Neal Stephenson – författare

THE 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION WITH NEW, NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED MATERIALAfter the Internet, what came next?Enter the Metaverse - cyberspace home to avatars and software daemons, where anything and just about everything goes. Newly available on the Street - the Metaverse's main drag - is Snow Crash. A cyberdrug that reduces avatars in the digital world to dust, but also infects users in real life, leaving them in a vegetative state.This is bad news for Hiro, a freelance hacker and the Metaverse's best swordfighter, and mouthy skateboard courier Y. T.. Together, investigating the Infocalypse, they trace back the roots of language itself to an ancient Sumerian priesthood and find they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.In this special edition of the remarkably prescient modern classic, Neal Stephenson exploreslinguistics, computer science, politics and philosophy in the form of a break-neck adventure into the fast-approaching yet eerily recognizable future.'Fast-forward free-style mall mythology for the twenty-first century' William Gibson'Brilliantly realized' New York Times Book Review 'Like a Pynchon novel with the brakes removed' Washington Post'A remarkably prescient vision of today's tech landscape' Vanity Fair

"This Snow Crash thing--is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?"Juanita shrugs. "What's the difference?"The only relief from the sea of logos is within the well-guarded borders of the Burbclaves. Is it any wonder that most sane folks have forsaken the real world and chosen to live in the computer-generated universe of virtual reality?In a major city, the size of a dozen Manhattans, is a domain of pleasures limited only by the imagination. But now a strange new computer virus called Snow Crash is striking down hackers everywhere, leaving an unlikely young pizza delivery man as humankind's last best hope.The perfect cyberpunk sci-fi read, Snow Crash is an equally worthy successor to William Gibson's Neuromancer and predecessor to Ernest Cline's Ready Player One.***What readers are saying about Snow Crash:'It's hard to believe Neal wrote his books when the published date claims. He's always so right about the future, and I keep on hoping he's so wrong' Goodreads Reader Review'Snow Crash is to Books as The Matrix is to movies (with only the absolute BEST parts of Tron and Da Vinci Code thrown in)' Goodreads Reader Review'Loved it! Can't recommend it highly enough. Everyone should read this book. Go do it. Do it now. It's just awesome. You won't regret it' Goodreads Reader Review'It's hilarious and mind-blowing. From the first page to the last, I was amazed at just how much influence this book has had on TV, movies, etc.' Goodreads Reader Review

'Inventive' THE TIMES From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Termination Shock and Cryptonomicon, the first installment in a monumental new trilogy—an expansive historical epic of intrigue and international espionage, presaging the dawn of the Atomic Age. Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn Rae Bjornberg is raised in post-Revolution Leningrad by her father, a party-line Leninist who re-christens her Aurora.She spends her early years in Russia but then grows up as a teenager in Montana, before being drawn into gun-running and revolution in the streets of Washington, D.C. during the depths of the Great Depression.When a surprising revelation about her past puts her in the crosshairs of U.S. authorities, Dawn returns to Russia, where she is groomed as a spy by the organization that later becomes the KGB…Set against the turbulent decades of the early 20th century, Polostan is an inventive, richly detailed, and deeply entertaining historical epic, and the start of a captivating new series from Neal Stephenson.

CULT AUTHOR NEAL STEPHENSON'S UNSTOPPABLE SCI-FI CLASSICThe future is small. The future is nano . . .And who could be smaller or more insignificant than poor Little Nell - an orphan girl alone and adrift in a world of Confucian Law, Neo-Victorian values and warring nanotechnology?Well, not quite alone. Because Nell has a friend, of sorts. A guide, a teacher, an armed and unarmed combat instructor, a book and a computer: the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is all these and much much more. It is illicit, magical, dangerous.And it isn't Nell's. It was stolen. And now some very powerful people want to get their hands on this highly desirable object. Nell is about to discover that the world can feel very small indeed . . .'6.0 stars. Among the best books I have ever read' GoodReads Review'If Snow Crash was so good that cyberpunk went in to a coma, The Diamond Age effectively pulled the plug' GoodReads Review'This is Great Expectations with nanotechnology' GoodReads Review

The #1 New York Times bestselling author returns with a visionary technothriller about climate change ‘Stephenson’s reputation as a sci-fi titan is deserved’ Sunday Times ‘His most visionary, and timely, book yet’ Chicago Review of Books ‘Absorbing speculative fiction’ Guardian ‘Brilliantly entertaining… at science fiction’s cutting edge’ SFX ‘Ingenious and sometimes prophetic’ Telegraph Neal Stephenson’s sweeping, prescient new novel transports readers to a near-future world where the greenhouse effect has inexorably resulted in a whirling-dervish troposphere of superstorms, rising sea levels, global flooding, merciless heat waves, and virulent, deadly pandemics.One man has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as “elemental.” But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humanity should it be applied?As only Stephenson can, Termination Shock sounds a clarion alarm, ponders potential solutions and dire risks, and wraps it all together in an exhilarating, witty, mind-expanding speculative adventure.

A remarkable epic adventure of soldiers and secrets, spies and code breakers, cryptography and high-tech finance. When the adult grandchildren of two men once involved in code-breaking espionage in World War II find a sunken Nazi submarine, they're led to a massive conspiracy, the effects of which can either enhance freedom--or subjugate the world. A "New York Times" Notable Book.

Across the globe, millions of computer screens flicker with the artfully coded world of T'Rain - an addictive internet role-playing game of fantasy and adventure. But backstreet hackers in China have just unleashed a contagious virus called Reamde, and as it rampages through the gaming world spreading from player to player - holding hard drives hostage in the process - the computer of one powerful and dangerous man is infected, causing the carefully mediated violence of the on-line world to spill over into reality.A fast-talking, internet-addicted mafia accountant is brutally silenced by his Russian employers, and Zula - a talented young T'Rain computer programmer - is abducted and bundled on to a private jet. As she is flown across the skies in the company of the terrified boyfriend she broke up with hours before, and a brilliant Hungarian hacker who may be her only hope, she finds herself sucked into a whirl of Chinese Secret Service agents and gun-toting American Survivalists; the Russian criminal underground and an al-Qaeda cell led by a charismatic Welshman; each a strand of a connected world that devastatingly converges in T'Rain.An inimitable and compelling thriller that careers from British Columbia to South-West China via Russia and the fantasy world of T'Rain, Reamde is an irresistible epic from the unique imagination of one of today's most individual writers.

A gripping and page-turning thriller that explores themes of power, information, secrecy and war in the twentieth century. From the author of the three-volume historical epic 'The Baroque Cycle' and Seveneves.In his legendary, sprawling masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century.In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse - a mathematical genius and young Captain in the U.S. Navy - is assigned to Detachment 2702, an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists. Some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt.Their mission is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. Waterhouse is flung into a cryptographic chess match against his German counterpart - one where every move determines the fate of thousands.In the present day, Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia where encrypted data can be stored and exchanged free of repression and scrutiny. Joining forces with the tough-as-nails Amy, Randy attempts tosecretly salvage a sunken Nazi submarine that holds the key to keeping the dream of a data haven afloat.But their scheme brings to light a massive conspiracy with its roots in Detachment 2702 - and an unbreakable Nazi code called Arethusa. There are two ways this could go: towards unimaginable riches and a future of personal and digital liberty - or towards a totalitarian nightmare...Profound and prophetic, hypnotic and hyperactive, Cryptonomicon is a work of great art, thought and creative daring, the product of a ingenious imagination working with white-hot intensity.

The astounding new novel from the master of science fiction President Barack Obama’s summer reading choice THE EARTH WAS A TICKING TIME BOMB.To ensure the survival they had to look beyond its atmosphere.So they became pioneers.Five thousand years later and their progeny form seven distinct races and they must journey to an alien: Earth.A magnificent, visionary work of speculative fiction from a true visionary that will dazzle you with its depth, psychology and awesome imagination.

Erasmas, 'Raz', is a young avout living in the Concent, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers. Three times during history's darkest epochs, violence has invaded and devastated the cloistered community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe.But they now prepare to open the Concent's gates to the outside world, in celebration of a once-a-decade rite. Suddenly, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world - as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet...and beyond.

You think you know how the world works? Think again. 21st Century America Magic has faded from the minds of mankind, until an encounter between Melisande Stokes, linguistics expert at Harvard, and Tristan Lyons, shadowy agent of government, leads to the uncovering of a distant past.After translating a series of ancient texts, Melisande and Tristan discover the connection between science, magic and time travel and so the Department of Diachronic Operations – D.O.D.O. – is hastily brought into existence. Its mission: to develop a device that will send their agents back to the past, where they can stop magic from disappearing and alter the course of history.But when you interfere with the past, there’s no telling what you might find in your future…Written with genius and complexity, this vividly realised novel will make you believe the impossible, and question the very foundations of the modern world.

From the New York Times bestselling author of SEVENEVES ‘One of the great novels of our time’ Wall Street Journal‘Wonderful’ Guardian‘Staggering’ New York Times‘Captivating’ Washington Post‘Cutting-edge’ Booklist‘Mind-blowing’ Slate What if we could live forever? What if we did? In Fall or, Dodge in Hell exists a world where we hold the keys to our own mortality, where the limits of survival no longer exist, and the potential to decide our fates lies in our corruptible hands.From one of the greatest speculative writers of our time comes an epic saga of life and death, power and technology, and a future that isn’t as far away as it seems…

'Inventive' THE TIMES From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Termination Shock and Cryptonomicon, the first installment in a monumental new trilogy—an expansive historical epic of intrigue and international espionage, presaging the dawn of the Atomic Age. Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn Rae Bjornberg is raised in post-Revolution Leningrad by her father, a party-line Leninist who re-christens her Aurora.She spends her early years in Russia but then grows up as a teenager in Montana, before being drawn into gun-running and revolution in the streets of Washington, D.C. during the depths of the Great Depression.When a surprising revelation about her past puts her in the crosshairs of U.S. authorities, Dawn returns to Russia, where she is groomed as a spy by the organization that later becomes the KGB…Set against the turbulent decades of the early 20th century, Polostan is an inventive, richly detailed, and deeply entertaining historical epic, and the start of a captivating new series from Neal Stephenson.

The second instalment in the monumental BOMB LIGHT series – a gripping tale set on the eve of World War II, as nations race to find and control an elusive substance critical to building atomic weapons. From Neal Stephenson, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Polostan and Cryptonomicon, comes the second instalment in his monumental Bomb Light series – a gripping tale set on the eve of World War II, as nations race to find and control an elusive substance critical to building atomic weapons. 1934. British journalist Owen Crisp-Upjohn is dispatched to Moscow, where his assignments quickly escalate from cultural reporting to international espionage. Before long, Owen finds himself pulled into the orbit of the enigmatic Earl of Suffolk, a maverick aristocrat, and Aurora, a curiously compelling women with a shadowy past rooted in Soviet intelligence.Their mission soon becomes clear: secure the world’s only supply of deuterium – heavy water” – before it falls into Nazi hands. The high-stakes pursuit takes them from London’s plush drawing-rooms to Barcelona, ravaged by the Spanish Civil War; from far-flung Soviet aerodromes to the perilous, icy landscapes of occupied Norway. Over time, Owen evolves from a detached observer into a man forced to confront profound questions of honour, love and moral responsibility as loyalties are tested and allegiances shift in an ever-tightening web of science and deceit.Rich with historical insight, emotionally complex characters and a relentless sense of urgency in a world on the edge of cataclysm, D: Heavy Water is a suspenseful and wildly entertaining tale of courage and consequence in which humankind’s future is shaped by decisions made in the shadows.

The second instalment in the monumental BOMB LIGHT series – a gripping tale set on the eve of World War II, as nations race to find and control an elusive substance critical to building atomic weapons. From Neal Stephenson, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Polostan and Cryptonomicon, comes the second instalment in his monumental Bomb Light series – a gripping tale set on the eve of World War II, as nations race to find and control an elusive substance critical to building atomic weapons. 1934. British journalist Owen Crisp-Upjohn is dispatched to Moscow, where his assignments quickly escalate from cultural reporting to international espionage. Before long, Owen finds himself pulled into the orbit of the enigmatic Earl of Suffolk, a maverick aristocrat, and Aurora, a curiously compelling women with a shadowy past rooted in Soviet intelligence. Their mission soon becomes clear: secure the world’s only supply of deuterium – heavy water” – before it falls into Nazi hands. The high-stakes pursuit takes them from London’s plush drawing-rooms to Barcelona, ravaged by the Spanish Civil War; from far-flung Soviet aerodromes to the perilous, icy landscapes of occupied Norway. Over time, Owen evolves from a detached observer into a man forced to confront profound questions of honour, love and moral responsibility as loyalties are tested and allegiances shift in an ever-tightening web of science and deceit. Rich with historical insight, emotionally complex characters and a relentless sense of urgency in a world on the edge of cataclysm, D: Heavy Water is a suspenseful and wildly entertaining tale of courage and consequence in which humankind’s future is shaped by decisions made in the shadows.