I’ve previously reviewed Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (previous review) and decided to re-review it now that I’ve re-read it. It’s still one of my favorite books of all time. It’s dated and timeless at the same time and a fun coda to the entire cyberpunk movement. The book kicked Neal Stephenson’s career into the science fiction stratosphere and has continued selling 20+ years later. It’s a classic science fiction novel, so let’s talk about it.
Category Archives: neal stephenson
Mongoliad Book 1 review
It’s hard to review The Mongoliad: Book 1 without going into any of the supplemental material available online, but I will try to limit this review to strictly what happens in the book. With the number of authors listed on the book, it’s easy to think that this is some sort of anthology. But this is on novel with three linked storylines going through the book. It isn’t listed who worked on which sections, so it is somewhat assumed that everyone had some sort of hand in the whole novel. So this doesn’t seem to be like one of the Tom Clancy books where he comes up with an idea and farms out the writing to others. So, lets head back to 1241 and see what is going on with the Mongols.
Mongoliad by Neal Stephenson, et al.
The Mongoliad is an idea conceived by Neal Stephenson about European fighting arts (e.g. swordplay) and experimental storytelling (the book was originally released as smartphone app with videos, maps and other non-written pieces). The writing was done by numerous folks (Stephenson and Greg Bear are the most well known) and was finally collected in a novel. Click in to see the humorous book trailer (featuring Neal Stephenson) and stay tuned as I’ll have a review in a few days.
REAMDE by Neal Stephenson
There’s this rumor going around that Neal Stephenson is a science fiction writer. Well, you couldn’t tell it from his latest book, REAMDE. The book has a lot in common with the two novels that Stephenson wrote with his uncle, Cobweb and Interface (my review). Like those two books, this book is a thriller with some interesting cultural and science related topics. It still has the trademark Stephenson digressions, but more about the history of the characters than esoteric scientific/historical concepts. So, let’s see what REAMDE is about.
Neal Stephenson on Space Stasis
Neal Stephenson has a post in Slate on space stasis:
It is illuminating here, though utterly conjectural, to imagine a dialog, set in the offices of a large telecommunications firm during the 1960s, between a business development executive and an engineer.
Biz Dev Guy: We could make a preposterous amount of money from communications satellites.
Engineer: It will be expensive to build those, but even so, nothing compared to the cost of building the machines needed to launch them into orbit.
Biz Dev Guy: Funny you should mention that. It so happens that our government has already put $4 trillion into building the rockets and supporting technology we need. There’s only one catch.
Engineer: OK, I’ll bite. What is the catch?
Biz Dev Guy: Your communications satellite has to be the size, shape, and weight of a hydrogen bomb.
Neal Stephenson (and company) digital novel
Neal Stephenson is helping launch a digital novel called The Mongoloid along with Greg Bear and a host of other authors. The book will be launched on a website and an iPhone/iPad app to try and kickstart digitial book content across the web. More information at Media Beat.
Neal Stephenson Week: Anathem
Anathem
Neal Stephenson Week: The Baroque Cycle
Neal Stephenson Week: Cryptonomicon
Cryptonomicon
Neal Stephenson Week: The Diamond Age
The Diamond Age