Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson (1959 - ) is a singular writer. His fiction is shelved, for categorical convenience, in science fiction/fantasy here at Whistlestop Bookshop. He has written novels which have transformed the field of science fiction, historical novels which upend conventions of historical parameters, and contemporary novels which embarrass many of the current tropes and concerns of MFA literature. He is also an essayist with a wide range of interests. His breakthrough book was Snow Crash (1992), which coined and conceived the workings of “metaverse.” It also signaled his passion for ancient history, for outsiders, and for how systems work and decay and repair themselves and what they are (or are becoming) after being repaired. Ambitious stuff. And Stephenson is unafraid of Big Ideas.
In the Beginning . . . Was the Command Line
In the Beginning . . . Was the Command Line
This is "the Word" -- one man's word, certainly -- about the art (and artifice) of the state of our computer-centric existence. And considering that the "one man" is Neal Stephenson, "the hacker Hemingway" (Newsweek) -- acclaimed novelist, pragmatist, seer, nerd-friendly philosopher, and nationally bestselling author of groundbreaking literary works (Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, etc., etc.) -- the word is well worth hearing. Mostly well-reasoned examination and partial rant, Stephenson's In the Beginning... was the Command Line is a thoughtful, irreverent, hilarious treatise on the cyber-culture past and present; on operating system tyrannies and downloaded popular revolutions; on the Internet, Disney World, Big Bangs, not to mention the meaning of life itself.