Some Remarks: Essays and Other Writing - Hardcover

Stephenson, Neal

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062024434 ISBN 13: 9780062024435

Publisher: William Morrow, 2012

Synopsis

#1 New York Times bestselling author Neal Stephenson is, quite simply, one of the best and most respected writers alive. He’s taken sf to places it’s never been (Snow Crash, Anathem). He’s reinvented the historical novel (The Baroque Cycle), the international thriller (Reamde), and both at the same time (Cryptonomicon).

Now he treats his legion of fans to Some Remarks, an enthralling collection of essays—Stephenson’s first nonfiction work since his long essay on technology, In the Beginning...Was the Command Line, more than a decade ago—as well as new and previously published short writings both fiction and non.

Some Remarks is a magnificent showcase of a brilliantly inventive mind and talent, as he discourses on everything from Sir Isaac Newton to Star Wars.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

One of the most talented and creative authors working today, Neal Stephenson is renowned for his exceptional novels—works colossal in vision and mind-boggling in complexity. Exploring and blending a diversity of topics, including technology, economics, history, science, pop culture, and philosophy, his books are the products of a keen and adventurous intellect. Not surprisingly, Stephenson is regularly asked to contribute articles, lectures, and essays to numerous outlets, from major newspapers and cutting-edge magazines to college symposia. This remarkable collection brings together previously published short writings, both fiction and nonfiction, as well as a new essay (and an extremely short story) created specifically for this volume.

Stephenson ponders a wealth of subjects, from movies and politics to David Foster Wallace and the Midwestern American College Town; video games to classics-based sci-fi; how geekdom has become cool and how science fiction has become mainstream (whether people admit it or not); the future of publishing and the origins of his novels. Playful and provocative, Some Remarks displays Stephenson's opinions and ideas on:

• The Internet, our dwindling national attention span, and the cultural importance of books and bookishness
• Waco, religion, and the cluelessness of secular society
• Metaphysics and the battle between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
• The laying of the longest wire on Earth—and why it matters to you
• Technology, freedom, commerce, and the Chinese
• How Star Wars and 300 mirror who we are today and what that spells for our future
• Modern Jedi knights, a.k.a. scientists and technologists, and why they are admired and feared by both the left and the right

By turns amusing and profound, critical and celebratory, yet always entertaining, Some Remarks offers a fascinating look into the prismatic mind of this extraordinary writer.

About the Author:

Neal Stephenson is the bestselling author of the novels Reamde, Anathem, The System of the World, The Confusion, Quicksilver, Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Zodiac, and the groundbreaking nonfiction work In the Beginning . . . Was the Command Line. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0062024434
• ISBN 13: 9780062024435
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336