It’s only natural that if you wish to present yourself as a well-read person, a certain degree of complete bullshit is required. There’s no shame in lying about what you’ve read. There’s only shame in getting caught. Then you look like a doofus, and an illiterate one at that... How to lie about books.
posted by Artw on May 28, 2009 - 73 comments

Anathem, Neal Stephenson's new book, is stupendous, possibly his best.  But his acknowledgments page (summarized in the print version and as expansive as ever on the Internet Reticulum) might be even more interesting, and poignant, especially as an introduction to the niftiest piece of metaphysics in the book: the quantum effects  (PDFs) of consciousness among many worlds.  [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue on Sep 25, 2008 - 141 comments

"He's always thinking about lots of things — he's a pollinator, he brings ideas to the table" You probably know Neal Stephenson for his work as an author (generally in or adjacent to the Science Fiction genre), but he's also an inventor at Washington based "Idea Factory" Intellectual Ventures, a place with modern goals like stomping out malaria and preventing hurricanes. This is after his old job as part-time rocket scientist.
posted by Artw on Sep 1, 2008 - 17 comments

Vegging Out vs. Geeking Out. Romance as the MSG of film. The bifurcated careers of Lucy lawless, Sigourney Weaver, and Hugo Weaving. Characters making smart decisions vs. stupid decisions. Neal Stephenson discusses Sci-Fi/Speculative Fiction as a literary genre at Gresham College. (Warning: requires Flash 9)
posted by Navelgazer on Jul 13, 2008 - 29 comments

Reason interview with Neal Stephenson containing (among other things!) libertarian-statist-terrorist triangulation, the epidemiology of domination systems, praise for 17th century financial & philosophical sophistication and... oh and an apologia for his endings :D [via SE, also see :]
posted by kliuless on Feb 10, 2005 - 23 comments

Every culture can be kind of defined by what they drink in order to avoid dying of diarrhea. In China it's tea. In Africa it's milk or animal blood. In Europe it was wine and beer. Salon talks with Neal Stephenson. [premium/free day pass]
posted by xmutex on Apr 21, 2004 - 9 comments

Why, I'll be a monkey's uncle! (Or is that great-great-great-grandson?) I've been reading Neal Stephenson's latest novel, Baroque Cycle Volume 1: Quicksilver and was intrigued by the descriptions of the natural philosophers. I had learned about their laws and how they were discovered in high school and university but not about their other investigations. Intrigued I searched for a bit of additional information and came up with the linked site. It provides biographies and links to other biographies of many natural philosophers.
posted by substrate on Oct 29, 2003 - 7 comments

Quicksilver Metaweb is the companion wiki to Neal Stephenson's much anticipated new book. If you've found his home page a bit on the off-putting side, but you still had things you wanted to know, or maybe chitchat about, this is the place for you.
posted by jessamyn on Sep 25, 2003 - 11 comments

Where in the world is Neal Stephenson? The Web page of Neal Stephenson, author of Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, etc., explains how busy he is writing his new book. (Quicksilver, according to this old interview.) The site's fabulously cranky, and a refreshing alternative to marketing sites for artists and authors, but no further explanation is forthcoming.
posted by krewson on Feb 14, 2002 - 42 comments

Those who have read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon may know about Counterpane They're the company that Neal consulted about the crypto in the book, including the now famous solitaire code.
posted by tdecius on Oct 9, 1999 - 0 comments