As I’ve mentioned elsewhere today, I still don’t know why the world of Snow Crash hadn’t been taken over by people with locally-sustainable military technology and a taste for conquest. It’s still a great book, though – and subversive in a way that’s different from the usual, trite shibboleths. (The sort-of sequel The Diamond Age is even more so.) Neal Stephenson’s a great writer.
More fully, Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer. It’s one of those books where, when they ask you what the genre is, you just kind of shrug. Cyberpunk, post-cyberpunk, hard SF, classic steampunk; you picks your number and you takes your chances, neighbor. Suffice it to say that it’s a cracking good read and has gotten even more cheerfully subversive since it was written twenty years ago, which takes some doing. Well worth your time, in other words.
And so, adieu to The Square Deal. Continue reading Book of the Week: The Diamond Age.
