Neal Stephenson

By Logan Wright

The recent popularity surge of online role playing games like World of Warcraft has brought a renewed relevancy to Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk juggernaut Snow Crash. The novel features a virtual world called the metaverse. The term has since been used to describe a wide range of virtual worlds that incorporate human interaction with substantial social contact and economic collaboration.

Although Snow Crash might narrowly edge out some of his other novels in terms of fame, Stephenson is far from a one-hit wonder. The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer earned him a Hugo Award for Best Novel. The novel tackles a wide range of technological controversies, especially nanotechnology and its implications on human life. Other notable novels include Cryptonomicon and the three Baroque Cycle volumes. Stephenson has also written articles for publications such as Wired magazine and the New York Times on geekdom and technology.

When describing Stephenson’s books, literary analysts tend to throw around words like “Sumerian mythology” and “laissez-faire capitalism” and then get all excited over the radical storytelling techniques and high-brow satire. This might seem a tad intimidating but ignore the English class mish-mash; Stephenson’s writing is entertaining, witty, insightful, and action packed. How can you not be intrigued by an author whose published work includes a short story titled “Spew”?

A top title from Stephenson:
Neal Stephenson, (1994), Snow Crash, Penguin Books Ltd., ISBN: 0140232923

This book is available from the Null Bookshop. Just click here to buy (or here to pay in dollars).

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