New Releases by Neal Stephenson

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 Decades into our future, a stone’s throw from the ancient city of Shanghai, a brilliant nanotechnologist named John Percival Hackworth has just broken the rigorous moral code of his tribe, the powerful neo-Victorians. 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 Protocol Enforcement 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’s will ultimately lead them to another seeker whose fate is bound up with the Primer—a woman who holds the key to a vast, subversive information network that is destined to decode and reprogram the future of humanity.

Du passé mystérieux de la Seconde Guerre mondiale à l''avenir proche des réseaux tout-puissants et omniprésents, une constante : la cryptographie, qui permet de chiffrer les messages les plus secrets. Est-il toujours possible de briser un code ? Ou bien faut-il recourir à des moyens... plus directs ? Après Le Samouraï virtuel et L''Age de diamant (Prix Hugo 1997), publiés dans la même collection, Neal Stephenson nous propose avec Le Code Enigma, premier volet de la trilogie Cryptonomicon, un technothriller haletant, à la lisière du roman d''espionnage, de la science-fiction et de l''uchronie. Un livre d''une verve éblouissante qui est en train de devenir un texte culte aux Etats-Unis.

Front du Pacifique, 1944. Pour sauver leur trésor de guerre, les Japonais n''ont qu''un seul atout un secret nommé Golgotha. Au même moment, au large des Philippines, un étrange sous-marin allemand emporte les codes de guerre des nazis. Soixante ans plus tard, ces mystères vont voter en éclats. La conclusion brillante d''un roman-jeu de piste déjà "culte", où le techno-thriller rencontre les sciences exactes.

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.

Décrypter les codes secrets de l''Axe. Voler le plus précieux trésor de guerre des nazis. Inventer la machine à calculer électronique. Affronter les multinationales et les gangs asiatiques. Bâtir un empire informatique virtuel. Autant de défis capables de changer l''histoire. Techno-thriller, aventure historique ou plongée au cœur des sciences exactes ? Tout simplement, le premier grand roman du nouveau millénaire.

Un monde de l''avenir bardé de nanotechnologies, d''univers virtuels, de réseaux neuronaux et d''intelligences qui s''efforcent d''être les plus artificielles possible. Une petite fille qui reçoit une éducation singulière grâce à un Livre Mentor qui raconte des histoires. Et tout cela dans une Chine de l''avenir partagée entre les territoires des sectes, les enclaves des multinationales et les espaces électroniques.

It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet-Incarnaete as the Metaverse -- looks something like last year''s hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist -- hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. WHen his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what''s a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue.