The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (Bantam Spectra Book)

One of the most influential science fiction novels...

...of the past 20 years, this is the Stephenson novel I come back to most often. After his amazing post-cyberpunk breakthrough Snow Crash, he cemented his status as one of the most original voices in science fiction with The Diamond Age. Envisioning a far future where nanotechnology makes almost anything possible, as opposed to the very near future of Snow Crash, allows it to stand the test of time without ever feeling dated. As great as Snow Crash was and still is, like a lot of cyberpunk novels, many of the concepts have already come to fruition in reality, making it slightly less mindblowing than reading it upon its first publication in 1992. I don't think we'll have to worry about that with The Diamond Age anytime soon. Besides the innovative uses of nanotechnology, there is a captivating story here about a little girl named Nell, destined to become just another "thete," or street urchin, lost among the throngs of people in Shanghai. That is, until she happens across 'The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer,' an extremely rare, interactive book of the most advanced order, making the finest use of nanotech imaginable, and designed to give the best possible education to a young girl. How one small chance occurance can change a child's entire fate is the main focus of The Diamond Age. It explores such high-concept themes as 'determinism vs. free will' and 'what it is to be human,' with some very clever usage of Turing machines to demonstrate these concepts. The storytelling is less Gibson and more Dickens here, giving it an entirely unique feel, and when combined with the wholly original story, makes this one of the most groundbreaking and awe-inspiring novels to come about in science-fiction since Neuromancer in '84, not to mention one of the few Hugo Award winners in recent memory actually deserving of that honor. Read more