2812 07dc78eb-919b-4fe1-b271-a999e49ccea4 The Diamond Age Neal Stephenson calibre (2.43.0) [http://calibre-ebook.com] 1995-02-02T00:00:00+00:00 EDITORIAL REVIEW: Decades into our future, a stone's throw from the ancient city of Shanghai, a brilliant nanotechnologist named John Percival Hackworth has just broken therigorous moral code of his tribe, the powerful neoVictorians. He's made an illicit copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called *A Young Ladys 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. Young Nell and her brother Harv are thetes--members of the poor, tribeless class. Neglected by their mother, Harv looks after Nell. When he and his gang waylay a certain neo-Victorian--John Percival Hackworth-- in the seamy streets of their neighborhood, Harv brings Nell something special: the Primer. Following the discovery of his crime, Hackworth begins an odyssey of his own. Expelled from the neo-Victorian paradise, squeezed by agents of ProtocolEnforcement on one side and a Mandarin underworld crime lord on the other, he searches for an elusive figure known as the Alchemist. His quest and Nell'swill ultimately lead them to another seeker whose fate is bound up with the *Primer-- *a woman who holds the key to a vast, subversive informationnetwork that is destined to decode and reprogram the future of humanity. Vividly imagined, stunningly prophetic, and epic in scope, *The Diamond Age *is* *a major novel from one of the most visionary writers of our time Bantam Spectra http://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?38424 en Science Fiction - High Tech postcyberpunk Fiction - Science Fiction Novel near future Cyberpunk hugo award for best novel finalist steampunk locus award for best sf novel General Fiction Hugo Award Winner Science Fiction nebula award for best novel finalist neo-victorian 3-award-winner pick Nanotechnology hugo award for best novel winner _isfdb Nomination of 1995 HOMer Award for Novel 1 of 1996 Locus Award for Best SF Novel 2 of 1996 Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel Nomination of 1996 Prometheus Award for Prometheus Award for Best Libertarian SF Novel