STERLING:
"(Stephenson) is the first second-generation, native cyberpunk science fiction
writer. Unlike most of the original 80's cyberpunks, he grew up in the new technoculture
and with a hacker's background knows how it really works."
BRIEF HISTORY
Stephenson was born in central Iowa. He says he's "inhaled" science fiction since he
was a kid, mostly Norton and Heinlein. He studied physics and geography in college,
but he luckily started selling books before he made the "fatal mistake" of going to
graduate school. Some of the more interesting occupations he held during this time
were detassler, food chopper in a Chinese restaurant, antiperspirant test subject,
technician in solid-state physics lab, and x-ray file clerk. He currently resides
in Seattle at the age of thirty-five, and in his spare time enjoys building
and launching small rockets and rewiring his house.
SNOW CRASH
When Stephenson wrote Snow Crash he had very little net experience but enough computer
familiarity to bluff. Obviously, he not only fooled us all, but actually convinced us
that this extended internet concept, or "metaverse", could really happen: companies
are now using his visions to try to create an interface similar to the metaverse in
Snow Crash.
Stephenson says
that his novels are as much about today as they are about the future. He doesn't
find it too much of
a leap to go from today's states to the security-encrusted nation-states in Snow
Crash. He has a knack for tying in that distant vision of the future to ancient
past in his works, like in Snow
Crash, when he uses Sumerian culture to tie the book together. One might wonder
if the history that Stephenson uses in the book is real; indeed, it is. He got the
information from his brother-in-law who was
researching it at the time that Stephenson was writing the book. The story of
Asherah intrigued him, and the history seemed to connect perfectly with what he was
doing, so he decided to incorporate the information.
Now there is talk of a Snow Crash movie, and already Stephenson has scripted
a movie called "Daymare." He is also involved in other outside projects,
including writing with his uncle under the pen name of Steven Bury. As of this date
they have already published one book, called Interface.
WORKS:
Snow Crash
The Diamond Age
"
Zodiac
The Big U
"Spew"
"The Great Simoleon Caper"
"In the Kingdom
of Mao Bell"
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