An illicit copy of the book falls into the hands of an abused little girl, Nell. 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. . As far as the overall story, there's a lot to like, plenty of varied characters, several story lines that are more closely woven than one might originally think, and plenty of action. The Diamond Age Envisions the next century as brilliantly as snow crash did the day after tomorrow."Newsweek "[Stephenson is] the hottest science fiction writer in America. The primary point of dispute, as always, was intellectual property, the lack of which in Turingia devalued the achievements of neo-Victorian engineering. It is to some extent a science fiction coming-of-age story, focused on a young girl named Nell, and set in a future world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. What sort of contractor retrofits kitchen exhaust ducts in the US? In what context did Garak (ST:DS9) speak of a lie between two truths? He got together a focus group of 25 unpaid, thirteen year old boys and made them puke out as many buzz words in 10 minutes that they could about science fiction. Welcome back. The most important quality to achieving an interesting life is deemed to be a subversive attitude towards the status quo. "At this point, John Percival Hackworth, almost without thinking about The story of how this casual invitation turns the two girls into what they call "Summer sisters" is prefaced with a prologue in which Vix is asked by Caitlin to be her matron of honor. Miranda also helped the little empire by representing them at protocol occasion as the sole adult, socialising with the highest circles of inter-phyle diplomacy. She spent more and more time in the Land Beyond, assuming the form of many sentient beings roaming the endless planes and mountains of the magical universe. The Primer is intended to steer its reader intellectually toward a more interesting life, as defined by Lord Finkle-McGraw, and growing up to be an effective member of society. "Hackworth sat down across the table from Dr. X. The girls as a group must have seen the results of this crippling and oppressive procedure after the first set of girls got bound, issued a collective HELL TO THE NO, and decided to get off their boats and go find Princess Nell. He was not looking for anything he was running away. The Diamond Age takes place in Shanghai and off the Eastern coast of China. Miranda eventually takes on the roll of a hidden mother or guardian to Nell. There Rice was the basis for our society. Thanks! A major cleavage, however, opened up between Bond politicians and the English-speaking voters loosely defined as Cape liberals. The protagonist in the story is Nell, a thete (or person without a tribe; equivalent to the lowest working class) living in the Leased Territories, a lowland slum built on the artificial, diamondoid island of New Chusan, located offshore from the mouth of the Yangtze River, northwest of Shanghai. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. noticing tricks than most other people in the world. British colonies, Boer republics, and African kingdoms all came under British control. The Boxer Rebellion was lead by The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, and was anti-foreign. Her efforts were concentrated in two main areas. Harv and Nell live with a neglectful mother and her abusive boyfriends. [5] The Judge Dee stories are based on the tradition of Chinese mysteries, transposing key elements into Western detective fiction. full of green tea. Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience. Wait, sir? That being said, it's pretty clear in the book that Hackworth at his trial knew full well what he was doing, and the Mouse Army was a result of that decision - a point you bring up directly in your answer. It being a work of fiction, the author has free reign on the outcome. Within a year they were building Turing machines to take care of most of the tasks in the Faery Kingdom. By the end of 1871 nearly 50,000 people lived in a sprawling polyglot mining camp that was later named Kimberley. Hackworth's crime becomes known to Lord Finkle-McGraw and Dr. X, the black market engineer whose compiler Hackworth used to create the copy of the Primer, and each man attempts to exploit Hackworth to advance their opposing goals. Ask Question Asked 11 years, 9 months ago. by Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. Life in Shanghai devolves when the Fists of Righteous Harmony, a Chinese nationalist group, has an uprising. The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. Miranda becomes desperate to meet Nell but because of the anonymity built into the book and network she cant find her. Nells adventures in the Primer wind down once Miranda leaves. As the time went by, however, Miranda spent more and more time alone, and apart from Nell and Carl Hollywood, she had very few contacts to the outside world. Miranda Redpath, an aspiring actor, serves as the voice and personality for Nells Primer. The result has been centuries of chaos.". devised a trick and slipped it in under the radar of the Judge and Dr. Cities appear divided into sovereign enclaves affiliated or belonging to different phyles within a single metropolis. By the London Convention of 1884, republican self-government was restored, subject to an imprecise British suzerainty over external relations. The first Google hit for "Confucianism farmers" nearly agrees with this, although it elevates scholar-bureaucrats above farmers: Confucianism is credited with making Chinese society fiercely Carnarvon commissioned Shepstone to annex the Transvaal, and, after encountering only token resistance at the beginning of 1877, he proclaimed it a British colony a few months later. And when Dr. X's Fanatical Fists invade the coastal enclaves of China, Nell is trappeduntil her army of Chinese girls, raised by the interactive Primer and devoted to Princess Nell, pull off a dramatic rescue. The girls were enraged, and demanded immediate action, but the powerful phyles turned their heads pointing to the relevant clauses of the Common Economic Protocol. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? Stephenson (Snow Crash, 1992) imagines a 21st century in which molecular machines (nanotechnology) can create any desired object or structure. Over the course of her childhood and teen years, Nell grows into an able fighter, programmer, and leader because of the Primer. Matters of fashion and aesthetic design also ran through primarily her. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. At a special hearing in October 1871, Robert W. Keate (then lieutenant governor of Natal) found in favour of Waterboer, but the British persuaded him to request protection against his Boer rivals, and the area was annexed as Griqualand West. 6.0 stars. In the book, she becomes Princess Nell, the focus of marvelous tales and experiences that, seemingly incidentally, educate and train her. In real time, Nell is separated from Harv when she goes to live in Dovetail, an artisan phyle, and enrolls in finishing school with the help of a secret sponsor (Finkle-McGraw). A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. Now, here's your complementary CS patch. They came to realise that the Book itself was nothing more than an intricate Turing machine, running inside an even larger Turing machine the vast media network that made ractives work. . That leaves bureaucrats and peasants. You're going to have a great time. @moohbear I think the implications of the rest of Dr. X's speech is that you need the scholar-bureaucrats to "teach" (IE, enforce) proper strata and order so that some farmer with a grudge doesn't decide to grow a couple of WMDs to nuke his annoying neighbor's home. Miranda lived in one of the nicest room of the palace overlooking the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Though the wedding briefly revives Vixs old feelings for Bru, whom Caitlin is marrying, Vix is soon in love with Gus, another old summer friend, and a more compatible match. Later Miranda's storyline is taken over by her boss, Carl Hollywood, after Miranda disappears in her quest to find Nell. . Many times I went back and found two, possibly three layers of meaning in a given sentence or paragraph. I think the issue is the Primer. The bond between them seemed strong as ever, but now Hackworth was only second to her new love: Dramatis Personae. It has taken me a while to figure out what I think of this book, and I'm still not entirely sure. And it does - what I love about Stephenson is his high level of prescient-ness. Thanks for contributing an answer to Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange! I'm sure all the technology is masterfully crafted and is visionary, I just couldn't 100% follow it. The book has a hidden connection to an actor named Miranda that reads and acts out story's in the book and teaches Nell. Dr X organizes for a skilled nano-technologist named Hackworth to join the The Drummers for 10 years in order to help them develop The Seed technology. 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 rise of the Afrikaner Bond and new laws affecting franchise qualifications and taxes also stimulated more-vigorous Black participation in electoral politics after 1884. Required fields are marked *. 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. The Diamond Age Envisions the next century as brilliantly as snow crash did the day after tomorrow." Newsweek "[Stephenson is] the hottest science fiction writer in America. "The old guard believe in that code because they came to it the hard way. 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. Stephenson's vision of a future shocked and titillated me, and years later I still found it returning to haunt me. I remember that part of Dr. X explanation, but it didn't make a lot of sense to me. "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. With the Seed, there won't be a need for artisans or merchants. Could a torque converter be used to couple a prop to a higher RPM piston engine? I have just finished rereading Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age for about the fourth time and am still confused about the ending. - and it is like a roller coaster coming off the rails and crashing very, very suddenly on the last page. How to check if an SSM2220 IC is authentic and not fake? The novel's character Judge Fang is based on a creative extension of Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee mystery series, which is based around a Confucian judge in ancient China who usually solves three cases simultaneously. Five years after the coronation Miranda fell ill, with chill and hot spells shaking her frail body. I've read both Diamond Age and Snow Crash. ", These were rice paddies before they were parking lots. Also, I felt the need to read the book with a dictionary next to me, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, I suppose. Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. If you fall of the tech-speak train you start to glaze over a bit and get confused, or at least I do. YA scifi novel where kids escape a boarding school, in a hollowed out asteroid, What PHILOSOPHERS understand for intelligence? . It would have made more sense if the Seed somehow required large scale collaboration to be useful. basis for our society. Why would Hackworth want the Mouse Army to seek Nell to rule them? We know only a few of the oldest girls were subjected to this because they are the ones being carried by the army on the march. Were glad you found a book that interests you! As Dr. X was a scholar-bureaucrat, elevating farmers to the top of the hierarchy might just be self-effacing. Victoria, or more commonly Vix, lives in a small house; her brother has muscular dystrophy; her mother is unhappy, and money is scarce. RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015. He develops a magical book that will train and raise a young girl to be able to choose her own culture, be independent thinking, and also be a skilled computer programmer. her provisional ministers of defense, of state, and of research and [citation needed]. A chance find in 1867 had drawn several thousand fortune seekers to alluvial diamond diggings along the Orange, Vaal, and Harts rivers. Stephenson (Snow Crash, 1992) imagines a 21st century in which molecular machines (nanotechnology) can create any desired object or structure. 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". 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. I later put it on paper, in case anyone elseis longing to see the story finished to her satisfaction. The part that is confusing me is as . How to intersect two lines that are not touching. The Diamond Age or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (1995) is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. The very beginning of the book, where Lord Finkle-McGraw and John Percival Hackworth discuss the idea for the primer, made clear that it was intended to produce not just educated girls but subversive ones who can think for themselves and take charge. . With the girls turning nineteen, they were encouraged to discover other phyles, spreading knowledge, gaining new experiences, and making new acquaintances primarily to men. And of research and [ citation needed ] personality for nells Primer to an imprecise British over. A year they were building Turing machines to take care of most of the nicest room of nicest! 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