Slashdot Mirror
Ask Neal Stephenson
Our latest Slashdot interview victim... err... guest... is Neal Stephenson, author of (among others) Snow Crash, CRYPTONOMICON, the much-discussed essay, In the Beginning was the Command Line, and more recently a series of books he calls The Baroque Cycle. (Last month Slashdot reviewed the series' third volume, The System of the World.) Now you can ask Neal whatever you want. As usual, we'll send him 10 -12 of the highest-moderated questions and post his answers verbatim when we get them back.
Science fiction writers are my favorite sources of predictions for the futre of technology. So, if you had to make one predicition related to technology - something we don't entirely have now but will be ubiquitous ten years from now, what would that be?
http://www.busyweather.com/
In any event, the question: the first book of yours I read was Snow Crash, followed by Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon. This earned you a spot in my head as an excellent author of techno/SF/cyberpunk (for lack of a more definitive, preferably singular, term). While I've enjoyed the Baroque Cycle (though I admit to not having read the The System Of yhe World yet), I also look at a novel like Snow Crash with an almost wistful nostalgia. With all that said, do you have any plans to write anything else in that genre/style, or do you feel you've explored it as far as you're interested in doing?
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Hiro Protagonist and Y.T.
What was going through your mind at that moment?
Do you think that hacking tools should be protected (in the United States) under the second amendment?
Neal, what's your Slashdot account name?
May we never see th
Do you ever plan on writing a sequel to Cryptonomicon?
I did not think you would get into the sequel thing, since most others have trouble pulling it off. However, you did a brilliant job of it in the Baroque cycle.
Personally, I thought Cryptonomicon ended wehere it had to, and the Baroque Cycle provided a nice view of the history behind the origins of the characters. However, I'm more curious about how you would take Cryptonomicon in the future, if you were to do so.
Also, I'd asked you this in person when you had given a talk at Georgia Tech - about the endings of your books, to which you had replied that you were quite happy with them the way they were.
But -- if you could have ended them differently, what kind of alternate endings do you think you would have come up with?
Thanks.
Science Fiction is normally relegated to the specialist publications rather than having reviews in the main stream press. Seen as "fringe" and a bit sad its seldom reviewed with anything more than condecesion by the "quality" press.
Does it bother you that people like Jeffery Archer or Jackie Collins seem to get more respect for their writing than you ?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Can you give us any details on what you're currently writing and a guess as to when we'll see it?
Neal,
A lot of us fans loved it when you were in the world of pure sci-fi, though we appreciate the Baroque Cycle, we were wondering if you are going to get back into the world of cyberpunk, or future worlds, or what have you, like in The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon. What are your writing plans when the Baroque Cycle is complete?
Can you detail which pieces of Cryptonomicon's WWII history is factual and which are fiction? How much of the team that did information hiding (leaking the code books so as to have a legitimate reason to change codes) was real?
What are your thoughts on Veror Vinge's Singularity prediction. Is it inevitable? Will humans become a part of it or be left behind by this new "species"?
Not only what will we have 10 years from now - but what major item will be gone? [Cars? TVs?...]
Also as a science fiction author - when you write, do you try to paint a realistic picture of the future or simply one that will suit the needs of your story?
There is always a frontier where there is an open and willing mind
Neil,
Please give us some more details about Enoch Root. He's quite an amazong character, but you leave us really guessing about him. Is he the same person throughout the years? Is he the embodiment of the biblical Enoch?
...
In a fight between you and William Gibson, who would win?
I have asked both William Gibson and Hunter S. Thompson a question that seems especially relevant to your work, as you have combined technology with politics in the immanent future in several compelling stories. As corporations move into power vacuums vacated and created by governments, especially globally, who are the new political criminals? Do we already have corporate political prisoners? And how can we change corporatism as we slowly changed politics, to protect the rights of these criminals, and the rights of the rest of us treated as such, without justice? If we hear your answer, I will share the answers from Gibson and Thompson, each as revealing about the writers as about crime.
--
make install -not war
Do you think computer hacking tools should be protected (in the United States) under the second amendment? Our right to "bear arms" is designed to defend against internal tyranny as much as external invasion. With the world built around information and its interpretation, to certify accountability it will remain necessary for individuals to have the ability to subvert (when necessary) the gatekeepers to popular exposure if those gatekeepers are to be kept honest.
If as much license were applied to the second amendment as has been claimed under the first, we would all be packing hand-held nuclear weapons. Is a port scanner or code disassembler too much to ask?
(On behalf of my brother, who first started pushing your books at me years before I finally read any ...)
Mr. Stephenson:
In some of your books, your action scenes are far detailed (and better informed) than are those of many authors, who gloss over the ways that actual physical objects, including people, interact at close range (including skateboarding, diving, fighting, and the awkwardness of in-car sex with Amy Shaftoe).
This leads me to ask, Are you a skateboarder? Surfer? Martial Artist, and if so of what variety? (Or Rock climber, spelunker, etc.) If Yes in a general sense, how often do you participate in such things now?
More generally, what physical activities that you find especially invigorating mentally?
Tim
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I'm curious about your take on the commercial spaceflight. First, would/will you go up to space? How do you think this will impact Sci-fi writing. Its been a prominent theme in sci-fi for quite a while, but in reality, very slow to take off. So do you think it will push more stuff to looking at a "star trek" like future? Or do you think its already overemphasized in the literature?
I recently re-read your article "Mother Earth, Mother Board" in WIRED magazine, and it seems that a lot of research that you did for that article inspired you greatly. Many things that are touched upon in that there crop up throughout CRYPTONOMICON and the Baroque Cycle, are you planning on ever publishing a revised or expanding that article? I would love to about the research that went into the backround/backstory of those books.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Since you're Neal Stephenson, I suspect the answer could be something like "surveys of ancient Sumerian accounting systems".
:)
If that's the case, please include a work of modern fiction or two in your list; something you think that a fan of your work might also enjoy.
Neal, In interviews I have read you have stated that during the writing of Cryptonomicon you discarded a third 'future' timeline. Is there any possibility of someday bringing that timeline to light? Do you feel that the contents of that timeline still pass muster given the changes in Cryptography and official power concentration since you wrote the novel?
You programmed computers before you wrote novels. Greg Egan shares that hyphenated career, and continues to illustrate his stories with Java applets. Do you still program, possibly targeting the same subjects with your word processor as your compiler? As _Snow Crash_ was originally designed as an interactive game, and such landmarks as _Myst_ have regenerated as (usually bad) novels, do you see the arrival of a truly multimedia story, delivered simultaneously in multiple media, anytime soon? By whom, specifically or generally?
--
make install -not war
Neal, I would rather simply read your books than to try to independently model your brain through ontological questioning; however, if you were to suggest some unusual reading to a much younger version of yourself, what would it be?
One of the major themes in Cryptonomicon that carried over (in a big way) to The Baroque Cycle is money. You introduced some "futuristic" views of currency and of where money might be going in Cryptonomicon, and you skillfully managed to do the same thing, while explaining some of the history of modern monetary systems, in the most recent books.
You've obviously spent a lot of time thinking about money lately. Is there anything going on in the modern world with monetary systems (barter networks, for example) that you find particularly interesting? What do you see on the horizon with respect to money?
PS -- thanks for the great books!
When you wrote "In the Beginning was the Command Line" you were very much in love with BeOS. As nice as BeOS was, it is now mostly gone. Do you still use BeOS 5, or have you aquired YellowTab from Zeta? Or, instead have you embreaced the new UNIX based MacOS X as the OS you want to use when you "Just want to go to Disneyland"?
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I thought it was really interesting in Snow Crash how Juanita (a Catholic) doesn't believe the story of Jesus's resurrection. She claims that it was the Church's attempt to wrest back control of the religion. I'm not Christian but the very idea is really intriguing. Was there a particular source or research for this theory? What about your perspective on religion in general?
Classic era science fiction (Heinlein, Asimov, etc.) was notably more humanistic and positivistic in tone. In works from that era, the future was bright, challenges were overcome by clever individuals, and technology and science led humanity towards ever greater accomplishments. Now, however, science fiction tends to paint a much bleaker picture of the future (and present). Why do you think this is, and do you think this is an accurate representation of potential futures?
Mr. Stephenson:
I greatly enjoy your travel stories, both non-fiction (Mother Earth, Motherboard) and in particular your descriptions of the Philipines in Cryptonomicon.
Can you share some of the ideas you've developed for savvy trav'lin? For instance, how do you deal with carrying sufficent technology (whatever level you deem this to be) while minimizing the risk of theft, breakage, or loss by other means? Do you dress native or carry your entire warddobe? [And broader, do you travel with something close to nothing, picking up necessary items as the need arises? What do you not leave home without?]
Do you carry any sort of self-defense means in some places, and if so What and Where?
Tim
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I've always admired writers whose style implies a certain work discipline, and I may be wrong but it seems as if you have a writing environment that does you wonders. As a world famous author, you have had the opportunity to work in some very interesting places.
My question(s) is(are) this: what is your ideal writing environment? Have you been to anywhere in particular in your travels, or have a writing setup/gig that has compelled you to really get words down, physically, ready for someone else to read?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Mr. Stephenson,
I have found your works to be both illuminating and invigorating. Having said that, why do you write? That is to say, Is there an overall guiding influence to your craft as a whole, and does that somehow inform what you set out to accomplish in each novel?
Kind Regards, Sergio A. Mora
Trust The Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Mr. Stephenson,
I have been reading and finding your books interesting. However, I was wondering if there was a prediction that you felt was going to happen, but didn't...and this surprised you to no end. Was there such a prediction and what was it?
Thank you.
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
Neal, at one point you were a coder. Eventually, you became a writer. There are many programmers on Slashdot -- do you recommend this path to them? How do you find writing English as a profession versus writing code as a profession?
May we never see th
Greetings to you in the name of the most high God, from my beloved country Nigeria.
I am sorry and I solicit your permission into your privacy. I am Barrister Leonardo Akume, lawyer to the late Dr. Koffi Abachus, a brilliant Nigerian mathematician.
My former client, late Dr. Koffi Abachus, died in a mysterious plane crash in the year 1994 on the way to a scientific conference to make an announcement of the utmost importance to mankind.
He was planning to present a paper regarding his extensive work on data storage. It is said the data storage device he had developed, would be roughly ten times more secure compared to the latest quantum excyption techniques. The device was about the size of a steamer trunk, and stored on a privately owned island close to the coast of Nigeria. Dr Koffi Abachus is also the King of the local tribe by heritage...
Oh well.. Should there BE a data haven? If so, where?
"/Dread"
Okay, clear this up for us. I Enoch Root one man in both Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle or several? In Cryptonomicon Enoch talks about his "religious order," and I posit that "Enoch" is some sort of (mortal) atificial construct with mind that can be transferred when that "body" wears out/is killed or what have you - a clone perhaps.
Are you ever going to clear up this mystery in another book or are you going to let us twist in the wind forever?
And just thanks for all the great writing over the years. Your books are what I pack on long trips and have kept me company in Poland, Russia, California, and an excruciating mid-December move from Chicago to Dubuque, Iowa. I'd like to make a special plug aimed at oter Slashdotters for the Wired article Hacker Tourist: Mother Earth Motherboard which kept me fascinated during a long trip up the Pacific Coast Highway in 1996. I'd buy your grocery list, man.
"Being Irish, he possessed an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through brief episodes of joy." -W. B.
As a historian it has been interesting for me to see you tackle historical subjects (and from my period to boot). Something which often pops up when I debate with my colleagues is the constraints that our profession puts on how we portray history in writing. The demand for concrete sources for everything we write often leaves us unable to put into writing some of our understanding and conceptions of historical societies and events.
So I wonder, how do you see us? Having gone from science fiction to historical novels, how do you view historians and how we write history?
Your books always seem to be painstakingly researched. Which comes first, the desire to write the book which creates the need for the research, or the research inspiring you to write the book?
www.linux-skunkworks.com
To expand a smidge further: as covered earlier on Slashdot, the problem that the singularity presents to futurists is troubling. By definition the singularity is the point at which the rate of technological change is faster than can be imagined.
How does that sort of thing bother you as an author of futurist/speculative fiction? Wouldn't you rather there be a nice crash of civilization to keep the pace of technological advancement slow enough so that predictions in your books get outpaced by the march of technological "progress"?
Of course, given said crash of civilization, you'd best have most of your assets in gold. And it might be unlikely that your publisher would continue writing you checks, but that's a different story.
How do you cope with the blank-page problem and times when the story seems to dry up in your mind? Does it ever happen to you?
...an Englishman in London.
I'd like to ask this question:
Okay, so you're satisfied with your endings...why? What about them appeals to you? What is it you're going for? What constitutes a good ending for you? What don't you like in an ending?
(And for the record, I like your books enough that I simply don't want them to end; I've never had the visceral reaction to your endings that some seem to have.)
Carousel is a lie!
Is there such a thing as an ending consultant? Could you perhaps employ one? I'm sure that your books would sell much better if the author line was "Story by Neal Stephanson, Ending by Whots Hisname."
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
There are very few novelists these days who write their novels in the present tense ("He gets up, goes to work"). Most people write in the time-honored past tense ("He got up, went to work.") style.
Why did you start using the present tense after writing your first two books (The Big U, Zodiac) in past? What does it do for you that past tense does not? Was it hard to get your novels accepted by the publisher because of the unexpected tense?
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
The Wikipedia lists you as a part-time advisor for Blue Origin, a company that is working to "develop a crewed, suborbital launch system." What is it that you do for them and has the recent winning of the X-Prize by the Spaceship One team had any effect on Blue Origin's plans? What are your visions of future private space flight?
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
First off-- thanks for coming to the national book fair. I enjoyed your talk and thanks for signing my copy of system of the world.
your 5 major works explore the rise and fall of the modern nation-state. The Baroque Cycle shows its genesis and rise (esp. vis a vis the development of centralized banking and modern financial systems), Crypnotomicon sows the seeds of its fall (untraceable tax havens through strong crypto and electronic "money") and Snowcrash and Diamond Age show a "post nation-state" world.
Was it always your intent to explore this theme way back when you were writing Snowcrash, or did it grow "organically" as you started working on new books?
Now that this theme has a beginning, middle and end, do you intend to continue exploring it in future books, or is it now "done" and time to move on to new subjects?
Here we are, over a decade later Snow Crash was published. MMORPGs seem to have brought the metaverse into reality yet it is not quite the metaverse we imagined. Other virtual worlds such as Second Life and Moove seem to be a step closer to the metaverse, but both lack the simplicity and core elements to attract a huge market on the same level as instant messaging has.
Without question, text based chat on IRC, AOL, instant messaging and elsewhere has played a major role in bringing the masses online. Ironically, in an age of high-powered video cards and broadband, internet communication it seems text-based communication still works the best. While text-based communication unquestionably has advantages over graphical forms of communication (ie, I can search usenet postings from years ago) there still are some disadvantages. Flame wars erupt on message boards over the misinterpreted connotation of an otherwise benign comment. The lack of body language and tone of voice seem to be the primary causes. In many cases, "call me now" is the only option to prevent a disaster.
What do you feel is standing in the way of the "true" metaverse becoming reality? Or is it only a matter of time before an innovative developer brings it to us? Also, how would you feel about Digital Rights Management in a metaverse? Do you think that DRM would encourage artists to create their own works, leading to a more diverse and vibrant metaverse, or would the world be better off without it?
I am currently reading The Diamond Age.
And i've recently finished Highschool.
I was wondering what you think are the major flaws in the current western educational system.
And in what ways do you think it could be improved?
I was just browsing through some old issues of Wired and came across that article you wrote about laying cable in the pacific. ITBWT Command Line is also noteworthy nonfiction; do you have any other exercies in journalism or nonfiction in mind?
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
As someone who switched majors from Comp Sci to English (Creative Writing), after reading Snow Crash, I'm interested to know how you view the novel in hindsight. In reading it the first time, I was blown away -- at the time it felt very much like that world was only a few decades a way, at most -- now, I re-read the book (about a dozen times now) simply for the fun factor and to study your style and the construction of your story, and I'm struck by the fact that I view a world like that as being highly highly unlikely. I'd be curious as to your opinion as to how the novel has stood the test of time, and what you'd do differently this time around.
blog |
In the Cryptonomicon, sometimes you use titles like Electric Till Corporation (IBM) or Finux(Linux), other times you just used the real world name like Microsoft or Mitsubishi. Were there a legal reason for using ETC instead of IBM, or was it a whim? What was the rational? Sangloth I'd appreciate any comment with a logical basis...it doesn't even have to agree with me.
I enjoyed Cryptonomicon very much but I was constantly struck by similarites in theme and style to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Are you familiar with the book? Do you feel that Pynchon has had a significant effect on your work? Are the similarities intentional?
Having read both Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, I get the impression that you are aware that, as our society becomes more information-oriented, there will be more public and larger battles over the future of open information: both legally, as universities and companies are driven to protect (with patent and copyright) all discoveries and socially, as Peer-to-Peer and portable computing transforms the way we connect to one another.
May we hear what your opinion is over "intellectual property" -- copyright, patents, and so forth?
Do you like Japanese imports?
The question: Children today interface more directly with technology by bypassing some of the metaphor elements of a GUI (i.e. kids learn how to use a computer without ever touching a typewriter and know that the "desktop" is really just a folder in a file directory). Where do you see this phenomenon leading, as younger generations learn to work with technology and associated concepts with less "intermediation"? Is this something "new", or is this the classic "older people are less willing to adopt innovative technologies"?
From the beginning of the Internet, information has gone from being open to proprietary to closed. The DMCA has made more information illegal due to locking it and making keys illegal instead of establishing the trade secret status or copyright of the information inside. As predicted by many SF writers, people have begun to trust computers to keep real secrets. Hackers, once lauded for their abilities, are now feared for them. Diebold, for example, got embarrassed badly by having their secrets uncovered. How do you believe governments will deal with unpredictable hackers who suddenly have such powers?
-Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. -Ben Franklin
I was jolted by the ending too, but then I realized he really did end it the way it should be ended. I'll explain my take on it below, but first let me point out that I'm going to be discussing major spoilers, so if you haven't read the book--- WHY ARE YOU READING THIS ANYWAY?
OK, with that out of the way, here's the ending: Nell, Miranda, and Carl are pulled out of the water by the mouse army. A church bell rings. The end.
Now here is what happens next: The Celestial Kingdom achieved its goal and equilibrium begins again between the phyles. Miranda marries Carl, they both become the parents for Nell she always wanted, Nell is now queen of a brand new phyle, and she can go on to whatever she wants to do as she deals with the other phyles in trade and negotiations. Hackworth is no longer needed and the book wasn't about him, a big hint for which is given in the subtitle of the book that talks about a "Young Lady."
All of the above is implied in the book. Nell was trying to find her "mother." She found her. Carl was trying to find Miranda. He found her. Nell was trying to solve the primer. She solved it. The mouse army needed to find their queen. They found her. The struggle between the phyles needed to move to a new level of equilibrium. It did. Finkle-McGraw wanted to figure out how best to use the primer. He figured it out. The end.
The only thing Neal Stephenson didn't do was spell all this out at the end. He merely implied it by noting what the characters were seeking, and then showed they each found what they sought. Bells play. The end.
(Please note that I've not finished the System of the World yet)
The conspiracy in the World War II period of Cryptonomicon travels halfway around the world with a large amount of solid gold punch cards. While the cards are being transfered, Rudy notes that the information on the gold is quite valuable; this makes sense as one wouldn't use gold to make punch cards unless the information you wanted to put on them was more valuable than the gold. These punch cards go down with their submarine, but are then later brought up by the Saftoes. Randy notices that the gold has been punched, but no mention is made of the cards after that point.
What's on those cards?
When I first read Snow Crash, I was struck by the use of "Nippon" and "Nipponese." In my ignorance at the time, someone had to tell me that Nippon is the "real" name of what most Americans know as Japan. In the Snow Crash universe, I assumed that using the name Nippon instead was a bit of cleverness, revealing that, in this version of the future, the island nation had gained enough international influence to get everyone to call it by the preferred name.
However, in Cryptonomicon you keep up the pattern despite the novel being set in the past and present. Even if soldiers in the Pacific theater of WWII preferred the slang "nips" to "japs," I find it difficult to accept that Randy Waterhouse and his techie friends not only say "Nippon" and "Nipponese", but that Randy even thinks in those terms.
Do you know something that I don't about how people think and talk about Japan/Nippon, or are you trying to bring your readers around to your own preferred terminology through good, old-fashioned immersion?
I wish that my inferiority complex were as good as yours.
-RenderHead
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