The Diamond Age

Neal Stephenson

Bantam Books, 2008 - Fiction - 499 pages

Decades into our future, a stone's throw from the ancient city of Shanghai, a brilliant nanotechnologist named John Percival Hackworth has just broken the rigorous moral code of his tribe, the powerful neo-Victorians. He's made an illicit copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. Commissioned by an eccentric duke for his grandchild, stolen for Hackworth's own daughter, the Primer's purpose is to educate and raise a girl capable of thinking for herself. It performs its function superbly. Unfortunately for Hackworth, his smuggled copy has fallen into the wrong hands.

What people are saying

User Review -

One of the best books I've ever read.

Review: The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

User Review  - Winston - Goodreads

Some parts were fantastic, some parts were dull. Took about 100 pages for me to start getting into it. Good enough that I want to check out Stephenson's other work (and just more scifi in general) but not good enough that I'll ever read this again.

About the author

Neal Stephenson issues from a clan of rootless, itinerant hardscience and engineering professors (mostly Pac-10, Big 10, and Big 8 with the occasional wild strain of Ivy). He began his higher education as a physics major, then switched to geography when it appeared that this would enable him to scam more free time on his university's mainframe computer. When he graduated and discovered, to his perplexity, that there were no jobs for inexperienced physicist-geographers, he began to look into alternative pursuits such as working on cars, unimaginably stupid agricultural labor, and writing novels. His first novel, The Big U, was published in 1984 and vanished without a trace. His second novel, Zodiac: An Eco-Thriller, came out in 1988 and quickly developed a cult following among water-pollution-control engineers. It was also enjoyed, though rarely bought, by many radical environmentalists. Snow Crash was written in the years 1988 through 1991 as the author listened to a great deal of loud, relentless, depressing music.

Mr. Stephenson now resides in a comfortable home in the western hemisphere and spends all of his time trying to retrofit an office into its generally dark, unlevel, and asbestos-laden basement so that he can attempt to write more novels. Despite the tremendous amounts of time he devotes to writing, playing with computers, listening to speed metal, Rollerblading, and pounding nails, he is a flawless husband, parent, neighbor, and all-around human being.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Diamond Age; A Bantam spectra book; A Bantam trade paperback; Banatam Spectra Trade Paperback book; Spectra science fiction
• Author: Neal Stephenson
• Edition: reprint, reissue
• Publisher: Bantam Books, 2008
• ISBN: 0553380966, 9780553380965
• Length: 499 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Science Fiction / General