Stephenson's Quicksilver Slated For March 7th

Swampper writes: "New Neal Stephenson novel Quicksilver is available for pre-order from Amazon UK. It's due out on March 7th. There is also another Stephenson book on the horizon; Interface. It will arrive May 2nd." Actually, Interface was previously offered through the psuedonym "Stephen Bury" Note the discussion of this book and others on the Cryptonomicon site.

Comments

What about The Cobweb (2nd Bury book)?

[kubrick]

I already have Interface, but never saw the second Stephen Bury book for sale anywhere here (serves me right for not living in the US, I guess).

Is that flagged to be re-issued as well? Given that copies of Zodiac have popped up again here recently, I'd imagine The Cobweb would be stocked more widely with the Stephenson name on the cover.

I'm looking forward to Quicksilver, of course -- all that detail combined with amusing narrative :)

In The Beginning Was The Command Line

[adamjone]

For anyone who has not read Neal Stephenson, In The Beginning Was The Command Line is an essay he wrote dealing with the evolution of the UI from the command line to windows based. It is a funny and interesting rant on how the graphical widgets we use today have softened us.

Stephenson talks about Quicksilver

[tds]

This a brief interview in which Stephenson talks about Quicksilver. "related -- loosely -- to "Cryptonomicon". I won't say it's part of a trilogy, but it's a somewhat related work. It's a historical novel, set farther back in time, about 300 years ago, and it deals with a lot of the same themes" http://www.onmagazine.com/on-mag/reviews/article/0 ,9985,46833-1954,00.html

Re:What a waste

[Murdock037]

I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think you may be asking a bit much.

All the truly valuable science fiction-- which I've heard referred to as the most interesting genre being used today, although I'm not sure I'd go that far-- deals with man's relationship with society and technology (which grew, on a side note, out of the western, which dealt with taming the frontier, or the big scary world; the next natural step was to ask where we go from there).

But you're right, there's nothing out there (with which I'm familiar) right now that's utterly breathtaking. A few reasons for this, in my mind:

1. Sci-fi has been disregarded in pop culture, despite the "rise of the geek," as fetishistic and childish. Because it's not respected, respectable people don't stick up for it.

2. The sci-fi we get is utterly commercial-- Star Trek, movies passing themselves off as sci-fi, etc.-- and so the money behind it doesn't want to tackle weightier issues.

But some things to ponder:

1. Stephenson's doing a pretty fine job. He's examining important ideas in a still-relevant medium, the novel, and he does so in a way that gets him at least a modicum of notice out in the real world. He'll be remembered down the line as one of the people that really gets it.

2. Sci-fi was pretty silly to start with, you know. The B-movies of the fifties-- giant bugs and such-- had the subtext of fears of communism and the dangers of atomic power, but they were still movies with GIANT BUGS AND SUCH. There are gems that we do get these days-- Stephenson, Spielberg's "A.I." (and sorry, folks, like it or not, it wasn't a BAD movie by any means, no matter how misdirected the ending)-- that are just as good, if not better, than anything from the bygone eras.

3. You can't expect a new "2001" every few years because there is nobody out there now operating at the level of Kubrick in 1968. He was, at his peak, probably the finest filmmaker in the world, and "2001" was his opportunity to indulge in his grandest delusions. If he wasn't such a genius, it would have been an atrocious movie. As it stands, it's the byproduct of one of the medium's greatest creators, and something like that's not going to come along every day.

There's talent out there capable of doing wonderful things. You've just got to sift through the rest.

Re:What a waste

[Muggins the Mad]

> The implications of what we can reasonably assume we'll be able to do within a few decades are mind blowing. Surely there must be someone who can bring it to life, to put us there and make it feel real, without wimping out and turning it into just a big joke.

In that case I'd recommend Greg Egan.
http://www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/

As can be seen from his web site, he's a geek too :)

Pretty much any of his books rock, but I especially like Diaspora and Axiomatic. He puts
a lot of his short stories online so you can even try before you buy.

Of course, as with anything like this, it's up to personal taste, so YMMV.

- Muggins the Mad

Thoughts On N.Stephenson's Real Concerns

[peripatetic_bum]

I just had re-read his books recently (except Zodiac and Cryptonomicon, but I read Cryptonomiocon recently enough to remember it well) and I have to say that (in reply to the "what a waste" post among others) that N.S and William Gibson's and actually many other really good SF writers main concerns have never really been about the technology itself. It is true that whats gets them noticed is the exciting imagery that the describe new possibilities of tech but really what I have noticed and what keeps peopoe coming back is they are really concenred with the effect of all this tech, and they are concerned with it in a surprisingly humanistic way (which makes it very surprising to me that they are held in great regard by geeks as elite 'tech' type writers)

I'll stick with Neal S. for now, but having read his most all his book, you can detect even way back in Snow Crash that Neal believes that what technology is really doing is making it clear that what really makes people different is not race (remember, the Protangonist, "Hiro" is a black/asian) not race, or genetics, but the culture that they acquire (the software that is written into the bio-Hardware, if you will).

In a A lady's Illus. primer I was surprised that this book really was a modern versioin of many philosophical tracts that were popular in the 18/19th centuries. IN A.L's.I.P, N.S. is really concerned with what is key about education, what is key about a culture that makes it successful. While his grip on his understanding culture seems to be (from reading) kind of unsophisticated, I have to give them man extreme props for even trying to tackle what seems to be the most contentious issue of our times. He directly attacks "cultureal relativity", "the dumbing down of society", "The real reason for poverty", and in both A.L's.I.P and in "..The Command line" Essay, he tries to describe what is about cultures and even sub-groups of the cultures (Hacker, vs, End_user, for example).

What I am trying to say that Neal is using tech as a way to strip away the mere happenstance that makes people a certain way and is trying to understand fundamentally what is going on with culture and where it is heading.

I look forward to his new book, and will not be surprised if I see these same themes play out, once again.

I would appreciate hearing you comments on what you guys think Neal's real themes are ( and no they arent about what new tech thing is coming up, btw :)

Thanks for reading