Neal Stephenson





Neal Stephenson

Author profile


born
October 31, 1959 in Fort Meade, Maryland, The United States

gender
male

website

genre

influences
Bruce Sterling, William Gibson


About this author

Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known primarily for his science fiction works in the postcyberpunk genre with a penchant for explorations of society, mathematics, cryptography, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired Magazine, and has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (funded by Jeff Bezos) developing a manned sub-orbital launch system. He has co-written two books with his uncle George F. Jewsbury under the joint pseudonym Stephen Bury.

Stephenson's books tend to have elaborate, inventive plots drawing on numerous technological and sociological ideas at the same time. This distinguishes him from other mainstream science fiction...more


Average rating: 3.96 · 184,042 ratings · 12,308 reviews · 38 distinct works
Snow Crash
3.81 of 5 stars 3.81 avg rating — 72,928 ratings — published 1992 — 44 editions
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Cryptonomicon
4.21 of 5 stars 4.21 avg rating — 26,543 ratings — published 1999 — 26 editions
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The Diamond Age: Or, a Youn...
4.16 of 5 stars 4.16 avg rating — 21,291 ratings — published 1995 — 38 editions
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Anathem
4.17 of 5 stars 4.17 avg rating — 13,668 ratings — published 2008 — 26 editions
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Quicksilver (Baroque Cycle,...
3.86 of 5 stars 3.86 avg rating — 12,337 ratings — published 2003 — 31 editions
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The Confusion (The Baroque ...
4.17 of 5 stars 4.17 avg rating — 7,273 ratings — published 2004 — 19 editions
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Reamde
3.91 of 5 stars 3.91 avg rating — 7,330 ratings — published 2011 — 19 editions
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The System of the World (Th...
4.25 of 5 stars 4.25 avg rating — 6,402 ratings — published 2004 — 16 editions
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Zodiac
3.64 of 5 stars 3.64 avg rating — 6,222 ratings — published 1988 — 21 editions
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In the Beginning...was the ...
3.78 of 5 stars 3.78 avg rating — 2,832 ratings — published 1999 — 8 editions
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More books by Neal Stephenson…
Quicksilver The Confusion The System of the World
The Baroque Cycle (3 books)
by
4.043302695842788 of 5 stars 4.04 avg rating — 26,003 ratings
Quicksilver King of the Vagabonds Odalisque The Confusion, Part I The Confusion, Part II Solomon's Gold (The Baroque... Currency
The Baroque Cycle (8 volumes) (8 books)
by
3.9173059328594553 of 5 stars 3.92 avg rating — 14,209 ratings
Criptonomicón I: El Código ... Criptonomicón II: El Código... Criptonomicón III: El Códig...
Criptonomicón (3 books)
by
4.046109510086455 of 5 stars 4.05 avg rating — 347 ratings
The Mongoliad: Book One
Foreworld (1 book)
by
3.5458333333333334 of 5 stars 3.55 avg rating — 240 ratings

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Interviews

September 2008, Neal Stephenson
"I see this as more and more of a social class issue. I'm remembering the advent of late '60s/early '70s drug culture when I was a kid. Authority figures would try to scare us away from drugs, and whether or not we were actually using drugs, we would just laugh at them because their threats and warnings seemed so overwrought." ...More

more interviews »

“Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.”
Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

“The difference between stupid and intelligent people – and this is true whether or not they are well-educated – is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. ”
Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

“Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.”
Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

Polls

This is the vote to determine the selection for the March Science Fiction Theme: Nanotechnology

 
  18 votes 29.0%

 
  16 votes 25.8%

 
  10 votes 16.1%

 
  8 votes 12.9%

 
  7 votes 11.3%

 
  3 votes 4.8%

62 total votes
comments and details
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Topics Mentioning This Author

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SciFi and Fantasy...: Anathem 29 268 Dec 14, 2008 06:08am  
The Book Challenge: Meghan's 2008 Challenge - COMPLETED 66 297 Feb 19, 2009 08:31am  
Fantasy Book Club: What are you reading in March? 73 229 Mar 29, 2009 05:36pm  
Beyond Reality: Hugo Awards! 9 78 Apr 05, 2009 07:09pm  
Goodreads Librarians: Librarian Notes are Live 37 136 Apr 21, 2009 11:38pm  
SciFi and Fantasy...: Sequel to Cryptonomicon? 3 101 Apr 26, 2009 07:59pm  
Wild Things: YA G...: What We Are Reading Now 5 49 May 25, 2009 07:48am  
Goodreads Librarians: eBooks 11 83 Jun 05, 2009 12:25am  
SciFi and Fantasy...: What I am also reading in April 41 266 Jun 30, 2009 07:43pm  
Beyond Reality: What are you reading right now? 180 337 Jul 01, 2009 01:34am  


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