Works by Neal Stephenson (Book Guide)

Source: Wikipedia. Commentary (works not included). Pages: 23. Chapters: Essays by Neal Stephenson, Novels by Neal Stephenson, Short stories by Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, In the Beginning... Was the Command Line, Snow Crash, The Big U, Anathem, The Baroque Cycle, The Confusion, The Mongoliad, Zodiac, The System of the World, Interface, Jipi and the Paranoid Chip, The Great Simoleon Caper, The Cobweb, Smiley's people, Global Neighborhood Watch. Excerpt: The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It is a bildungsroman focused on a young girl named Nell, and set in a world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. Some main motifs include: education, social class, ethnicity, and the nature of artificial intelligence. The Diamond Age was first published in 1995 by Bantam Books, as a Bantam Spectra hardcover edition. In 1996, it won both the Hugo and Locus Awards, and was shortlisted for the Nebula and other awards. A six-hour mini series adapted from the novel is being developed for the Syfy Channel. The protagonist in the story is Nell, a thete (or person without a tribe; equivalent to the lowest working class) living in the Leased Territories, a lowland slum belt on the artificial, diamondoid island of New Chusan, located offshore from the mouth of the Yangtze River, northwest of Shanghai. At age 4, Nell receives a stolen copy of an interactive book, Young Lady's Illustrated Primer: a Propædeutic Enchiridion in which is told the tale of Princess Nell and her various friends, kin, associates, &c., originally intended for an aristocrat's child in the Neo-Victorian New Atlantis phyle. The story follows Nell's development under the tutelage of the Primer, and to a lesser degree, the lives of Elizabeth and Fiona, girls who receive similar books. The Primer is intended to intellectually steer its reader toward a more interesting life, as defined by "Equity Lord" Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw, and grow up to be an effective member of society. The most important quality to achieving an "interesting life" is a subversive attitude towards the status quo. The Primer also reacts to its owners' environment and teaches them what they need to know to survive and grow. The Diamond Age is characterized by two intersecting, almost equally developed story lines: Nell's education through her independent work with the Primer, and the social downfall of engineer and