I also consumed DA on tape/CD and appreciated the reader as well, but a decade after it was written. I read it (on paper) when it came out, mostly following up his Snow Crash which I did not discover until just as Diamond Age came out. I was previously introduced to him via his eco-thriller Zodiac (the first of the genre for me) not long before that. His work since then has been epic and in some ways amazing but I don't feel it really matches those early works... I believe he followed on Cormac McCarthy's heels as SFI's "writer in residence" but apparently has not really been "in residence" in the usual sense?
Regarding DaveW's implication/assertion about the story providing a good post-abundance image to consider I heartily agree. I was also moved (re Jon's comment) by the way the human-in-the loop 'ractor (under-employed actor working inter-actives in a gig economy) bonded with her "client" in a completely anonymous context. Stephenson did some amazing forecasting of many of the implications of ubiquitous networking. His nanotech prophecies are still a few decades away I suspect but he is such a master of 'casting utopian/dystopian tensions that I *want* to believe much of what he put out there for us. > I remember listening to "Diamond Age" as a book on tape while driving up the > California 1, it was 10 or 12 tapes and the woman who read it did an amazing > job. What a wonderful book. There have been a few books in my life that I > feel have found me like the illustrated primer found Nell, a book that > connects with you before it advises you to start running and not look back. > > > > -- > Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
