'Quicksilver' Website and Release Date 210
EvilBastard writes "Neil Stephenson's next book in the Baroque Cycle, Quicksilver, now has a publishing date of the 23rd of September, 2003. This book appears to follow the Shaftoe, Waterhouse and Root family line back to the early 18th Century. You can find a short extract online."
afaik it's... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Umm... (Score:2, Informative)
For those of you who don't know who this is... (Score:5, Informative)
Snow Crash
Diamond Age
Crytptonomicon
In the Beginning was the Command Line
Zodiac plus two more books under a pen name.
Great author of a few geek clasics, with great insight into modern issues.
If you're into this kind of thing... (Score:5, Informative)
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Signal to Noise by Eric S. Nylund
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:For those of you who don't know who this is... (Score:3, Informative)
Plus The Big U which was re-released a couple years ago after being super hard to find. Its his first book, and a great read.
The books he wrote with his uncle under the pseudonym Stephen Bury are Interface and The Cobweb.
Re:Next Book? (Score:5, Informative)
If this thing is half as good as Cryptonomicon, it will be worth reading IMHO...
Re:Umm... (Score:5, Informative)
IMHO one of the few authors bothering (or able) to extrapolate cutting edge technology and concepts.
-------------
Re:For those of you who don't know who this is... (Score:4, Informative)
Interface and Cobweb are the two books written under the pseudonum of Stephen Bury.
Russ %-)
Re:For those of you who don't know who this is... (Score:5, Informative)
sequel to nylund's _signal to noise_ (Score:5, Informative)
Neal Stephenson's short fiction (Score:3, Informative)
BTW, this book is the first book of three in Baroque Cycle, and they'll be released at six month intervals. So says HarperCollins.
stephenson keynote in june (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Question RE: Stephenson and Gibson (Score:1, Informative)
Neuromancer
Mona Lisa Overdrive
Count Zero
Burning Chrome
Re:Umm... (Score:2, Informative)
He seems to like dry humor, irony, mystical experiences, sex , and underdogs.
Not necessarily in that order.
I did some work for him on this book (Score:5, Informative)
Neal's a pretty sharp guy but he outsources a lot of his research to proffesionals (makes sense) and has several staff people help him put the pieces together, as it were.
I offered my services as part of the FTEST (final tech editing service team) but Neal didn't want a computer pundit as much as he was looking for science pundits. Ah well, at least now I'm in his rolodex and hopefully I'll get more chances to work with him.
Warmest regards,
--Jack
Re:about crypto's length (Score:3, Informative)
The scene (in which Randy's older relatives determine who gets what family heirloom by taking each piece and laying it on a huge x-y / sentimental-monetary value axis) lets the reader know just how the nerdiness seen in L.P. Waterhouse (the grandfather, inventor of the computer) is 'genetically' carried down to Randy (hacker extraordinaire) via his older relatives (mathematicians and scientists, all).
But more importantly (if you want plot!), Randy figures out a way to cheat the system he designed and gets a trunk full of old encrypted cards from the war that ultimately allows him (Epiphyte's stockholders, really) to get the gold and the girl (Randy gets the girl, not the stockholders).
Re:How's the editing this time around? (Score:2, Informative)
If you want to tell me about typographical errors in Cryptonomicon, thank you, but don't bother. I am aware that the book has many typos. The publisher and I are trying to fix as many as we can in a subsequent printing.
And from his Crytonimicon FAQ [well.com]:
12. Why does the perl script on p. 480 have funny-looking line breaks?
The printed novel is one of several distribution media for the Solitaire perl script, and probably the least important; after all, it does no good unless you sit down and type it into a computer, which is a real pain. If you have a computer, you can probably just download the perl from the Counterpane site. Nevertheless, it was my intention to make it possible to type in the script "by hand" from the book and have it work. When I tried this myself, it turned out that line breaks in the script introduced ambiguities that caused it not to work. Therefore, I reformatted the script so that each line in the printed version ends with a semicolon, wherever possible. This removes the ambiguities and makes it possible IN PRINCIPLE to type it correctly, even if you don't know perl. But the result looks funny if you are a perl aficionado.
13. Hey, the perl script doesn't work! What's the deal?
The production people at the publisher tried valiantly to get the perl script typeset without any errors, but one error did slip in. It is located on the eighth line. Where the book says
$o=~s/.chr((
and so on, it SHOULD say
$o=~s/./chr((
and so on.
I have notified the publisher and they are going to fix it in the next printing. But all of the books in the first printing will contain the error. Perhaps this will make them valuable collectors' items one day, but for now they are useless as perl scripts.
Re:Enoch again? (Score:2, Informative)