Neal Stephenson

30 años del Metaverso, y sumando. En un futuro cercano, los americanos solo destacan haciendo cuatro cosas: música, películas, programas… y reparto de pizza en menos de treinta minutos. En el mundo r

After the Internet, what came next?Enter the Metaverse - cyberspace home to avatars and software daemons, where anything and just about everything goes. Newly available on the Street - the Metaverse's main drag - is Snow Crash, a cyberdrug. Trouble is Snow Crash is also a computer virus - and something more.Because once taken it infects the person behind the avatar. Snow Crash bleeds into reality. Which is really bad news for Hiro - freelance hacker and the Metaverse's best swordfighter (he wrote the code) - and Y.T. - skateboard kourier, street imp and mouthy teenage girl - because reality was shitty enough before someone started messing with it . .. Exploring linguistics, religion, computer science, politics, philosophy, cryptography and the future of pizza delivery, Snow Crash is a riveting, brake-neck adventure into the fast-approaching future.

Europa en 1241 se encuentra al borde del desastre. Las hordas mongolas han surgido de lo más profundo de las estepas de Asia central y amenazan con aplastar todos los reinos e imperios que encuentran a su paso. Los reinos cristianos han ido de derrota en derrota y parece que el fin del mundo se aproxima con cada avance de los mongoles, pero un pequeño grupo de guerreros y misticos, pertenecientes a una orden militar estan convencidos de que es posible detener a los invasores, aunque quizas el arma que deban utilizar no es el filo de la espada sino el poder del conocimiento.

Across the globe, millions of computer screens flicker with the artfully coded world of T'Rain - an addictive internet role-playing game of fantasy and adventure. But backstreet hackers in China have just unleashed a contagious virus called Reamde, and as it rampages through the gaming world spreading from player to player - holding hard drives hostage in the process - the computer of one powerful and dangerous man is infected, causing the carefully mediated violence of the on-line world to spill over into reality. A fast-talking, internet-addicted mafia accountant is brutally silenced by his Russian employers, and Zula - a talented young T'Rain computer programmer - is abducted and bundled on to a private jet. As she is flown across the skies in the company of the terrified boyfriend she broke up with hours before, and a brilliant Hungarian hacker who may be her only hope, she finds herself sucked into a whirl of Chinese Secret Service agents and gun-toting American Survivalists; the Russian criminal underground and an al-Qaeda cell led by a charismatic Welshman; each a strand of a connected world that devastatingly converges in T'Rain. An inimitable and compelling thriller that careers from British Columbia to South-West China via Russia and the fantasy world of T'Rain, Reamde is an irresistible epic from the unique imagination of one of today's most individual writers.

En 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, genio matemático y joven capitán de la marina estadounidense, recibe la orden de colaborar con Bobby Shaftoe en una misión secreta que consiste en descifrar los codigos de las potencias del Eje y evitar que los nazis descubran que la Inteligencia aliada ha interpretado su mitico codigo Enigma. Sesenta años mas tarde, Randy Waterhouse, brillante criptohacker, proyecta la creacion en el sureste asiatico de un paraiso de datos que ha de convertirse en el mayor exponente de la libertad informatica: la Cripta. Cuando los gobiernos y las multinacionales atacan este proyecto, Randy se alia con Amy, la nieta de Shaftoe, para intentar rescatar un submarino nazi que contiene la clave para mantener a flote el sueño de la Cripta. Su estratagema pronto saca a la luz una gigantesca conspiracion y un codigo indescifrable llamado Aretusa. Por primera vez en castellano aparece en un solo volumen la edicion completa del libro mas logrado de Neal Stephenson. Criptonomicon, un tour de force narrativo, una obra profunda y profetica, hipnotica y trepidante. Una obra de arte, producto de una imaginacion iconoclasta y sorprendente.

La muerte de un estudiante extranjero en intercambio en la Universidad de Iowa, lleva al inesperado descubrimiento de que una poderosa agencia estatal estadounidense está invirtiendo grandes sumas en proyectos de investigacion de dudosa moralidad. El ayudante del sheriff local se involucra en complejas investigaciones mientras su esposa participa en la guerra del Golfo. Entretanto, una joven analista de segunda fila de la CIA debera enfrentarse a un poderoso diplomatico y asesor de George Bush padre por osar sugerir una descabellada hipotesis politico-belica.Un thriller politico de primer nivel, con la amenaza de una peligrosa guerra biologica con armas de destruccion masiva en el marco de la primera guerra del Golfo.Una novela amena y sugerente, en la que destacan los saberes narrativos de Stephenson (autor de Criptonomicon, Clico Barroco, La era del diamante, Snow Crash, etc.), junto a los conocimientos de historia y politica exterior estadounidense de J. Frederick George, autores que ya habian colaborado en ese impresionante thriller politico-social sobre la manipulacion politica que es Interfaz.

This is the Word -- one man's word, certainly -- about the art (and artifice) of the state of our computer-centric existence. And considering that the one man is Neal Stephenson, the hacker Hemingway (Newsweek) -- acclaimed novelist, pragmatist, seer, nerd-friendly philosopher, and nationally bestselling author of groundbreaking literary works (Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, etc., etc.) -- the word is well worth hearing. Mostly well-reasoned examination and partial rant, Stephenson's In the Beginning... was the Command Line is a thoughtful, irreverent, hilarious treatise on the cyber-culture past and present on operating system tyrannies and downloaded popular revolutions on the Internet, Disney World, Big Bangs, not to mention the meaning of life itself.

Un complejo y ameno tecnothriller sobre la amenaza de manipulación tecnológica de la democracia. El gobernador Cozzano sufre una apoplejía poco antes de iniciarse el largo camino de las primarias para la nueva eleccion presidencial estadounidense. Como parte del tratamiento, se le propone la implantacion en el cerebro de un novedoso biochip con el que, ademas, estara conectado a un sofisticado sistema de encuestas electoral. De esta forma tiene acceso a la informacion sobre las reacciones, deseos y sentimientos de los electores, que le son comunicados directamente al cerebro, y se convierte inevitablemente en el candidato perfecto. Ante este sofisticado y poderoso desarrollo de la tecnologia, ¿que va a ocurrir con la democracia? ¿Puede ser libre la politica en la nueva era de las omnipresentes tecnologias de la informacion y de las neurociencias?

Erasmas - Raz - is a young avout living in the Concent, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside world by ancient stone, honoured traditions and complex rituals. Three times during history's darkest epochs, the cloistered community has been devastated by violence. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe. Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite, the avout prepare to open the concent's gates. Before the week is out, both worlds - the inner and the outer - will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change. Suddenly Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world - as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet...and beyond.

La novela que revitalizó el ciberpunk... con unas gotas de sentido del humor. A ambos lados de la autopista de Los Ángeles, las franquicias se suceden unas a otras hasta donde alcanza la vista: las Puertas Perladas del Reverendo Wayne, el Nuevo y Mas Grande Hong Kong de Mr. Lee, Pizzas Cosa Nostra, Inc. de Tio Enzo... El unico respiro que hay en el mar de logos y carteles se encuentra al otro lado de las bien guardadas fronteras de las ciudades estado independientes, cuyos ciudadanos intentan no abandonar nunca. ¿A quien podria extrañar que casi todo el mundo opte por buscar refugio en un universo virtual? El Metaverso es el ultimo reducto de la libertad, el unico lugar donde todo sigue siendo posible sin jugarse la piel. Pero ahora esta siendo amenazado por un nuevo tipo de virus conocido como Snow Crash, un virus que amenaza con desencadenar el infocalipsis... Snow Crash es una de esas raras novelas que marca un relevo generacional: sus paginas destilan la presencia de una voz innovadora que contempla el mundo con ironia desde una perspectiva tan fresca como radical. Es una obra pirotecnica y vertiginosa, guiada por una incontenible pasion de narrar, pletorica de ideas nuevas y que destila un tono complice y socarron en sus todas sus paginas. Una revolucion de un solo libro en la historia reciente del genero.

The New York Times Book Review called Neal Stephenson s most recent novel electrifying and hilarious. but if you want to know Stephenson was doing twenty years before he wrote the epic Cryptonomicon, it s back-to-school time. Back to The Big U, that is, a hilarious send-up of American college life starring after years our of print, The Big U is required reading for anyone interested in the early work of this singular writer.

Narrativa en ingles

Hace miles de años, el planeta Arbre estuvo al borde del colapso. Los nuevos intelectuales, los avotos, se reunieron para iniciar un nuevo tipo de vida. Mientras el planeta sufre multitud de transformaciones, el ritmo de evolucion de los avotos es lento. Ahora, casi cuatro mil años despues de la fundacion del sistema, el Poder Secular parece ocultar que hay una nave alienigena orbitando el planeta. Descubrirla y establecer contacto con esos extraños seres es el gran trabajo que espera al protagonista, fra Erasmas. Entretenido y con ideas nacidas en el Congreso de Hackers de 1999 y en los libros de Penrose (La nueva mente del emperador), este libro es un brillante tour de force.

This is the latest magnificent creation from the award-winning author of "Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle" trilogy Erasmas, 'Raz', is a young avout living in the Concent, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers Three times during history's darkest epochs, violence has invaded and devastated the cloistered community Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe...

You think you know how the world works? Think again. From bestselling author Neal Stephenson and critically acclaimed historical and contemporary commercial novelist Nicole Galland comes a captivating and complex near-future thriller that questions the very foundations of the modern world. 1851 England The Great Exhibition at London's Crystal Palace has opened, celebrating the rise of technology and commerce. With it the power of magic - in decline since the industrial revolution began - is completely snuffed out. The existence of magic begins its gradual devolution into mere myth. 21st Century America Magic has faded from the minds of mankind, until an encounter between Melisande Stokes, linguistics expert at Harvard, and Tristan Lyons, shadowy agent of government, leads to the uncovering of a distant past. After translating a series of ancient texts, Melisande and Tristan discover the connection between science, magic and time travel and so the Department of Diachronic Operations - D.O.D.O. - is hastily brought into existence.Its mission: to develop a device that will send their agents back to the past, where they can stop magic from disappearing and alter the course of history. But when you interfere with the past, there's no telling what you might find in your future...Written with the genius, complexity, and innovation that characterize all of Neal Stephenson's work and steeped with the down-to-earth warmth and humour of Nicole Galland's storytelling style, this exciting and vividly realized work of science fiction will make you believe in the impossible, and take you to places - and times - beyond imagining

The astounding new novel from the master of science fiction. What would happen if the world were ending? When a catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb, it triggers a feverish race against the inevitable. An ambitious plan is devised to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere. But unforeseen dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain...Five thousand years later, their progeny - seven distinct races now three billion strong - embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown, to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth. A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is at once extraordinary and eerily recognizable. He explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.