Book Review: Diamond Age (1995)

Neal Stephenson follows up the excellent Snow Crash with the amazing The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. The book is a joy to read because of its rich narrative, sympathetic characters, vivid world, and vision of technology. At its heart, the book is a tribute to books, to courage and creativity, and to the grandfathers, fathers, and brothers who entrust the future to their granddaughters, daughters, and sisters. The Diamond Age has it all, and then some: love, adventure, crime, justice, culture, a story-within-a-story, nanotech, Confucian wisdom, orgies, dinosaurs, and more! There's something for everybody!

The book centers on Nell, a four- or five-year-old girl with a thuggish yet protective older brother, Harv (short for Harvard, awesome). Through a series of events, Nell becomes the owner of the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, a cutting-edge "book" that adapts itself to one user, and teaches that user how to survive/thrive in her environment. Other people want the Primer, too, namely: John Percival Hackworth, the engineer who created it; Lord Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw, the aristocrat who commissioned the Primer's creation; and Dr. X, a mysterious backroom dealer from the Celestial Kingdom (Chinaaaaa!). All three men want the Primer for one of their own: Hackworth for his daughter, Finkle-McGraw for his granddaughter, and Dr. X for, well, I shan't spoil it, but oh my, what a twist. Meanwhile, the ractor (interactive actor) Miranda, who does voice work for the Primer, becomes interested in meeting the girl who is clearly not living in a safe home environment.

Nell's "schooling" via the Primer, and the hunt for said item, takes place in a post-scarcity world divided by cultures rather than nations. In The Diamond Age, values and ideas matter more than ancestry. The New Atlantans embrace Victorian principles; the Celestial Kingdom follows Confucius; there's a phyle solely dedicated to handicrafts; and so on. Meanwhile, Nell is a thete -- people without tribes, and who get the lowest jobs. The cultures, or phyles, remain at harmony with each other through the Common Economic Protocol, and they deal with intruders through nanotech warfare. All material goods are created through matter compilers, which get their molecules and energy from the Feed.

To use a geological analogy -- while Nell's relationship with her Primer lies at the core of the story, and the various searches for it represent the mantle, the crust turns out to be one phyle's attempt to hack the Feed, to replace it with something more culturally appropriate. All the layers of the story present questions. For instance, what is the best way to educate a child so he/she rejects convention and stagnation? How does circumstance coincide with formal learning to foster personal and intellectual growth? How do insular societies succeed? What are the limits to drive and motivation? How far can artificial intelligence go? Why am I hungry again?

But enough about that. Stephenson wrote a damn good story, and I highly recommend that all sci-fi fans, or open-minded awesome people, pick up a copy of The Diamond Age. It takes standard story elements -- character development, conflict, etc -- and threads them with lines of sheer genius. Gold, I tell you! Pure gold! Or should I say -- pure diamond?*

*Although technically, advances in nanotech would have made it easy to reassemble carbon atoms into diamond structures, rendering the once-precious metal not-so-special. = NERD ALERT! ...oops, too late?

Book Review: Snow Crash (1992)

I didn't want Snow Crash to stop. I wanted to read more about Hiro Protagonist, Y.T., Uncle Enzo, and the other characters who made up this spectacular universe. I hoped Neal Stephenson would go on about his brilliant premise that combined history, archaeology, computer science, cryptography, and religion into a mind-bending knapsack of hidden delights that I continue to unpack in my mind, even now. Alas, every story must end. But getting there is just the beginning.

The novel opens with a vivid description of a post-government America. Private corporations and franchises operate as autonomous entities within the former states, and it's a dangerous world out there. The two main characters, hacker Hiro and courier Y.T., meet under adverse circumstances. The two reunite when they realize the other would be a terrific partner for all sorts of moneymaking schemes: Hiro can program anything, and Y.T. is a tiny escape artist and speed demon. Meanwhile, a new drug called Snow Crash begins to circulate among the hacker community, and unlikely alliances form to combat a threat to both reality and the virtual world of the Metaverse.

Snow Crash immerses readers in a world of high technology and brash characters. In the book, computer users can plug into the virtual world of the Metaverse, where hackers like Hiro steal information to sell to the highest bidder. While the Metaverse is cool, and Stephenson nailed it--in 1992!--with his descriptions of avatars in virtual reality, the best technology in Snow Crash has to be the Rat Things. They're robot guard dogs that have a long tail like a rat, and whenever they come into a scene, the narrative voice switches over to their point of view. For example, here's Fido: "Once there was a nice girl who loved him. That was before, when he lived in a scary place and he was always hungry and many people were bad to him. But the nice girl loved him and was good to him. Fido loves the nice girl very much."

Spoiler alert: Since Rat Things are surgically augmented pit bull terriers that can run 700+ miles per hour, you better hope you're the nice girl, and not the villain threatening her.

Snow Crash also treats readers to a unique interpretation of the legend of the Tower of Babel and the development of human languages. I recommend picking up the book to read about Asherah, Enki, and their ongoing battle through the ages--biolinguistic virus versus neurolinguistic hacking, this time in the form of Snow Crash and its eventual counterprogram, Snow Cone. Just kidding. The antivirus is called something else.

The novel culminates in two separate chase and fight scenes, as Hiro and Y.T. become separated. Both scenarios are exciting, well written, and have satisfying resolutions. I'm a huge fan.

My first Stephenson novel was Cryptonomicon, because Husband-elect practically launched it at my face via cannon when he realized that (a) I read sci-fi, and (b) I'm from the Philippines. Cryptonomicon differs from Snow Crash in that Stephenson wrote in absolutely everything that could be written about the central theme of cryptography and hidden war gold. By contrast, Snow Crash is a compact, if dense, narrative about language as code.

Finally, unlike when after I finished Cryptonomicon, I do not demand a reward for completing Snow Crash. This time, I demand a reward for not rushing to Stephenson's home in Seattle and begging him to write more.

For now, I'll just have to make do with Diamond Age, the rest of the Baroque Cycle series, and Reamde.

Book Review: Quicksilver (2003)

Sword-fighting author Neal Stephenson was in the middle of writing the amazing Cryptonomicon when he read George Dyson's Darwin Amongst the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence, which planted a seed that would  become his massive, sprawling Baroque Cycle trilogy. The first volume, Quicksilver, sets the stage for the series by including all the essentials of a Stephenson novel: nerd protagonist, irreverent macho protagonist, insanely competent female protagonist, mind-bending narrative structure that presents vast amounts of information in new and interesting ways, and of course, cryptography. Rabid fans will savor each and every one of the novel's 900+ pages. Delighted readers like myself will occasionally skim over descriptive paragraphs whilst maintaining our happiness level.

Quicksilver begins right here in Boston, in the 18th century. Mysterious old man Enoch the Red, also in Cryptonomicon, finds Dr. Daniel Waterhouse in Cambridge trying to establish MIT, basically. Enoch persuades the English scientist to return home, and Daniel boards the ship, then takes readers to a flashback that lasts a few hundred pages. In between, Enoch remembers meeting a very young Isaac Newton; Daniel proves useful during a multi-pirate attack, and we see the 17th century Royal Society in its rigorous pursuit of knowledge. Since this is Ye Olde Days, we get descriptions of a live dog having its thorax removed so the men could tinker with its lungs. Arrrrgh. The first part of Quicksilver centers on Daniel's religious and personal development while pursuing his studies in Trinity College in Cambridge (UK, not MA). Since this is historical fiction, prominent nerds natural philosophers join the action: Newton, Robert Hooke, Gottfried Liebniz, etc. Stephenson's writing of these men's interactions features crackling dialogue, wry humor, droll witticisms, and other stylistic flourishes. Not fun: being reminded that doctors used to bleed people to balance their "humours." Double arrrrgh.

The next part of the book amps up the action with a new pair of characters: crafty Jack Shaftoe, King of Vagabonds, and spirited Eliza, a former slave (eventually) turned stockbroker/Countess. The pair travel all over: Leipzig, Bohemia, Marseilles, Amsterdam, Disneyland. Just kidding on the last one. With these characters, Stephenson illustrates the resourcefulness of people born without titles or means, in a world order that's constantly shifting to accommodate new trends and wars and monarchs and diseases. Jack survives for so long through sheer grit and luck, and so does Eliza, to an extent, although she has the added bonus of being literate, multilingual, and mathematically gifted. Eliza and Daniel cross paths in the third part of the book, which marches toward the conclusion of what Daniel considers as his life's work: revolution! Hence his relocation across the ocean.

I enjoyed this novel as a history buff, a nerd, a bookworm, and a woman in a binder. The novel drew me into its e-pages. I harrumphed at the workings of Louis XIV's court; cackled at the depths of Eliza's cover-ups; rooted for Jack and Daniel; and ooh-la-la'd at all the raunchy bits. I still can't wrap my head around all the information that Stephenson wrestles into an entertaining and informative yarn about a group of exceptional people living in extraordinary times. Some of those people are even real!

I'm looking forward to picking up The Confusion, the second book in the trilogy. But I thought I'd do a little light reading in between, and settled on Snow Crash, which has 7,598 locations on my Kindle. By contrast, Quicksilver has 17,663, and The Confusion  has 15,041. My Lasik eyes have been enchanted with the screen resolution of the Kindle app on the iPhone 5, but it's good to take a break now and then, yes?

In other news: my copy of the Wii game, The Last Story, arrives today! Amazon Prime: f*ck yeah.

Book Review: Cryptonomicon (1999)

I have finished Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.

And no, no one gave me a cookie.

To fully appreciate the magnitude of my accomplishment, you have to understand my brain. It regulates everything I do -- sleeping, breathing, eating, making random comments, and writing snarky reviews. Like yours, my neurons number in the hundred billions and obediently transmit electrochemical signals. Like you, I have a reptilian brain that (perhaps unlike you) allows me to stare unblinkingly into people's eyes while I wrack my computer for inappropriate responses that will maximize the other person's confusion and my amusement, which are directly proportionate. Finally, like you, I have no idea where I am going with this paragraph.

Oh, I remember: math and my brain do not mix. And Cryptonomicon, which protagonizes* the Nerd, contains a metric ton of mathematics. Stephenson has two timelines and three main good guys/narrators: codebreaker Lawrence, his programmer grandson Randy, and the Marine Bobby Shaftoe. Lawrence and Bobby are in the WWII timeline, which alternates with Randy's present day (circa 1999) narrative. And, you guessed it, both time periods merge into a stunning and creamily delicious epilogue sure to satisfy your hunger for elegant thematic impact.

In the same way that the reverse timeline in Memento is a mind-blowing gimmick, the mathematics in Cryptonomicon indicate a severely impressive writing style. So much loving care and attention is devoted to the illustrations of how to break/create codes that you almost forget the basic plot: (a) Axis powers hide gold during WWII; (b) gold is found in present day. The beauty of the book is all the layers and storylines and characters and batshit crazy stuff that happens between Point A and Point B. Stephenson is a master of incredibly quirky descriptive language -- in one instance, a more prosaic writer would have just inserted, "Everyone was quiet," but Stephenson spends pages and pages describing the extremely organic and noisy makeup of the human body just to get the point across that the person speaking to the entire room in that scene is Very Important. And in the most hilarious chapter of all (Organ), Lawrence, a genius-level nerd, invents his very own code for social behavior and speech patterns for the noble goal of "f***ing Mary," his future wife. The second most hilarious chapter contains rapid calculations of speed, distance, and time that makes a point about obsessive male behavior involving females.

Speaking of females, it's nice that all of Stephenson's major women characters are either strong/dignified, strong/heavily armed, or strong/snarky. We only see them through the lens of the lead male characters, which makes the men more fully developed at the expense of the women. But that's okay; we need to be mysterious anyway. The easier to implement our secret plans for world domination! MWAHAHAHA!!! ...which I'll get to as soon as I finish waxing my legs. Also, I just saw something pink flutter by my peripheral vision; infiltrating male-dominated governments and multinationals will just have to wait until I hunt it down. I hope it's something I can wear.

Finally, let me say that if you're looking for a PG-13 reading experience, Cryptonomicon is not for you. All of the book's leads are horny as hell and it gets worse when their targeting devices home in on a desirable female. I now have unwelcome insights into the workings of the young-ish adult male, thank you very much. Poor, innocent me.

For further reading, here is a review of Cryptonomicon by someone who likes Atlas Shrugged, which I read and took seriously until I got to the part about the force field. Then I spent the rest of the book cracking up.

If anyone would like to reward me for reading Cryptonomicon, I also accept brownies. And dinner.

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* protagonize, v., to turn into a protagonist (Nicole Super English Dictionary, 2011. Entry added into Dictionary following essay, "Antagonist is to Antagonize as Protagonist is to Nothing: Moralistic Subcultures and Why 'Protagonist' Also has the Right to be a Verb," Presumptuous Press, 2010)
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