io9: Neal Stephenson

The io9 Book Club is in session! Let's talk about Reamde

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:21:30 PST

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Welcome to the monthly meeting of the io9 Book Club. In December and January, we read Neal Stephenson's novel Reamde. Jump into comments to get started talking about it! More »

The Movie Projects that Michael Bay Should Do Next

Charlie Jane Anders — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:22:04 PST

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Michael Bay keeps denying that he's really going to do a fourth Transformers movie. Which shows that he hasn't completely lost his mind. Michael Bay is an artist, who needs to branch out and try something new, before he loses all his cred. Michael Bay should spread his groovy wings, man. More »

Optimistic Science Fiction Stories that Could still Come True

Charlie Jane Anders and MaryKate Jasper — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:00:00 PDT

Many of science fiction's most rosy ideas of the future seem less and less likely, or they've already failed to materialize on schedule. But the future could still be a beautiful place. More »

Neal Stephenson's Reamde is a high-tech incarnation of the Great American Novel

Annalee Newitz — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 09:00:00 PDT

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Neal Stephenson's new novel Reamde seems like it could never work: it's an epic-length thriller packed with infodumps about obscure ideas and 200-page gun fights. But the book is fantastic. Stephenson stages a crazy narrative collision between Chinese virus-writing gamers, a millionaire videogame entrepreneur, Russian mafia, rural American anti-government "wack jobs," and a murderous Welsh terrorist. With those kinds of characters in play, and a lot of dry humor, Stephenson absolutely hits it out of the park. More »

Amazon's science fiction imprint launches — with Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear and Chris Roberson!

Charlie Jane Anders — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:40:00 PDT

We mentioned back in May that Amazon.com was going to be going into the science fiction publishing business, and now the mega-retailer's plans are finally taking shape. The imprint will be called 47North, and it'll start publishing new and out-of-print science fiction titles (in print as well as Kindle) in October. More »

Science fiction writers have a job, and it's time to do it, says Neal Stephenson

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 11:05:22 PDT

Over at the World Policy Institute, celebrated SF author Neal Stephenson has a great essay that's basically a call-to-arms to fiction writers to start collaborating with scientists. They can do this partly by writing more hopeful stories about the future — but more importantly, by writing stories about massive engineering projects, like Mars bases, that could conceivably be implemented. More »

Has Neal Stephenson gotten too conventional?

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 06:30:00 PDT

Neal Stephenson has always specialized in producing dense, challenging works, peppered with equations and ideas. But his latest book, the thriller Reamde, is being touted as his most "accessible" to date. Andrew Leonard at Salon.com worries that Stephenson is going too mainstream. More »

September Books bring vampires, faeries, airships, and hackers!

Kelly Faircloth — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 07:00:00 PDT

What does September have in store for you? A new Neal Stephenson novel! Not one, but two new releases from Cherie Priest! Plus faeries, vampires, digital revolutionaries, and a college in outer space. Here are all the new releases your bookshelf needs this month. More »

Science Fiction and Fantasy Books We Can’t Wait For This Fall

Kelly Faircloth — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:17:25 PDT

The next few months are positively packed with literary science fiction and fantasy goodness. Neal Stephenson returns to virtual reality! Vernor Vinge finally delivers the sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep. Plus dueling magicians and digital revolutionaries. More »

10 Science Fiction Books That Changed the Course of History

Gordon Jackson and Charlie Jane Anders — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:00:00 PDT

Many science fiction books imagine strange new worlds — but only a few science fiction books have actually changed the world we live in. A few visionary authors have managed to make such an impression that they left the world a vastly different place. More »

Read science fiction to understand the things that mainstream pundits won't talk about

Charlie Jane Anders — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 09:00:00 PDT

Why should you be reading more science fiction? Not just for the thrills or awesome science. You should read SF to explore ideas about society that academics and pundits won't talk about, writes Walter Russell Mead in The American Interest. More »

Words to live by: advice from 34 science fiction/fantasy authors

Charlie Jane Anders — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:30:00 PDT

Great science fiction and fantasy novels don't just expose us to other worlds and alternate timelines — they expand our minds and give us compass to steer by. Here are our favorite bits of advice and maxims from SF books. More »

Neal Stephenson and friends fight for the future of ebooks with "The Mongoliad"

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 28 May 2010 11:49:44 PDT

While the publishing industry fights to survive, a group of scifi writers and software developers have struck out on their own. Led by Neal Stephenson, author of Cryptonomicon, the group built an ebook that could make reading truly interactive. More »

What on Earth is Neal Stephenson's Mongoliad?

Charlie Jane Anders — Fri, 21 May 2010 13:40:00 PDT

On Tuesday, San Francisco peeps will get their first glimpse of the Mongoliad, a serialized story created by Neal Stephenson and written by Stephenson, Greg Bear, Nicole Galland and others. And it's an experiment in "post-book story-telling." More »

Show Your Cyberpunk Pride With This CosaNostra Pizza T-Shirt From Snow Crash

Cyriaque Lamar — Sun, 09 May 2010 12:30:00 PDT

You too can be a deliverator for Uncle Enzo with this CosaNostra Pizza t-shirt. You may not have the swashbucklery of Hiro Protagonist, but hey, think of it as insta-cyberpunk street cred this side of the Metaverse. [ThinkGeek via Boing Boing] More »

How to Build a Clock That Will Outlast the Apocalypse

Marc Bernardin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:38:06 PDT

The 10,000 Year Clock is up and running — and now that the plans are online, you can construct your own nigh-immortal timepiece More »

Pulitzer-Prize-Winning Book Critic Says The Books Critics Hate Are Often The Most Important

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:00:00 PST

Locus interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda, who's been covering science fiction books for the Washington Post for 25 years. And he talks about the huge "breakout" books that he's had reservations about, but also admits that the critics are often wrong about the books that really matter: More »

Bad Boys of the Multiverse: An Alternate Universe Reading Guide

Grey_Area — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:20:00 PDT

Have we gone multiverse crazy? Iain Banks' latest novel, Transition, is just the latest of a long line of sideways-traveling books, and this theme is more prevalent than ever. Here are some of my favorites, with spoilers and foul language. More »

Don't Ask The Wall Street Journal How To Wean Your Kids Off Reading Science Fiction

Charlie Jane Anders — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:20:00 PDT

Somebody wrote to the Wall Street Journal's book advice column to ask how you go about convincing your 13-year-old nephew to stop reading science fiction. Thank goodness the WSJ's in-house book nerd was smart enough to say: You don't. More »

How Do You Get Science Fiction To Have "Book Club Lit"?

Charlie Jane Anders — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:40:00 PDT

One of the frustrating things about science fiction is that everyone's seen the year's biggest movies: Even films like Transformers 2, which most people seemed to dislike. But how many books are there that everyone you know has read? More »

Hugos 2009: The Fashion, The Fervor And The Suspense!

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:00:00 PDT

Last night, the 2009 Hugo Awards Ceremony brought together many of the genre's leading lights, and we were there. A few victories surprised us, and a couple of speeches moved us. Here's our gallery of the parties and the glamor. More »

The 10 Greatest Eternally Young Heroes (Who Aren't Vampires)

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:41:07 PDT

Everywhere you look nowadays, there are young, fresh-faced vampires. But they're not the only heroes out there who stay eternally young. Some of our favorite science-fiction heroes are blessed (cursed?) with Alphaville's reward. Here are the 10 greatest forever-young heroes. More »

Neal Stephenson Gets Half A Million Dollars, But Did He Have To Switch Genres To Get It?

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:45:26 PDT

Neal Stephenson confirmed his status as one of science fiction's leading authors, in the wake of the acclaimed Anathem, by selling his next book in what Publisher's Marketplace calls a "major deal." (In other words, it was worth at least $500,000.) But the book, called REAMDE, is classified as "thriller" rather than "science fiction." Does that mean Stephenson is abandoning the genre? More likely, he's doing a near-future novel, and handling the thriller genre much the same way he did in 1994's Interface, co-written with his uncle J. Frederick George. As for the title — is it just "README" misspelled, or does it have some deeper significance? [Publisher's Marketplace, thanks Clinton!] More »

Have Science Fiction Books Become Too Self-Referential?

Charlie Jane Anders — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:17:00 PDT

"Science Fiction has become an exclusively literary genre, with books inspired less by new scientific research than by previous science fiction books, and, regrettably, movies. Ideas turn into tropes, and instead of extrapolation, we get variation: of the generation star ship, the space alien, the artificial brain, the parallel universe. More »

Liberation Is A Better Novel Than Anathem, Says Amazon

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:30:00 PST

The best science fiction novel of 2008 was Brian Francis Slattery's Liberation, according to Amazon.com's new top 10 list, compiled by io9 contributor Jeff VanderMeer. The story of a gang of super-criminals reuniting to save a fallen America that's reinstated human slavery beat out Neal Stephenson's Anathem (which came in at number five), Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods (number eight) and Iain M. Banks' Matter (number nine). But Amazon.com's customers chose Stephenie Meyers' symbiont love story The Host as the best book of the year. (Click on each book title to read our own review.) [Omnivoracious] More »

A Web of Footnotes — How We Will Read Books in the Future

Annalee Newitz — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:32:19 PDT

The technological development that's going to change the way we read forever isn't ebooks — it's footnotes. For the past few months, if you really wanted to understand DC Comics' big crossover series Final Crisis, you basically had to read each issue alongside Eisner-winning critic Douglas Wolk's blog "Final Annotations." Each time a new issue in the series comes out, Wolk goes through page-by-page, carefully documenting what you need to know. Final Crisis contains such an embarrassment of obscure DC heroes and fannish references that it actually requires a highly-trained reader to give you adequate back story. This practice of exhaustive online footnoting is one of the less-talked about ways that the internet is profoundly changing the way we read books — and not just comic books. More »

Two major newspapers turned their eye to...

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:00:00 PDT

Two major newspapers turned their eye to science fiction books over the weekend: The Washington Post featured lit-blogger Edward Champion's roundup of recent books, including Gene Wolfe's An Evil Guest, Nancy Kress' Dogs and Benjamin Rosenbaum's The Ant King And Other Stories. And the London Times reviewed some books, including Neal Stephenson's Anathem and Greg Bear's City At The Edge Of Time. More »

12 Coolest Deaths In Science Fiction History

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:17:00 PDT

Click to viewIt's never great to watch a beloved science fiction hero die - but sometimes a memorable heroic death can help turn a science fiction story into a real epic. And some science fiction characters are unforgettable and bad-ass precisely because they died in a memorable way. Here's our list of the dozen greatest deaths in the history of science fiction. With some spoilers, natch. 12) Searle in Sunshine. Okay, I may be the only person who really loved Danny Boyle's blazing space opera about a doomed crew trying to reignite the sun. That's okay, I can be right all on my own. I especially love the way the character of Searle, the ship's psychiatrist, surprises you in his final moments. He's kind of a prurient asshole for most of the movie, obsessed with looking into the sun with as little filter as possible. He's a pretty terrible therapist. But when the chips are down, he knows he's the most expendable crewmember. When four crewmembers from the Icarus II get trapped on the wrecked ship Icarus I, with the airlock damaged, Searle agrees to stay behind so the rest of the away team can get back to the Icarus II. He helps blast the others out the airlock, then exposes himself to the sun, dying the same way as the Icarus I's crew. Click to view If you're going to be a creepy therapist, the least you can do is self-immolate to save the rest of us. 11) Woody in Mission To Mars. This is a pretty terrible movie overall, but a fantastic death scene. Our heroes have to abandon their vessel. And then Woody, played by Tim Robbins, leaves the others and launches himself at the Resupply Module (REMO), but after he attaches the line from the other astronauts at the REMO, he keeps moving towards the planet. His wife, Terri, wants to go after him, but Woody knows she'll die in the rescue attempt. So he takes off his own helmet and dies of depressurization rather than let her die for him. (Thanks to Meredith for the suggestion!) Runner up: Speaking of depressurization deaths, Graeme really wanted me to include Cally's death from Battlestar Galactica. But I didn't really think her death was awesome. Sorry, G. 10) Graham in "The Sleeper Wakes" by H.G. Wells. One of Wells' weirdest stories involves a man known only as Graham, who sleeps for over 200 years and wakes to find that he's not just the richest man in the world, but actually the owner of the entire world. He eventually discovers that the White Council, which governs in his name, is oppressing everyone, and he helps a revolutionary named Ostrog to mount a revolution. But afterwards, Ostrog starts oppressing people just as badly as the White Council had. So finally Graham gets mad. This time, it's personal - he gets into an airplane and rams a whole bunch of Ostrog's air fleet. (Remember, this was written in 1910.) Finally, he rams his plane into Ostrog's, then spirals to Earth, knowing that the revolution will prevail at last. Runner up: Someone suggested Hari Seldon from Forward The Foundation, but I haven't read that book and couldn't find much about it or track down a copy. Was his death truly awesome? Let me know. 9) The Controller in Doctor Who, "Day Of The Daleks" "Day Of The Daleks" is probably not on my list of the 100 greatest Doctor Who stories of all time, but it has a few really amazing moments. The greatest of these is where the Controller finally stands up to his Dalek masters. All along, the 22nd century bureaucrat has been fooling himself that he can help the Daleks govern the human race and actually do some good along the way, helping people when the Daleks aren't looking. But after a few chats with the Doctor, he finally realizes you can't work within the Dalek system. He helps the Doctor escape, and when his coverup fails, the Daleks decide to exterminate him. "Who knows?" he says. "I may have helped to exterminate you." Awesome. Runners up: Various people suggested the deaths of various Doctors, but none of them really jumped out at me as especially cool. One person suggested Adric, and I'll protect his/her identity, to save him/her from the inevitable scorn of the masses. 8) Lt. Paul Wang from Space: Above And Beyond. "Everybody's favorite tortured bipolar guy," Lt. Wang, callsign "Joker," gives his life to hold off the aliens while everyone else gets away. "This is for you!" he shouts as he pours ammo into the enemy. Commenter oconnellmd suggested this scene, and I can see why. 7) Certain people in Blake's 7, "Blake" I'm going to show an unusual degree of restraint and not say who dies in this episode. Let's just say it's an incredibly fitting end for the saga, one which makes all of the stuff that comes before seem cooler because it leads up to this. In my write-up on how to discover Blake's 7, I actually advocate watching the last episode first. At the very least, I think this is one spoiler that makes you appreciate the rest of the show more. But don't take my word for it: watch for yourself. 6) Pham Nuwen from A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge. Pham Nuwen is animated by the Old One, a super-powerful artificial intelligence, and he dies fighting the Blight, another super-A.I. First Pham downloads as much of the Old One into his brain as possible, overclocking his human brain by containing this massive superhuman intelligence, which will inevitably destroy him. And then he launches the Countermeasure, an advanced weapon which moves the boundaries of the Slow Zone far enough to enclose and destory the Blight. But the Countermeasure also has the effect of terminating Pham at the same time:

The Countermeasure's writhing had slowed. Its light flickered bright and then out. Bright and then out. She heard Pham's breath gasp with every darkness. Countermeasure, a savior that was going to kill a million civilizations. And was going to kill the man who triggered it. Almost unthinking, she dodged past the thing, reaching for Pham. But razors upon razors blocked her, raking her arms. Pham was looking up at her. He was trying to say something more. Then the light went out for a final time. From the darkness all around came a hissing sound and a growling, bitter smell that Ravna would never forget.

(Thanks Annalee!) 5) The T-800 in Terminator II. After Arnold Schwartzenegger's T-800 helps Sarah and John Connor defeat Robert Patrick's mean T-1000 by blowing it up and knocking it into molten metal, Arnie knows he has to go too. If there's anything left of the T-800, the technology could be used to reconstitute Skynet and bring the badness down on our heads. So Arnie gets Sarah Connor to lower him - slowly - into the molten metal. He gives a thumbs up as he descends to his robo-fondue doom. (Thanks, Annalee!) 4) Biggs from Star Wars. I was seriously considering making Obi-Wan the coolest death from Star Wars, but really, screw that guy. First of all, as he points out himself, he comes back a thousand times more powerful afterwards. And secondly and more importantly, he's kind of a big martyr, as everyone points out in the awesome parody Hardware Wars. And Biggs doesn't have any super Force powers, or the ability to come back a thousand times more anything. All Biggs has is a X-ing, a can-do attitude, and an awesome porn-stache. And he's the greatest wingman ever, taking enemy fire and blowing up so that Luke can nuke the death star and get all the glory afterwards. And look how stoic Biggs is in this deleted scene from Episode IV, telling Luke he may never come home again because he's off to join the rebels: When does baby Biggs get his own episode of the Clone Wars cartoon? Preferably with a little baby mustache? 3) Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Martian bounty hunter Spike Spiegel gets into a duel with his former best friend, Vicious after Vicious' Red Dragon gang has killed Spike's girlfriend Julia. Spike finally decides to face the past with Vicious that he ran away from three years earlier, and he storms the Red Dragon headquarters, killing a bunch of its members as he climbs. Vicious manages to slash Spike with his katana, but then Spike shoots Vicious dead. Spike comes down the stairs, wounded and weakened, to face all the remaining members of the Red Dragon. Spike makes a gun with his fingers and says "Bang"... then collapses. Most people seem to assume Spike dies of his wounds, and it's not hard to find tons of people online listing this as one of the coolest death scenes in all anime, or all Asian films, let alone science fiction. 2) Someone from Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Since this book just came out and it's a bit of a major spoiler, I won't say who dies and how - click here if you've already read the book and/or don't care about spoilers. 1) Spock from Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. I'm not putting the pointy-eared green blooded Vulcan first just because I know I'd get lynched otherwise. I'm not even including the death of Spock because I pretty much memorized all the dialog from that scene as a little kid. I'm including it because it's the template of how to do a memorable, important death in a science fiction epic. The movie isn't ABOUT Spock at all, but it still feels as though the whole film has been leading up to his death. A lesser film would have been more clumsy and obvious about giving Spock a bunch of cool moments leading up to his death, and trying to manipulate us into feeling the Spock love before he snuffs it. Instead, we do get plenty of cool Spock moments, including giving Kirk his present and mentoring Lt. Saavik. But it's woven into the rest of the movie, and the film's running theme of the "no-win situation" and the impossibility of cheating death every single time help to set up the death of Kirk's best friend way better than a scene where Spock talks about what he's going to do when he retires and goes back to Vulcan. The result is one of the most amazing moments in Trek history, one of those moments where you can really beleive Trek is a sweeping saga instead of just a zany adventure with green women and Saurian brandy. Runner up: I can't believe I left out Roy Batty in Blade Runner, as various commenters have pointed out. Especially since I went on a whole tangent about Roy's amazing death scene in my rant about why there shouldn't be a BR sequel earlier in the day. Suffice to say the Roy Batty death scene is definitely one of the all-time classic, and easily up there with Spock's. More »

Neal Stephenson Talks to io9 About Religion, Aliens, and Spoilers

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:53:34 PDT

Today Neal Stephenson's long-awaited new novel Anathem hits the bookstores. We've already told you that this tale of science monks on another planet is cool, action-packed, and thought-provoking — probably one of the best novels of Stephenson's career, which already includes lauded titles like Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon. Though Stephenson usually likes to hole up with his ideas and avoid the spotlight, he's having what the characters in Anathem would call an "Apert," a time that comes every few years when he opens up and talks to the public about his work. We were lucky enough to get a chance to talk to Stephenson during his Apert, and asked about Anathem, as well as a few questions about Earth. (Warning: There are a few spoilers ahead.) More »

Neal Stephenson Explains What's Wrong with Mobile Phones

Annalee Newitz — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:00:00 PDT

Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, is one of the most techno-savvy scifi authors of his generation, and yet his new novel Anathem is strongly critical of mobile phones. Anathem, which hits bookstores Tuesday, is set on an alien world that's very much like Earth — right down to its technologies, which include mobile-esque devices called jeejahs. The main characters in the novel are part of a scientifically-advanced group called the "avout" who have rejected jeejahs, as well as most kinds of consumer electronics. And they've done it for some of the same reasons that Stephenson thinks people on Earth should reject them too. More »

Neal Stephenson's Tale of Two Planets

Annalee Newitz — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:30:00 PDT

Neal Stephenson's new novel Anathem comes out next week, and there's something very timely about his tale of aliens on a parallel Earth whose inhabitants are locked into an occasionally-catastrophic conflict between scientific and religious institutions. The planet Arbre, which is very much like Earth in some ways, differs from our world one major respect. Its religious and scientific institutions are essentially reversed. Monks called the avout live ascetic lives studying science in gracious, ancient "maths," while the so called "saecular" world is populated with Deolators (god-worshipers) who are obsessed with religion and technology. Stephenson's world-building skills, honed by the exacting work he did on his recent Baroque Cycle trilogy, are at their best here. Anathem is that rarest of things: A stately novel of ideas packed with cool tech, terrific fight scenes, aliens, and even a little ESP. More »

Want to Talk to Neal Stephenson?

Annalee Newitz — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:48:40 PDT

Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, has a new novel coming out next week called Anathem. He'll be chatting for an hour on "The Beyond," a web radio show. You can listen or call in with your questions today at 4 PM EST. Here's the link. Don't worry if you miss it — io9 is doing an interview with Stephenson, which we'll be posting soon! More »

Exclusive: Neal Stephenson Does Some Hardcore Phenomenology Geeking

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:01:38 PDT

We've got an exclusive clip of Neal Stephenson doing what he does best: Seriously geeking out about obscure early-twentieth century metaphysics. Specifically, he admits that he has a little fetish for Edmund Husserl, a theorist who coined the term "phenomenology" in his effort to reconcile the hard truths of scientific knowledge with the ambiguities of human consciousness. Stephenson's interest in Husserl comes out of his obsession with Kurt Gödel, who loved Husserl (and is also every geek's philosopher dream date). The issues that arise out of phenomenology, specifically how people come to know things about measurable reality and their (hard to measure) consciousness, provide the intellectual backbone for Stephenson's forthcoming novel Anathem. More »

Neal Stephenson Says His New Novel Has Parallels with Bush Era in U.S.

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:08:43 PDT

Neal Stephenson's new novel Anathem hits bookstores early next month, and stoking the fires of our anticipation is a meaty article about Stephenson in this month's Wired magazine. Writer Steven "Hackers" Levy profiles the author, who apparently divides his time between writing longhand in his basement, and consulting with Nathan Myhrvold's company Intellectual Ventures, a prototyping think tank and patent farm. It makes sense that the author of a novel about science monks from another planet is both monkish and technical in his personal life. One of the interesting observations that Stephenson makes in the article is that Anathem is in some ways a commentary on the war between religion and science in the United States under George W. Bush. More »

Neal Stephenson Explains the Name of His New Novel "Anathem"

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:00:00 PDT

It's less than a month before the release of Neal "Snow Crash" Stephenson's new novel Anathem, and you're probably starting to wonder what the hell that title means. Never fear — Amazon has just posted this video of Stephenson explaining the title, as well as many of the other words and ideas he invented for this epic about science monks on another planet. I've just started reading the novel, and I'm really enjoying its stately pace and gentle humor. In many ways, it reads like an inverted history of Earth, where scientists are the monks in cloisters and religious people design crappy cell phones. You can also see Stephenson reading a chunk of Anathem in another video on Amazon. Anathem [via Amazon] More »

The 10,000-Year-Old Clock that Inspired Neal Stephenson's Anathem

Annalee Newitz — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:40:40 PDT

The Long Now, a futurist think tank, is the organization behind the millennium clock — a time-counting device that is designed to last 10,000 years. A device like it shows up in Neal Stephenson's forthcoming novel Anathem, and today the Long Now explains how the scifi author was involved in the conceptualization of the clock itself (a prototype of the clock is pictured here). Five years ago, he contributed a few sketches to the clock designers, and then ultimately wove the idea into his new novel. [Long Now] More »

Neal Stephenson Explains Who Should Play Spock

Annalee Newitz — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:00:00 PDT

In a tone of deep seriousness that sounds practically professorial, scifi author Neal Stephenson shared some grave thoughts a couple of months ago about science fiction actors. In this clip, the author of The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon tells a London audience how SF actors' careers are "bifurcated" — they're famous among scifi fans, but not so widely known in the mundane world (not unlike Stephenson himself). I just love the way he gravely explains the careers of Lena Headley (Sarah Connor Chronicles) and Lucy Lawless (Battlestar Galactica, Xena). But then he moves on even more controversial territory: Who should play Spock if it isn't going to be Leonard Nimoy? His answer, unsurprisingly, is not the dude JJ Abrams picked to play Spock in the new movie. But it's actually some pretty inspired casting. Neal Stephenson can cast my dream Star Trek movie any time. [via Fora TV] More »

Why Did We Never See Neal Stephenson's Future-Batman Movie?

Charlie Jane Anders — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:00:00 PDT

Batman Beyond, the darkest and most futuristic animated Batman series, came close to becoming a live-action movie before Warners decided to go with Bat-origin story Batman Begins instead. The story of a teenager who becomes the new Batman in the dystopian future of 2040, thanks to a cybernetic Batsuit, Batman Beyond could have been the Bat-version of Blade Runner. Especially when you realize that Snow Crash author Neal Stephenson consulted on the script, written by animated czars Paul Dini and Alan Burnett. What would it have been about? More »

Cool and Crap Awards of the Week

Annalee Newitz — Sat, 31 May 2008 09:20:10 PDT

This week, at least two things happened in the worlds of science and fiction: one was cool; the other was crap. More »

Plot of New Neal Stephenson Novel Revealed

Annalee Newitz — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:30:00 PDT

We've heard rumors about Neal "Snow Crash" Stephenson's new novel, but nothing more concrete than that it would be called Anathem and it would be a space opera about math and aliens. That would mark a real departure for the novelist, who has dealt only with human histories and futures in his previous works like The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Cryptonomicon. Now Lev Grossman, Time magazine's nerd correspondent, has more details about the plot of Anathem. More »