Runo Knows...The Diamond Age
Now, where I bitched about The DIfference Engine for its stylings and baroque writing, here it's a good thing.
WHA?!
Let me explain.
Let's look back first, say, to the '80s...and cyberpunk. It was good (in my not-so-humble opinion, of course), it was timely, and it's no longer quite as - well - relevant. At least, not in that form. And some might argue that the book that really killed cyberpunk was Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. At least, in literary terms, rather than in the terms of a moving sociopolitical and economic dynamic that outdated the precepts of the genre.
Snow Crash - which I should re-read and do one of these on later - drove its smartwheels over the corpse of cyberpunk.
The Diamond Age, though, put a skullgun popper through Snow Crash at the beginning and went from there.
In a way, you can say that The Diamond Age is Neal Stephenson's response to Snow Crash. Everybody wanted more Hiro Protoganist and Y.T. - well, you get Y.T., but she's a school teacher and old now (I'm not saying that character is her, but you know what I mean if you read it) and instead of Hiro, you get the burly neo-Victorian soldiers. And the cybered up, wannabe-badass thug is still in bloody chunks in the river.
The idea of the franchise operated quasi-national entity from Snow Crash persists in The Diamond Age, which also posits other clades and groups in the "geography doesn't matter" citizenship leftovers. TDA (I'm tired of typing and underlining that) also brings forth nanotechnology, given life in the Western point of view via The Feed which brings the atoms needed by the assemblers to the masses. Poor? You have a very small Feed. Rich? A big one.
That is the very basic version.
The book - which, like Snow Crash - takes place over a varying yet not quite flat-out said amount of time (though more time than Snow Crash, and a bit more delineated thanks to Nell's growth) involves the characters dealing with two things.
First off is the "Young Ladies' Illustrated Primer" - the subtitle of the novel - which, created by one character for his daughter, stolen, and given to another character - leads various young girls through their difficult childhoods.
The second is the idea of the Seed, basically, a self-contained Feed which Western nations fear because it would give the individual the opportunity to do things such as build their own nukes. (An interesting study might be how the idea of the Feed and the Seed in TDA affected or influenced - if at all - the ideas of nanotechnology in Charles Stross' "Eschaton" novels and stories.)
But why did I mention The Difference Engine?
Many of the main characters in TDA are "neo-Victorians" in the clade "New Atlantis", modeled after old-time England. Thus, the novel takes on the airs and atmosphere of such a group. At the same time, though, it doesn't feel stifling like TDE did, or ruthlessly obscure.
In many ways, it's like the difference between Snow Crash and stereotypical cyberpunk literature. Cyberpunk was stylized, it was brand names, it was often a lack of explanation behind high tech and low life. Snow Crash spelled it out for you in blazing pop news headlines, and, in a way, made it even hipper for doing so, making it more to our age than the byzantine underworld labryinth glimpsed through the aircar windows of Blade Runner.
Then comes TDA, and it says where the SC world will go, and does so rather than in crass pop stylings but a classic style - something that perhaps is easier read than expressed.
In short...you need to read 'em.
But I enjoyed TDA much more this time through than I had in the past - perhaps it's the fact that I have more experience in literature now, or that I grokked that much more of it, or, just maybe, I'm a bit older, and can appreciate it more.
WHA?!
Let me explain.
Let's look back first, say, to the '80s...and cyberpunk. It was good (in my not-so-humble opinion, of course), it was timely, and it's no longer quite as - well - relevant. At least, not in that form. And some might argue that the book that really killed cyberpunk was Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. At least, in literary terms, rather than in the terms of a moving sociopolitical and economic dynamic that outdated the precepts of the genre.
Snow Crash - which I should re-read and do one of these on later - drove its smartwheels over the corpse of cyberpunk.
The Diamond Age, though, put a skullgun popper through Snow Crash at the beginning and went from there.
In a way, you can say that The Diamond Age is Neal Stephenson's response to Snow Crash. Everybody wanted more Hiro Protoganist and Y.T. - well, you get Y.T., but she's a school teacher and old now (I'm not saying that character is her, but you know what I mean if you read it) and instead of Hiro, you get the burly neo-Victorian soldiers. And the cybered up, wannabe-badass thug is still in bloody chunks in the river.
The idea of the franchise operated quasi-national entity from Snow Crash persists in The Diamond Age, which also posits other clades and groups in the "geography doesn't matter" citizenship leftovers. TDA (I'm tired of typing and underlining that) also brings forth nanotechnology, given life in the Western point of view via The Feed which brings the atoms needed by the assemblers to the masses. Poor? You have a very small Feed. Rich? A big one.
That is the very basic version.
The book - which, like Snow Crash - takes place over a varying yet not quite flat-out said amount of time (though more time than Snow Crash, and a bit more delineated thanks to Nell's growth) involves the characters dealing with two things.
First off is the "Young Ladies' Illustrated Primer" - the subtitle of the novel - which, created by one character for his daughter, stolen, and given to another character - leads various young girls through their difficult childhoods.
The second is the idea of the Seed, basically, a self-contained Feed which Western nations fear because it would give the individual the opportunity to do things such as build their own nukes. (An interesting study might be how the idea of the Feed and the Seed in TDA affected or influenced - if at all - the ideas of nanotechnology in Charles Stross' "Eschaton" novels and stories.)
But why did I mention The Difference Engine?
Many of the main characters in TDA are "neo-Victorians" in the clade "New Atlantis", modeled after old-time England. Thus, the novel takes on the airs and atmosphere of such a group. At the same time, though, it doesn't feel stifling like TDE did, or ruthlessly obscure.
In many ways, it's like the difference between Snow Crash and stereotypical cyberpunk literature. Cyberpunk was stylized, it was brand names, it was often a lack of explanation behind high tech and low life. Snow Crash spelled it out for you in blazing pop news headlines, and, in a way, made it even hipper for doing so, making it more to our age than the byzantine underworld labryinth glimpsed through the aircar windows of Blade Runner.
Then comes TDA, and it says where the SC world will go, and does so rather than in crass pop stylings but a classic style - something that perhaps is easier read than expressed.
In short...you need to read 'em.
But I enjoyed TDA much more this time through than I had in the past - perhaps it's the fact that I have more experience in literature now, or that I grokked that much more of it, or, just maybe, I'm a bit older, and can appreciate it more.