Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson
Stephenson at Science Foo Camp 2008
Born	October 31, 1959 (1959-10-31) (age 50) Fort Meade, Maryland, U.S.
Pen name	Stephen Bury
Occupation	novelist, short story writer, essayist
Nationality	American
Genres	Science fiction, essays
Literary movement	Cyberpunk, Postcyberpunk
Influences Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, David Foster Wallace
Influenced Charles Stross, Daniel Suarez
Official website

Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer, known for his speculative fiction works, which have been variously categorized science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk. He has also written under the pseudonym of Stephen Bury.^[1]

Stephenson explores areas such as mathematics, cryptography, philosophy, 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 and a minor in physics. Since 1984, Stephenson has lived mostly in the Pacific Northwest and currently resides in Seattle with his family.

Literary works

• The Big U (1984) received very little attention when it first came out, and was subsequently out of print until Stephenson allowed it to be reprinted in 2001.
• Zodiac (1988) is an ecothriller.
• Snow Crash (1992) 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.
• The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (1995) deals with a future with extensive nanotechnology and dynabooks.
• Cryptonomicon (1999) is 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. It was originally published in three volumes but has subsequently been republished as eight separate books:
  1. Quicksilver (2003) (containing the novels Quicksilver, King of the Vagabonds, and Odalisque);
  2. The Confusion (2004) (containing the novels Bonanza and Juncto);
  3. The System of the World (2004) (containing the novels Solomon's Gold, Currency, and System of the World).
• Anathem (2008) is a work of speculative fiction set in an Earth-like world^[2]
• On July 8, 2009, Publisher's Marketplace released word that a deal had been struck for the publication of REAMDE, a new novel. The deal was made by his lifelong literary agent Liz Darhansoff with publisher Jennifer Brehl at William Morrow. The novel is slated for publication in 2011.^[3]

Stephenson has also written non fiction. In The Beginning Was The Command Line, an essay on operating systems including the histories of and relationships between DOS, Windows, Linux, and BeOS from both cultural and technical viewpoints and focusing especially on the development of the Graphical User Interface, was published in book form in 1999. Various other essays have been published in magazines such as Wired.

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

Discussing Anathem at MIT.

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

—Neal Stephenson, September 1999^[4]

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 is generally more irreverent and less self-serious than that of 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. The discursive nature of his writing, together with significant plot and character complexity and an abundance of detail suggests a baroque writing style, which Stephenson brought fully to bear in the three-volume Baroque Cycle.^[5] His book The Diamond Age follows a simpler plot, but features "neo-Victorian" characters and employs Victorian-era literary conceits. 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.)

Bibliography

Stephenson at a book signing in 2004

Novels

• The Big U (1984)
• Zodiac (1988)
• Snow Crash (1992) -- British Science Fiction Association Award nominee, 1993 ^[6]; Clarke Award nominee, 1994 ^[7]
• Interface (1994) as Stephen Bury with J. Frederick George
• The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (1995) -- Hugo and Locus SF Awards winner, 1996 ^[8]; Nebula, Campbell and Clarke Awards nominee, 1996 ^[8]
• The Cobweb (1996) as Stephen Bury with J. Frederick George
• Cryptonomicon (1999) -- Locus SF Award winner, 2000 ^[9]; Hugo and Clarke Awards nominee, 2000 ^[9]
• Quicksilver (2003), volume I:The Baroque Cycle -- Clarke Award winner, 2004 ^[10]; Locus SF Award nominee, 2004 ^[10]
• The Confusion (2004), volume II:The Baroque Cycle and winner 2005 Locus Award
• The System of the World (2004), volume III:The Baroque Cycle -- Locus SF winner, 2005 ^[11]; Prometheus Award winner, 2005; Clarke Award nominee, 2005 ^[11]
• Anathem (2008) -- British Science Fiction Association Award nominee, 2008 ^[12]; Hugo and Clarke Awards nominee, 2009 ^[13]

Short fiction

• "Spew" (1994), in Hackers (1996)
• "The Great Simoleon Caper" (1995), TIME
• "Jipi and the Paranoid Chip" (1997), Forbes

Non-fiction

• "Smiley's people". 1993.
• "In the Kingdom of Mao Bell". Wired. 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". Wired. 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". Wired. 1998. Stopping street crime in the global village.
• In the Beginning...was the Command Line. Harpers Perennial. 1999. ISBN 0-380-81593-1. (Online)
• "Communication Prosthetics: Threat, or Menace?". Whole Earth Review, Summer 2001.
• "Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out". Op-Ed piece on Star Wars, in The New York Times, June 17, 2005.
• "It's All Geek To Me". Op-Ed piece on the movie 300 and geek culture, The New York Times, March 18, 2007.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Neal Stephenson

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Neal Stephenson

• Neal Stephenson's official website
• Neal Stephenson's new personal website
• Neal Stephenson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• "Science Fiction as a Literary Genre" Lecture by Stephenson at Gresham College, London in May 2008
• Stephenson discusses Anathem at Google, September 2008
• Works by or about Neal Stephenson in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Authors@Google: Neal Stephenson

Lectures and panels

• Video of "Seeing Science Through Fiction" with Neal Stephenson, Lee Smolin and Jaron Lanier at the Quantum to Cosmos festival.
• Video of a live broadcast of Neal Stephenson on The Agenda with Steve Paikin: "Wired 24/7?" with Neil Gershenfeld, Raymond Laflamme, and Jaron Lanier.

Interviews

• Neal Stephenson Sees the Light by David Chute, LA Weekly 1999
• A Conversation With Neal Stephenson by Catherine Asaro, SF Site 1999
• Deep Code, Salon Article by Andrew Leonard in 1999
• Locus Online: Neal Stephenson interview, 1999
• Interview:Neal Stephenson, by Therese Littleton for HarperCollins, 2003
• Wired 11.09: Neal Stephenson Rewrites History, 2003
• Neal Stephenson Responds With Wit and Humor Slashdot interview 2004
• The Summit of Mount Stephenson, Salon Article by Andrew Leonard in 2004
• The Salon Interview by Laura Miller in 2004
• Neal Stephenson - the interview, guardian.co.uk 2004
• Neal Stephenson's Past, Present, and Future Interview by Mike Godwin in the February 2005 issue of Reason
• 2008 "Neal Stephenson Talks to io9 About Religion, Aliens, and Spoilers", io9, September 9, 2008
• A Voice from the Future by Devin Hahn, Bostonia Magazine, Oct 2008
• I'm Choosing to Be Left Behind by Christian Stöcker, Spiegel Online, Oct 2008