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I've been chewing through some Neil Stephenson books lately. I think a lot of his earlier work was somewhat prescient (in terms of general themes) and some of h
by BWStearns 13y ago
I've been chewing through some Neil Stephenson books lately. I think a lot of his earlier work was somewhat prescient (in terms of general themes) and some of his newer work bring up some interesting societal points especially about the role of government with regards to technology. Another theme that I feel is particularly relevant lately is the bifurcation of the technically skilled (or even aware) and the technically unskilled. He puts up an interesting split in Anathema which wittingly or not might well represent a lot of the current hacker/tech-elite discussion in society at large. Anathema is well worth a read and Cryptonomicon is just plain fun (perhaps more relevant lately than it was in its own time).
- mehmehshoe 13y agoCouldn't agree more about Cryptonomicon.
- dragonwriter 13y agoPedantic, perhaps, but the author's name is Neal Stephenson, and the book is Anathem (its a blending of "anathema" and "anthem")
- BWStearns 13y agoHaha, Sorry, wish I could edit that now. No more posting to HN after more than three beers :) . Anathema was just a typo but I changed N[ie|ea]l back and forth a few times. My stupidity aside, awesome author and Anathem is definitely worth a read.
- archenemy 13y agoAnathem (especially the last third of it) is an awesome reading. It's slow-building and the first two thirds took some will to get through, but it was really worth the struggle. Incredibly high-concept (for me at least).