Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson (b. October 31, 1959 in Fort Meade, Maryland) is known primarily as a science fiction writer in the postcyberpunk genre with a penchant for diverting into explorations of mathematics, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired Magazine, and works part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (funded by Jeff Bezos) developing a manned suborbital launch system http://www.well.com/user/neal/myrelationship.html.

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Stephenson's family was composed of engineers and hard scientists. Stephenson went to college in Boston, first as a physics major, then, when he found that it would allow him to spend more time on the university mainframe, Stephenson became a geography major. His first novel, The Big U, was published in 1984. The Big U was never popular, and for a while, was out of print. It has only recently been republished.

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Although he wrote earlier novels such as the eco-thriller Zodiac, he came to fame in the early 1990s with the novel Snow Crash (1992), which fuses memetics, computer viruses, and other high-tech themes with Sumerian mythology. Averaging one novel every four years, he has written several subsequent novels: ' (1995), which deals with a future with extensive nanotechnology; Cryptonomicon (1999), a novel concerned with concepts ranging from computing and codebreaking during the Second World War to a modern attempt to set up a data haven; and The Baroque Cycle, a three volume work consisting of Quicksilver (2003), The Confusion (2004) and The System of the World (2004), making a very long historical novel cycle that is in some respects a prequel to Cryptonomicon.

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Though it can be argued that neither Cryptonomicon nor The Baroque Cycle constitute works of science fiction, booksellers have tended to classify these books as such.

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With the 2003 publication of Quicksilver, Stephenson debuted The Metaweb, a wiki (using the same software as Wikipedia) annotating the ideas and historical period explored in the novel.

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October 31: October 31 is the 304th day of the year (305th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 61 days remaining, as the final day of October....

1959: 1959 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. It is also a song by The Sisters of Mercy on the album Floodland....

Fort Meade: REDIRECT Fort George G. Meade...

Neal Stephenson related Images and Photos (experimental)

Debra Stephenson	Ron O'Neal	George Stephenson Engraved by Charles Turner 1838	Ryan O'Neal
Amber O'Neal	Tatum O'Neal	Shaquille O'Neal Print	Jermaine O'Neal
Jermaine O'Neal	Shaquille O'Neal	Shaquille O'Neal	Shaquille O'Neal - '04 / '05 Action