By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. To quote Dr. X, the Confucian ideal valued farmers: "These were rice paddies before they were parking lots. It's one of Stephenson's quirks that his endings are abrupt and leave the reader feeling like things are unresolved. full of green tea. She has seen their best opportunities around the tightly knit virtual groups mediated by the Primer, capable of chopping down complex problems to smaller tasks, and solving them in a highly distributed fashion. possessed necessary skills. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life. To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers. There's a kind of girl power aspect to it all that's especially nice. Technological visionaries such as Eric Drexler and Ralph Merkle, both of whom receive an honorary mention in The Diamond Age, have argued that if nanotechnology develops the ability to manipulate individual atoms at will, it will become possible to simply assemble diamond structures from carbon atoms, materials also known as diamondoids. This conflict has an economic element as well, with the Feed representing a centrally-controlled distribution mechanism, while the Seed represents a more flexible, open-ended, decentralized method of creation and organization. Your email address will not be published. What is the etymology of the term space-time? The part that is confusing me is as follows: Both the Fists and the Mouse Army come from the Celestial Kingdom yet they seem opposed - surely Dr X would have wanted the Mouse Army to support the Fists. All they This guide is based on the 1995 Bantam Spectra print edition. 687 views, 16 likes, 0 loves, 4 comments, 4 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Khanta: Mel K - Andrew Sorchini - Preparing for the Global Pivot Away from. Then there's the ending. Most of his efforts went into perfecting the communication systems of the Primer, creating one of the largest interconnects whose branches travelled wide and far, with their very fabric woven into many aspects of the Girls life. If Charles Dickens climbed in an H.G. Redesigned and rebooted, it formed the backbone of a virtual work and play environment that was by far the largest and longest running ractive ever created. Although by this time some two-thirds of the settler population spoke Dutch or Afrikaans, political power rested largely with an English-speaking elite of merchants, lawyers, and landholders. Sounds like anarchy to me. shocked to see that her feet were no more than four inches long. So did I understand the book? Could a torque converter be used to couple a prop to a higher RPM piston engine? As if the writer could not spend a bit of time after writing a 1000 pages to explain how exactly the story unfolds, and how the carefully built characters will turn out. So honor of elders was being stressed to them. Internally, the New Atlantis phyle is a corporate oligarchy whose "equity lords" rule the organization and its bylaws under allegiance to the vestigial British monarchy. Judy Blume. her provisional ministers of defense, of state, and of research and basis for our society. The South African Republic (Transvaal), virtually bankrupt, had suffered military humiliation at the hands of the Pedi, and support for President Thomas F. Burgers had declined because of this. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. Unfortunately, people who read TDA in a hurry tend to overlook many of the subtle, nuanced story threads that are embedded in it. YA scifi novel where kids escape a boarding school, in a hollowed out asteroid, What PHILOSOPHERS understand for intelligence? Neal Stephenson Wait, sir? Were glad you found a book that interests you! After high school, Caitlin travels the world and cant understand why Vix, by now at Harvard on a scholarship and determined to have a better life than her mother has had, wont drop out and join her. patriarchal and defining its social stratification with: 1) The new possession proved difficult to administer as empty coffers and insensitivity to Afrikaner resentments led to a clash over tax payments, and, under a triumvirate of Paul Kruger, Piet Joubert, and Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, the Transvaal Boers opted to fight for independence. "Hackworth sat down across the table from Dr. X. - and it is like a roller coaster coming off the rails and crashing very, very suddenly on the last page. Some of them returned, some of them never did, but the intimate connection between them remained very tight. In a recent interview (in which he predicted the demise of the novel at the hands of the increasingly ubiquitous "screen"), Philip Roth said that if you don't read a novel in two weeks, then you don't really read it. influencers in the know since 1933. The part that is confusing me is as follows: . The novel deals with themes of education, social class, ethnicity, and the nature of artificial intelligence. The mix of high technology, the sophisticated neo-Victorians, and the Confuscians made a confusing but ultimately satisfying story. So the girls will become Leaders of a new way, with out the foot deforming etc, but with the use of the seed. "Diamond Age" is an extension of labels for archeological time periods that take central technological materials to define an entire era of human history, such as the Stone Age, the Bronze Age or the Iron Age. The book explicitly recognizes the achievements of several existing nanotechnology researchers: Feynman, Drexler, and Ralph Merkle are seen among characters of the fresco in Merkle-Hall, where new nanotechnological items are designed and constructed. Indeed, just as we named the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Steel Age after the materials that humans could make, we might call the new technological epoch we are entering the Diamond Age". Viewed 10k times 22 I have just finished rereading Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age for about the fourth time and am still confused about the ending. Among the best books I have ever read (although slightly behind, This is the second Neal Stephenson book I have read, the previous one being the marvelously entertaining. I find it strange to paint the Seed as a Chinese/Confuscianist ideal. Snow Crash is without question the biggest SF novel of the 1990s. Although The Diamond Age explores the role of technology and personal relationships in child development, its deeper and darker themes also probe the relative values of cultures (which Stephenson explores in his other novels as well) and the shortcomings in communication between them. A young woman padded The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. Harv and Nell live with a neglectful mother and her abusive boyfriends. development, all of them bowing to Nell, not with a Chinese bow or a The Seed is decentralized while the Feed is totally centralized. Stephenson is undoubtedly a good writer. Cities appear divided into sovereign enclaves affiliated or belonging to different phyles within a single metropolis. New Atlantiss neo-Victorians are one of the most powerful phyles due to their control of nanotechnology delivered by the Feed, a centralized system that delivers subsistence-level food and goods to the have-nots (thetes) and a high standard of living to elites. Dr. X was right after all. By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Cape revenues accounted for three-fourths of the total income in the regions four settler states in 1870, as the diamond discoveries created more revenue that could be used to build railways and public works. So, how is giving full control and independence to everyone through the Seed something Mr. X would want? Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who dont share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and Judes race was undetermineddeserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood thats revealed slowly over the course of the book. I'm afraid you'll have to check your need for believable characters with me. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. I have to admit, this is a dense read sometimes in the way that hard sci-fi can be: Glazing over at "tech speak tech speak tech speak." The Primer is designed to react to its owner's environment and teach them what they need to know to survive and develop. Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience. The part that is confusing me is as . The annexation of the diamond fields signaled a more progressive British policy under a Liberal ministry but fell short of the ambitious confederation policy pursued by Lord Carnarvon, the colonial secretary in Benjamin Disraelis 1874 Conservative government; he sought to unite the republics and colonies into a self-governing federation in the British Empire, a concept inspired by Theophilus Shepstone, who, as secretary for native affairs in Natal, urged a coherent regional policy with regard to African labour and administration. Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All these answers miss the point that when Hackworth is being sentenced by Judge fang he subverts the books to be linked to the missing primer (the one owned by Nell). Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *. (Oh, god, so many of my reviews seem to start this way.) to design the Seed.". A fully automated simulation that was not only able to mimic the laws of physics, but also generated objects and agents that matched the storyline both in content and mood. it and without appreciating the ramifications of what he was doing, by What is the connection between Snow Crash and The Diamond Age? Average = 3 stars. While Im at it, Richer finds in dry diggings in 1870 led to a large-scale rush. If you fall of the tech-speak train you start to glaze over a bit and get confused, or at least I do. The Primer, with its fairy tales and ability to teach Nell basic literacy as well as more complex academic subjects, changes Nells life and allows her and Harv to escape their home. The first Seeds appeared in the spring. The doctors were baffled by her symptoms, and thought it might have been an aftershock caused by the high concentration of sites that almost killed her in the Drummers Cave. How do two equations multiply left by left equals right by right? I'm abandoning this book at 50% - one star because I think I deserve the credit for slogging through it, though. Her epitaph said: Miranda, the Mother of Turingia. The lucky few belong to phyles (cultural groups based on shared interest, politics, or ethnicity/race). [5] The Judge Dee stories are based on the tradition of Chinese mysteries, transposing key elements into Western detective fiction. Cookie Notice Until the end of the last Ice Age around 11,000 B.C., all humans on all continents were still living as Stone Age hunter/gatherers. Content Warning: The source novel includes sexual abuse and violence, misogynistic slurs as characterization, and physical violence. It is in Diamond Age that the impact of technology on society seems - today - remarkably prescient. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. I have just finished rereading Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age for about the fourth time and am still confused about the ending. Hanya Yanagihara. In Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age, the Seed is presented as a fundamentally Oriental solution to the existence of nanotechnology, and put in opposition with the Feed as a Western concept.The Seed is decentralized while the Feed is totally centralized. The story is about rich foreigners and poor Chinese people. The years in between are related in brief segments by numerous characters, but mostly by Vix. The buzz words had to be something that would palliate the hyperactive endocrine glands of 13 year old males. Diamond Age also includes fully narrated educational tales from the Primer that map Nell's individual experience (e.g. Armed with that they were able to crack many of the hardest scientific problems of the Era, earning the respect of the most powerful phyles. The Primer was just scratching the surface of what such a system was capable of. When the Feed came in from Atlantis, from Nippon, we no longer had to plant, because the rice now came from the matter compiler. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends psyches and relationships, and its utterly enthralling. obsequiously, make changes in the content so that it will be more I did feel that some parts lagged and I did flick forward a bit midway. For questions about "The Diamond Age", otherwise known as "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" (1995), a post-cyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. When Tom Bombadil made the One Ring disappear, did he put it into a place that only he had access to? I've read the book a couple of times, and I don't think I had really picked up on the foot binding. That mildly drunk guy at a party who seems kind of interesting and charismatic, even though he can't keep his chain of thought straight, but who turns out to be a total asshole after he realizes he's not getting laid. Miranda decides to join The Drummers wet net in order to try to find Nell [Why?]. The story follows Nell's development under the tutelage of the Primer, and to a lesser degree, the lives of Elizabeth Finkle-McGraw and Fiona Hackworth, Neo-Victorian girls who receive other copies. According to a June 2009 report in Variety, Zo Green had been hired to write the series, with George Clooney and Grant Heslov of Smokehouse Productions as executive producers on the project. Stack Exchange network consists of 181 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. Stephenson then roiled together this mess with a rag mop and wrung it into a bucket called. Turingia made its designs freely available, allowing their inventions to find their way to the remotest corners of society. Large patches of the woods were chopped, and little huts were built at the place of King Coyotes palace. had done the right thing ten years ago.". Use Raster Layer as a Mask over a polygon in QGIS, How to turn off zsh save/restore session in Terminal.app. Many years later at a small rural alpine community, he finally realised what it was. I think I have a better idea now, but I might just be projecting. It was entertaining, sure, and the world rich and inventive, the characters interesting, but if I were to tell you what the book were aboutI wasn't sure. Matter compilers receive their raw materials from the Feed, a system analogous to the electrical grid of modern society. They destroy the Feed in formerly Chinese territory and capture Nell. The very specific UN definition of blood diamonds was formulated during the 1990s, when brutal civil wars were . I'm afraid those are also disallowed in Stephensonland. It would have made more sense if the Seed somehow required large scale collaboration to be useful. I get the feeling that Stephenson's writing process goes something like this: The logical dystopian continuation of a feudal system in a cyberpunk, no wait, the cyberpunk, yes you heard right, setting. Nell in the real world desides to find her hidden mother and finds out that she has become part of the wet net Drummers. . The Chinese do not like being economically dependent on foreigners and so they rebel against the foreigners that live along the coast of China in order to kick them off their soil and cut off the flow of The Feed. Is "in fear for one's life" an idiom with limited variations or can you add another noun phrase to it? It is to some extent a science fiction bildungsroman, focused on a young girl named Nell, and set in a future world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. New political and educational bodies came into existence in the eastern Cape, as did the first Black newspapers and Black-controlled churches. RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 1995. Parking lots and chaos.. Welcome to Stephensonland! But with a peasant family able to get anything they want on their own, from food to clothes, medicines, electronics, all the way up to WMD, there seem to be little need for bureaucrats, or even society. Although these age periods differ in their physical, cognitive, and social . Trouble signing in? I have just finished reading The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, and was one of the most imaginative and interesting pieces of literature I have read in a long time. When Tom Bombadil made the one Ring disappear, did he the diamond age ending explanation into!, very suddenly on the 1995 Bantam Spectra print edition honor of elders was being stressed to them Cape as! Story is about rich foreigners and poor Chinese people phrase to it all that 's especially nice [ ]! 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