Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson
Stephenson at a book signing
Born	(1959-10-31) October 31, 1959 Fort Meade, Maryland
Pen name	Stephen Bury
Occupation	novelist, short story writer, essayist
Nationality	United States
Genre	Science fiction, essays
Literary movement	Cyberpunk, Postcyberpunk
Website
nealstephenson.com

Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer, known primarily for his science fiction works in the postcyberpunk genre with a penchant for explorations of society, mathematics, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired Magazine, and has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (funded by Jeff Bezos) developing a manned sub-orbital launch system.

Background

Born in Fort Meade, Maryland, Stephenson came from a family comprising engineers and hard scientists he dubs "propeller heads". His father is a professor of electrical engineering whose father was a physics professor; his mother worked in a biochemistry laboratory, while her father was a biochemistry professor. Stephenson's family moved to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois in 1960 and then to Ames, Iowa in 1966 where he graduated from Ames High School in 1977. Stephenson furthered his studies at Boston University. He first specialized in physics, then switched to geography after he found that it would allow him to spend more time on the university mainframe. He graduated in 1981 with a B.A. in Geography with a minor in physics. His first novel, The Big U, was published in 1984. The Big U received very little attention when it first came out, and was subsequently out of print until Stephenson allowed it to be reprinted in 2001. Since 1984 Stephenson has lived mostly in the Pacific Northwest and currently resides in Seattle with his family.

Literary works

After The Big U, Stephenson published the eco-thriller Zodiac before rising to prominence in the early 1990s with the novel Snow Crash (1992), which fuses memetics, computer viruses, and other high-tech themes with Sumerian mythology, along with an analysis of the differences between ideologies such as libertarianism, laissez-faire capitalism, and communism. Averaging one novel every four years, he has written several subsequent novels:

• The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (1995), which deals with a future with extensive nanotechnology and dynabooks. The SciFi Channel and George Clooney will be producing a miniseries adaptation of The Diamond Age, to be penned by Stephenson.
• Cryptonomicon (1999), a novel concerned with concepts ranging from computing and Alan Turing's research into codebreaking and cryptography during the Second World War at Bletchley Park, to a modern attempt to set up a data haven. It has subsequently been reissued in three separate volumes in some countries, including in French and Spanish translations.
• The Baroque Cycle is a series of historical novels and is in some respects a prequel to Cryptonomicon. Consisting of eight books, it was originally published in three volumes:
  • Quicksilver (2003) (containing the books Quicksilver, King of the Vagabonds, and Odalisque);
  • The Confusion (2004) (containing the books Bonanza and Juncto);
  • The System of the World (2004) (containing the books Solomon's Gold, Currency, and System of the World).
• The Baroque Cycle has subsequently been republished as eight separate books (both in English and in Spanish translation).

With the 2003 publication of Quicksilver, Stephenson debuted The Metaweb (main page as partially preserved in the Wayback Machine at 5 April 2006), a wiki (using the same software as Wikipedia) annotating the ideas and historical period explored in the novel. As of April 25, 2007 the metaweb.com site is no longer an active wiki.

Style

The science fiction approach doesn't mean it's always about the future; it's an awareness that this is different.

— Neal Stephenson

Stephenson, at least in his earlier novels, deals heavily in pop culture-laden metaphors and imagery, and in quick, hip dialogue, as well as in extended narrative monologues. The tone of his books generally is more irreverent and less self-serious than in previous cyberpunk novels, notably those of William Gibson.

Stephenson's books tend to have elaborate, inventive plots drawing on numerous technological and sociological ideas at the same time. This distinguishes him from other mainstream science fiction authors who tend to focus on a few technological or social changes in isolation from others. This penchant for complexity and detail suggests a baroque writer. His book The Diamond Age features "neo-Victorian" characters and employs Victorian-era literary conceits, and perhaps could be considered as falling into the steampunk genre. In keeping with the baroque style, Stephenson's books have become longer as he has gained recognition. (At least one printing of Cryptonomicon is well over one thousand pages long and the novel contains various digressions, including a lengthy erotic story about antique furniture and stockings.)

Characteristic of his style is the "breakdown in events", typically about three quarters into the novel. This is an acceleration in plot development, accompanied by chaos, confusion, and often violence, and an abrupt ending with no conventional denouement and many loose ends. This pattern holds for all of Stephenson's books, including (when taken as a whole) The Baroque Cycle.

Bibliography

Fiction:

• The Big U (1984)
• Zodiac (1988)
• Snow Crash (1992)
• Interface (1994) as Stephen Bury with J. Frederick George
• Short story: "Spew" (1994)
• Short story: "The Great Simoleon Caper" (1995)
• The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (1995) Winner, Hugo Award for Best Novel. Nominated for Nebula Award for Best Novel
• The Cobweb (1996) as Stephen Bury with J. Frederick George
• Short story: "Jipi and the Paranoid Chip" (1997)
• Cryptonomicon (1999) Nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novel
• Quicksilver (2003), volume I of The Baroque Cycle
• The Confusion (2004), volume II of The Baroque Cycle
• The System of the World (2004), volume III of The Baroque Cycle and winner 2005 Prometheus Award

Non-fiction:

• "Communication Prosthetics: Threat, or Menace?". Whole Earth Catalog, Summer 1991.
• "Smiley's people". 1993.
• "In the Kingdom of Mao Bell". 1994. A billion Chinese are using new technology to create the fastest growing economy on the planet. But while the information wants to be free, do they?
• "Mother Earth Mother Board". 1996. In which the Hacker Tourist ventures forth across three continents, telling the story of the business and technology of undersea fiber-optic cables, as well as an account of the laying of the longest wire on Earth.
• "Global Neighborhood Watch". 1998. Stopping street crime in the global village.
• In the Beginning...was the Command Line. Perennial. 1999. ISBN 0-380-81593-1. (Homepage)
• "Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out". Op-Ed piece on Star Wars, in New York Times, June 17, 2005.
• "It's All Geek To Me". New York Times, March 18, 2007.

External links

• Neal Stephenson's official website
• Neal Stephenson's new personal website
• Neal Stephenson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• HyperDig collection of Neal Stephenson links

Interviews

• Neal Stephenson Sees the Light by David Chute, LA Weekly 1999
• A Conversation With Neal Stephenson by Catherine Asaro, SF Site 1999
• Neal Stephenson Responds With Wit and Humor Slashdot interview 2004
• The Summit of Mount Stephenson, Salon Article by Andrew Leonard in 2004
• Deep Code, Salon Article by Andrew Leonard in 1999
• The Salon Interview by Laura Miller in 2004
• Neal Stephenson's Past, Present, and Future Interview by Mike Godwin in the February 2005 issue of Reason

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