The Diamond Age
The Diamond Age, spiritual sequel to Snow Crash, is definitely my favorite book. If Snow Crash was Neil Stephenson‘s prediction of the last 20 years, The Diamond Age takes a look at our future 100 years from now. The title of the book speaks to the world built within it, when mankind has mastered nano-technology and can finally delicately wield the atom.
Hiro Protagonist’s base world of franchise-states and dead-end cyber-life has given way to an extreme return to traditional cultural ties. Enter the Neo-Victorians and Neo-Confucianists of Hong-Kong where the story is set. Nell, the Bildungsroman hero of The Diamond Age, lives in a world of nano-punk with a healthy side of steam:
“Moral reforms and deteriorations are moved by large forces, and they are mostly caused by reactions from the habits of a preceeding period. Backwards and forwards swings the great pendulum, and its alternations are not determined by a few distinguished folk clinging to the end of it.”
Sir Charles Petrie, The Victorians
To me, the most fascinating feature of steampunk is that it is based on a universe of tangible technology. Unlike our current micro-tech, nano-tech computers are a physical manifestation of the gears of change. There are no more programers, only gifted craftsmen. There are no “black-boxes” in The Diamond Age except for the minds of people who live within it.
As the story grows, Nell rises from an orphan of the slums to become princess of a world of her own making. A time when humanity can finally unite in a world of drummers’ dreams.
0+>
p.s. reading this story first on paper and then on an e-reader is quite the experience. to hold the current-tech “primer” in my hands, knowing that soon the day will come when the future is upon us.
p.p.s. on the other hand, reading snow crash on an e-reader made me fearful to turn the page, like a late victorian scared by an on-coming train in moving-picture show 🙂
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function lightword_fb_get_comment_type_count() in /home/customer/www/musashimixinq.com/public_html/wp-content/themes/lightword/comments.php:10 Stack trace: #0 /home/customer/www/musashimixinq.com/public_html/wp-includes/comment-template.php(1618): require() #1 /home/customer/www/musashimixinq.com/public_html/wp-content/themes/lightword/single.php(49): comments_template() #2 /home/customer/www/musashimixinq.com/public_html/wp-includes/template-loader.php(106): include('/home/customer/...') #3 /home/customer/www/musashimixinq.com/public_html/wp-blog-header.php(19): require_once('/home/customer/...') #4 /home/customer/www/musashimixinq.com/public_html/index.php(17): require('/home/customer/...') #5 {main} thrown in /home/customer/www/musashimixinq.com/public_html/wp-content/themes/lightword/comments.php on line 10