1959 in Maryland. He graduated from Boston University in 1981 with a B.A. in Geography with a minor in physics. His first novel, The Big U, was published in 1984. It received little attention and stayed out of print until show more Stephenson allowed it to be reprinted in 2001. His second novel was Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller was published in 1988, but it was his novel Snow Crash (1992) that brought him popularity. It fused memetics, computer viruses, and other high-tech themes with Sumerian mythology. Neal Stephenson has won several awards: Hugo for Best Novel for The Diamond Age (1996), the Arthur C. Clarke for Best Novel for Quicksilver (2004), and the Prometheus Award for Best Novel for The System of the World (2005). He recently completed the The Baroque Cycle Trilogy, a series of historical novels. It consists of eight books and was originally published in three volumes and Reamde. His latest novel is entitled The Rise and Fall of D. O. D. O. Stephenson also writes under the pseudonym Stephen Bury. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: U.S. novelist Neal Stephenson at Science Foo Camp 2008. Author Bob Lee; cropped by Beyond My Ken
Series
Works by Neal Stephenson
The Mongoliad, Book One: Collector's Edition [includes the prequel Sinner] (2012) 51 copies, 2 reviews
The Great Simoleon Caper {story} 19 copies
Global Neighborhood Watch 10 copies
[unidentified works] 7 copies
Spew {story} 6 copies
Jipi and the Paranoid Chip {story} 5 copies
In the Kingdom of Mao Bell {essay} 4 copies
Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out {essay} 3 copies
It's All Geek to Me {essay} 3 copies
Smiley's People {article} 2 copies
The EOS Reader 1998-2008: Celebrating a Decade of the Finest Fantasy and Science Fiction in the Universe (2008) 2 copies
Baroque Cycle, including: Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver (novel), The System Of The World (novel), The… (2011) 1 copy
Two for the Road 1 copy
The Future of Ideas 1 copy
Associated Works
Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity (2003) — Introduction, some editions — 1,560 copies, 31 reviews
Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society (2010) — Contributor — 1,056 copies, 17 reviews
Hive of Dreams: Contemporary Science Fiction from the Pacific Northwest (Northwest Readers) (2003) — Contributor — 12 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Stephenson, Neal
- Legal name
- Stephenson, Neal Town
- Other names
- Bury, Stephen (pseudonym)
- Birthdate
- 1959-10-31
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Fort Meade, Maryland, USA
- Places of residence
- Fort Meade, Maryland, USA
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA
Ames, Iowa, USA
Seattle, Washington, USA - Education
- Boston University (BA | Geography | 1981)
- Occupations
- novelist
short story writer
essayist
Subutai Corporation (Chairman of the Board, Co-Founder) - Relationships
- Jewsbury, George Frederick (uncle)
Lackermann, Ellen Marie (wife) - Organizations
- The Clock of the Long Now Project
Subutai Corporation - Awards and honors
- Hugo Award (1996)
Arthur C. Clarke Award (2004)
Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award (1996)
Prometheus Award (2005)
Locus Award (1996, 2000, 2005, 2009) - Agent
- Liz Darhansoff
- Short biography
- Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.
His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, postcyberpunk, and baroque.
Stephenson's work explores subjects such as mathematics, cryptography, linguistics, philosophy, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired. He has also written novels with his uncle, George Jewsbury ("J. Frederick George"), under the collective pseudonym Stephen Bury.
Stephenson has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (founded by Jeff Bezos) developing a spacecraft and a space launch system,[1] and is also a cofounder of Subutai Corporation, whose first offering is the interactive fiction project The Mongoliad. He is currently Magic Leap's Chief Futurist.
Members
Discussions
purchased the latest Neal Stephenson book yesterday in The Green Dragon (August 2019)
entry point for Neal Stephenson in Science Fiction Fans (June 2013)
Anathem by Neal Stephenson - LinuxLefty tutoring UnrulySun and kgodey in 75 Books Challenge for 2012 (March 2012)
Reviews
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
I can see how this might be popular in the early 90s but it's really dated and doesn't really hold up that well. I can also see how this might be an influential book in the genre with many of the concepts establishing tropes use in following works. But it suffers from trying to be hip and happening with technology that is so outdated today that it's obsolete and disused. But you have to remember, this was essentially pre-cell phone (although "mobile phones did exist, they were bricks), pre-internet, 8-bit video game time, and other things. The skateboard thing was probably cool and edgy at the time, but it's not now. The plot vectored off into so many areas that it was hard to follow and reconcile the various points. Dystopian future, psycho-babble religion, pop culture, "hacking" (as it was then), and none of it was tied together well. I'm glad I read it but it's worth a miss.… (more)
The System of the World can be called a historical novel. It is epistolary in nature, satirical, and a roman flueve all in one. Before we dig into the plot, a little book trivia. Stephenson was nice enough to remind us of the story thus far (from Quicksilver and The Confusion).
Back to the plot: We begin with Book Six: Solomon's Gold. Daniel Waterhouse, founder of the institute we know today as MIT, has been sent back to London to resolve a feud between Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton. The two brainiacs are squabbling over the invention of calculus. To utter anything about calculus, much less pinpoint who invented it, is to commit a grand faux pas of epic proportions. Jack Shaftoe is back as Jack the Coiner. Historically, the Whigs and Tories are about to face off. The irreconcilable dispute between science and religion rages (very reminiscent of "Inherit the Wind" by Lawrence and Lee). There are moments of sly humor that you might miss if you are not careful. My favorite: one of Mr. Threader's spiels is the equivalent of the legal fine print on a contract.… (more)
Back to the plot: We begin with Book Six: Solomon's Gold. Daniel Waterhouse, founder of the institute we know today as MIT, has been sent back to London to resolve a feud between Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton. The two brainiacs are squabbling over the invention of calculus. To utter anything about calculus, much less pinpoint who invented it, is to commit a grand faux pas of epic proportions. Jack Shaftoe is back as Jack the Coiner. Historically, the Whigs and Tories are about to face off. The irreconcilable dispute between science and religion rages (very reminiscent of "Inherit the Wind" by Lawrence and Lee). There are moments of sly humor that you might miss if you are not careful. My favorite: one of Mr. Threader's spiels is the equivalent of the legal fine print on a contract.… (more)
Some interesting ideas and worldbuilding and a lot of rather gonzo action, packed in with discourses on linguistics, computers etc. - I found these interesting in part but a bit too long-winded, shades of wanting to show all the research. But then I like linguistics, so this part was interesting for me, whereas it seems some readers find it dull and a distraction from hacking and katana-wielding action. None of the characters seem to have much agency, but are pushed around by enigmatic figures (Enzo, Juanita) or take the only available option. YT is a fun character and a nice change from the macho male characters (yes, even the hackers are macho) - no less convincing than the main protagonist, in my view, both are cinematically snarky and cool - but she's passively knocked around by the plot even more than Hiro is, and her reaction to the whole abduction is hard to buy. Let alone getting dragged off by Raven as a new plaything, which she passively accepts with even a little enthusiasm, and mentally marks him down as her boyfriend, rather than a murderous rapist. She doesn't even pull a Jael when her anti-rape device gives her the perfect opportunity to take out their most dangerous opponent. Overall the book feels a bit too interested in the idea of a 15yo girl being sexually active with and interested in adult men, as she's constantly subject to ogling and there are several other threatened assaults which thankfully don't materialise (one was plenty). Feel like this would have really benefited from some female beta-readers. On the whole, the book feels more interested in its themes and concepts than the characters. The writing is evocative and there's some lovely phrasing; it's mostly punchy, but bogs down in the expositive sections.… (more)
This is an action-packed novel slowed down in places by some intrusive background information. It seems to have been popular and influential in the 1990s.
It’s set in a future in which the American government still exists, and still employs quite a lot of people, but seems to be largely irrelevant to everyone else. The President’s name and face are not recognized. If the book ever explains how this diminished form of government functions, I missed it.
The story is mostly about the main characters, described below.
L. Bob Rife is in a way the central character although he’s also rather a non-character, remaining offstage for most of the book. He’s a rich man who discovers from someone else’s research that the long-dead language of ancient Sumeria is the machine language of the human brain, and he decides to use it to take over the world by programming everyone to do as he says. As a weapon against clever people who might find out what he’s up to, he also develops a kind of virus called Snow Crash, which computer programmers (but only computer programmers) can catch by looking at a screenful of data. It fries their brains. All of this is seriously implausible, but it takes up only a relatively small part of the book.
Hiro Protagonist is an African/Asian-American software wizard who happens to be delivering pizzas for the Mafia at the start of the book. He was in at the start of the Metaverse, a virtual world existing only in cyberspace, and hence knows some of its secrets. He’s armed with a matched pair of Samurai swords that he inherited from his father and knows how to use. Hiro is loosely allied with Y.T., Uncle Enzo, and others opposed to Rife.
Y.T. (short for Yours Truly) is a 15-year-old girl who ought to be a minor character, but turns into a major character because the author and several of the other major characters (plus one of the extraordinary Rat Things) are unaccountably fond of her. She works as a courier, delivering packages on her technologically-enhanced skateboard. She’s quite likeable and has a nice line in cheeky dialogue, emerging as the best character of the book, but she’s impossibly resourceful for her age.
Raven is an Aleut, a native of the Aleutian Islands on the fringes of the Arctic. He’s large and deadly, armed with an endless supply of glass knives and glass-barbed harpoons, and he kills almost everyone who gets in his way. In spite of which, he’s not entirely unlikeable. He has his own private agenda, but he also has an alliance of convenience with Rife.
Uncle Enzo is the head of the Mafia, and not really a major character, but he rates an honourable mention because he’s the only person in the book to fight Raven in the real world without definitely losing. Hiro fights Raven in the Metaverse without losing; but Hiro has unfair advantages in the Metaverse.
I quite enjoyed the book despite its occasional bloody deaths and occasional briefings on Sumeria. I wouldn’t rate it as one of my favourites, but it was worth reading for the colourful and imaginative worlds that it describes (the real world and the Metaverse), and even for its weird account of Sumerian history and language.… (more)
It’s set in a future in which the American government still exists, and still employs quite a lot of people, but seems to be largely irrelevant to everyone else. The President’s name and face are not recognized. If the book ever explains how this diminished form of government functions, I missed it.
The story is mostly about the main characters, described below.
L. Bob Rife is in a way the central character although he’s also rather a non-character, remaining offstage for most of the book. He’s a rich man who discovers from someone else’s research that the long-dead language of ancient Sumeria is the machine language of the human brain, and he decides to use it to take over the world by programming everyone to do as he says. As a weapon against clever people who might find out what he’s up to, he also develops a kind of virus called Snow Crash, which computer programmers (but only computer programmers) can catch by looking at a screenful of data. It fries their brains. All of this is seriously implausible, but it takes up only a relatively small part of the book.
Hiro Protagonist is an African/Asian-American software wizard who happens to be delivering pizzas for the Mafia at the start of the book. He was in at the start of the Metaverse, a virtual world existing only in cyberspace, and hence knows some of its secrets. He’s armed with a matched pair of Samurai swords that he inherited from his father and knows how to use. Hiro is loosely allied with Y.T., Uncle Enzo, and others opposed to Rife.
Y.T. (short for Yours Truly) is a 15-year-old girl who ought to be a minor character, but turns into a major character because the author and several of the other major characters (plus one of the extraordinary Rat Things) are unaccountably fond of her. She works as a courier, delivering packages on her technologically-enhanced skateboard. She’s quite likeable and has a nice line in cheeky dialogue, emerging as the best character of the book, but she’s impossibly resourceful for her age.
Raven is an Aleut, a native of the Aleutian Islands on the fringes of the Arctic. He’s large and deadly, armed with an endless supply of glass knives and glass-barbed harpoons, and he kills almost everyone who gets in his way. In spite of which, he’s not entirely unlikeable. He has his own private agenda, but he also has an alliance of convenience with Rife.
Uncle Enzo is the head of the Mafia, and not really a major character, but he rates an honourable mention because he’s the only person in the book to fight Raven in the real world without definitely losing. Hiro fights Raven in the Metaverse without losing; but Hiro has unfair advantages in the Metaverse.
I quite enjoyed the book despite its occasional bloody deaths and occasional briefings on Sumeria. I wouldn’t rate it as one of my favourites, but it was worth reading for the colourful and imaginative worlds that it describes (the real world and the Metaverse), and even for its weird account of Sumerian history and language.… (more)
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Statistics
- Works
- 71
- Also by
- 16
- Members
- 111,430
- Popularity
- #76
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 2,609
- ISBNs
- 634
- Languages
- 25
- Favorited
- 781
