Good News for Neal Stephenson Fans!

A lot of you probably know that SL is loosely based on the novel "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson.

IMO, Stephenson is one of our greatest living writers. His "Baroque Cycle" novels were a huge tour de force, and I've enjoyed everything he's written.

If you're a Stephenson fan you'll be happy to know he has a new book out, "Anathem". In it, priest/monk/scientist/philosophers live in cloistered communities called "maths", apart from the "saecular world". The maths endure for thousands of years, while civilizations outside their walls rise and fall. Once every ten, or hundred, or thousand years (depending on the Order), the maths celebrate "Apert" and open their gates to mingle with the people outside.

I've only scratched the surface of this book, and I'm already hooked. You should be too...run, do not walk, to your library or bookstore and get a copy.

I'm so there.

Hey, Amazon says it's only 960 pages! I knew he'd sell out one day and start cranking out little books instead...

See also Neal with my favorite author: http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?t=14999

Yay! I'm a newbie fan of his after finally reading snowcrash. I can't wait to start digging into his other books. I've been mainly a Dean Koontz fan for...well.....for as long as I've been reading, but I am happy to finally be sniffing around other authors, there are so many good writers out there and Neal is a new fav, so far anyway, guess I need to read more than one book to count as a fan, but I'll take it!!

I did not know this. /me just contacted the library to get a copy. Thanks!

It must be my fever, but I just visualizd my worse nightmare. "Snowcrash" with lolcat illustrations......

Snow Crash?

Yea, you don't seem like someone that would know anything about that.........

Loved everything he's written except Cryptonomicron, which I couldn't have hated more. I get it, I get it. You're a math genius. I simply can't wade through entire chapters of you masturbating over spectacular calculus is. I tried for a full month to make it through the first chapter before I threw the book away in disgust.

I've read Snowcrash, The Diamond age, Zodiac and Cryptonomicon all great, but I got completely bogged down in the middle of the Baroque cycle and had to leave it aside. Also I wish he could learn to write proper endings to his books.

You've got to skip the math and go back to the plot.

A friend of mine told me about Cryptonomicon years before I ever read it. I avoided it because a) my friend never mentioned the author's name, and b) he said it was about cryptography. Of course, it isn't.

It did remind of Tom Clancy's early lessons in how to use floppy drives.

Cryptonomicon is my favourite of his books.

I enjoyed it very much, but the math part didn't work for me. Part of the problem is my own mathematical ignorance (instilled deliberately by schoolteachers ), but part was also the analogy he used, where a character has to keep adjusting the chain on his bicycle. Instead of seeing it as an explanation of data progressing through an equation, I found myself wondering why an important person who lives on a military base can't get his bike fixed.

I heard about SL at a party... a friend of mine said, "I have to tell you about my latest addiction..." and as he described it I had to ask, "Did you ever read Snow Crash?"

It astonished me how much his description matched the book.

I saw the book while on a trip to the US but didn't have room in my suitcase for something that big. When is he going to write another book that won't cause an injury while reading in bed? I dropped one of the Baroque Cycle novels on my nose! Speaking of which I got 5/6 through the very last one.... and just couldn't go on. I keep looking at it mournfully but nope - just can't do it.

Anathem looked interesting. Maybe I'll wait for a paperback. LOL

Audio Books are the solution for that.

I wonder if he's an SL resident! He ought to be made an 'honorary Linden'!

Why? What did he ever do to you?

The only one of his books I've read is The Diamond Age- which I really enjoyed, and have always been stunned that no one's tried to make a movie of it. Perhaps it's something to do with the gang rape and the orgies...

EDIT: Holy christ, Sci-Fi channel is going to be taking a crack at it. (Guess we know what's gonna happen to the gang rape and orgy scenes, then. *snip!*) They might as well get Uwe Boll to direct. No one in the world knows how to murder an intellectual property better than Sci-Fi and Uwe.

http://www.tvsquad.com/2007/01/12/george-clooney-bringing-cyberpunk-classic-the-diamond-age-to-sci/

I know. Sci Fi had such great promise, it really was a great channel for about the first 10 years or so, a lot of quirky shows like Sci Fi Buzz, and showing classics, but it really has just turned into just another crappy basic cable channel, with a few scarce exceptions.

ROFL! Oh now THAT'S classic. Can you just imagine?

Thanks, Lindal, for the update! I still need to track down the second of the Baroque Cycle (LOVED the first, you were right!) and just finished The Diamond Age, which was pretty good but nowhere near as cool as either Cryptonomicon or Quicksilver. I love love love the math bits.

Somebody please help me understand why they carry Wrestling now.

Fiction != Science Fiction, you bozos!

QFT. Their version of Dune was pretty good, but I cried when I saw what they did to A Wizard of Earthsea.

I read Snow Crash when it first came out, shortly after reading Nueromancer by William Gibson.
I was fascinated by the idea of being able to create an image and post it in a place where anyone
in the world would be able to buy a copy.

Remember that was back before they even knew that the internet would be the global network of multimedia for the average user.
Real life talking heads back then were still talking about the nebulous idea of a massive
"Superhighway" of information. Then of course Mosaic came along and the browser wars and that
changed everything.

That's funny, because I've always thought that that was a great way to work the explanation of a mathematical concept ( relatively prime numbers ) into the narrative of a story. In fact I use it as an example of why I like the book, lol.