With this extraordinary first volume in an epoch-making masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century.In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse—mathematical genius and young Captain in the U.S. Navy—is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Waterhouse and Detachment 2702—commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe-is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. It is a game, a cryptographic chess match between Waterhouse and his German counterpart, translated into action by the gung-ho Shaftoe and his forces.Fast-forward to the present, where Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia—a place where encrypted data can be stored and exchanged free of repression and scrutiny. As governments and multinationals attack the endeavor, Randy joins forces with Shaftoe's tough-as-nails granddaughter, Amy, to secretly salvage a sunken Nazi submarine that holds the key to keeping the dream of a data haven afloat. But soon their scheme brings to light a massive conspiracy with its roots in Detachment 2702 linked to an unbreakable Nazi code called Arethusa. And it will represent the path to unimaginable riches and a future of personal and digital liberty...or to universal totalitarianism reborn.A breathtaking tour de force, and Neal Stephenson's most accomplished and affecting work to date, Cryptonomicon is profound and prophetic, hypnotic and hyper-driven, as it leaps forward and back between World War II and the World Wide Web, hinting all the while at a dark day-after-tomorrow. It is a work of great art, thought and creative daring; the product of a truly iconoclastic imagination working with white-hot intensity.

In this wonderfully inventive follow-up to his bestseller Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson brings to life a cast of unforgettable characters in a time of breathtaking genius and discovery, men and women whose exploits defined an age known as the Baroque. Daniel Waterhouse possesses a brilliant scientific mind -- and yet knows that his genius is dwarfed by that of his friends Isaac Newton, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Robert Hooke. He rejects the arcane tradition of alchemy, even as it is giving birth to new ways of understanding the world. Jack Shaftoe began his life as a London street urchin and is now a reckless wanderer in search of great fortune. The intrepid exploits of Half-Cocked Jack, King of the Vagabonds, are quickly becoming the stuff of legend throughout Europe. Eliza is a young woman whose ingenuity is all that keeps her alive after being set adrift from the Turkish harem in which she has been imprisoned since she was a child. Daniel, Jack, and Eliza will traverse a landscape populated by mad alchemists, Barbary pirates, and bawdy courtiers, as well as historical figures including Samuel Pepys, Ben Franklin, and other great minds of the age. Traveling from the infant American colonies to the Tower of London to the glittering courts of Louis XIV, and all manner of places in between, this magnificent historical epic brings to vivid life a time like no other, and establishes its author as one of the preeminent talents of our own age. Only 1,000 copies of this limited edition of Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver were printed. Each is oversize, bound in leather, numbered, and signed by the author.

Vividly imagined, stunningly prophetic, and epic in scope, The Diamond Age isa major novel from one of the most visionary writers of our timeDecades 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.

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.

The Astounding New Novel From The Master Of Science Fiction. President Barack Obama's Summer Reading Choice And Recently Optioned By Ron Howard And Imagine To Be Made Into A Major Motion Picture. 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.

When Melisande Stokes, An Expert In Linguistics And Languages, Accidentally Meets Military Intelligence Operator Tristan Lyons In A Hallway At Harvard University, It Is The Beginning Of A Chain Of Events That Will Alter Their Lives And Human History Itself. The Young Man From A Shadowy Government Entity Approaches Mel, A Low-level Faculty Member, With An Incredible Offer. The Only Condition: She Must Sign A Nondisclosure Agreement In Return For The Rather Large Sum Of Money. Tristan Needs Mel To Translate Some Very Old Documents, Which, If Authentic, Are Earth-shattering. They Prove That Magic Actually Existed And Was Practiced For Centuries. But The Arrival Of The Scientific Revolution And The Age Of Enlightenment Weakened Its Power And Endangered Its Practitioners. Magic Stopped Working Altogether In 1851, At The Time Of The Great Exhibition At London's Crystal Palacethe World's Fair Celebrating The Rise Of Industrial Technology And Commerce. Something About The Modern World Jams The Frequencies Used By Magic, And It's Up To Tristan To Find Out Why. And So The Department Of Diachronic Operationsd.o.d.o. Gets Cracking On Its Real Mission: To Develop A Device That Can Bring Magic Back, And Send Diachronic Operatives Back In Time To Keep It Alive . . . And Meddle With A Little History At The Same Time.-- Neal Stephenson And Nicole Galland.

A New Translation Of The Epic Poem Retells The Story Of Odysseus's Ten-year Voyage Home To Ithaca After The Trojan War. Homer's Epic In Which Greek Hero Odysseus Makes His Long And Treacherous Journey Home After The Trojan War, While His Son Telemachos And Wife Penelope Are Forced To Scheme To Protect His Throne Until His Return. Introduction: The Spelling And Pronunciation Of Homeric Names -- Maps: Homeric Geography : Mainland Greece ; Homeric Geography : The Peloponnese ; Homeric Geography : The Aegean And Asia Minor -- Inset: Troy And Vicinity -- Homer : Odyssey: Athena Inspires The Prince ; Telemachus Sets Sail ; King Nestor Remembers ; The King And Queen Of Sparta ; Odysseus : Nymph And Shipwreck ; The Princess And The Stranger ; Phaeacia's Halls And Gardens ; A Day For Songs And Contests ; In The One-eyed Giant's Cave ; The Bewitching Queen Of Aeaea ; The Kingdom Of The Dead ; The Cattle Of The Sun ; Ithaca At Last ; The Loyal Swineherd ; The Prince Sets Sail For Home ; Father And Son ; Stranger At The Gates ; The Beggar-king Of Ithaca ; Penelope And Her Guest ; Portents Gather ; Odysseus Strings His Bow ; Slaughter In The Hall ; The Great Rooted Bed ; Peace -- Notes: Translator's Postscript ; Genealogies ; Textual Variants Fromt He Oxford Classical Text ; Notes On The Translation -- Pronouncing Glossary. Homer ; Translated By Robert Fagles ; Introduction And Notes By Bernard Knox. Originally Published As Hbk.: New York : Viking, ©1996. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 517-520).

The great war epic of Western literature, translated by acclaimed classicist Robert Fagles, and featured in the Netflix series The OAA Penguin ClassicDating to the ninth century B.C., Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox observes in his superb introduction that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it coexists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace.Combining the skills of a poet and scholar, Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, brings the energy of contemporary language to this enduring heroic epic. He maintains the drive and metric music of Homer’s poetry, and evokes the impact and nuance of the Iliad’s mesmerizing repeated phrases in what Peter Levi calls “an astonishing performance.”This Penguin Classics Deluxe edition also features French flaps and deckle-edged paper.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.9780140275360

Quicksilver is the story of Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and conflicted Puritan, pursuing knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe, in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight.It is a chronicle of the breathtaking exploits of "Half-Cocked Jack" Shaftoe — London street urchin turned swashbuckling adventurer and legendary King of the Vagabonds — risking life and limb for fortune and love while slowly maddening from the pox.And it is the tale of Eliza, rescued by Jack from a Turkish harem to become spy, confidante, and pawn of royals in order to reinvent Europe through the newborn power of finance.A gloriously rich, entertaining, and endlessly inventive novel that brings a remarkable age and its momentous events to vivid life, Quicksilver is an extraordinary achievement from one of the most original and important literary talents of our time.And it's just the beginning ...The New York TimesStephenson clearly never intended Quicksilver to be one of those meticulously accurate historical novels that capture ways of thought of times gone by. Instead, it explores the philosophical concerns of today...At its best, the novel does this through thrillingly clever, suspenseful and amusing plot twists.—Polly Shulman

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492—from “a remarkably engaging writer” (The New York Times Book Review).Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city. Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man’s first feat of genetic engineering. Indeed, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.

From The #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Of Anathem, Reamde, And Cryptonomicon Comes An Exciting And Thought-provoking Science Fiction Epic—a Grand Story Of Annihilation And Survival Spanning Five Thousand Years. What Would Happen If The World Were Ending? A Catastrophic Event Renders The Earth A Ticking Time Bomb. In A Feverish Race Against The Inevitable, Nations Around The Globe Band Together To Devise An Ambitious Plan To Ensure The Survival Of Humanity Far Beyond Our Atmosphere, In Outer Space. But The Complexities And Unpredictability Of Human Nature Coupled With Unforeseen Challenges And 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 Both Extraordinary And Eerily Recognizable. As He Did In Anathem, Cryptonomicon, The Baroque Cycle, And Reamde, Stephenson Explores Some Of Our Biggest Ideas And Perplexing Challenges In A Breathtaking Saga That Is Daring, Engrossing, And Altogether Brilliant.

Thomas Hobbes ; Edited By Michael Oakeshott ; With An Introduction By Richard S. Peters.

a Multi-cast Recording, This Program Also Features A Cameo By The Author And Original Music Inspired By The Story.the Barnes & Noble Review anathem:...an Aut By Which An Incorrigible Fraa Or Suur Is Ejected From The Math And His Or Her Work Sequestered (hence The Fluccish Word Anathema Meaning Intolerable Statements Or Ideas). Any Writer Who Wants To Create A Sense Of Verisimilitude About An Imaginary Setting Must Wrestle With How To Convey Both The Similarities And Differences Between The Created Milieu And The Real World. In His Previous Novels, Neal Stephenson Has Faced This Test While Attempting To Convey An Amazingly Deep Array Of Ideas And Situations. From The Hip Nearish Future Of snow Crash to The Nanotech-encrusted the Diamond Age, and Even In Such Historical Novels As cryptonomicon and The Three Volumes Of The Baroque Cycle, Stephenson's Challenge Has Been Making The Alien real enough So That He Can Then Explore The Implications Of Various Philosophical Or Technological Issues, Providing Entertainment To The Reader At The Same Time As He Engages In A Complex Dialog About Our Present And Our Future. In anathem, A Stunning Sprawl Of A Novel Set On The Planet Arbre, Clever New Solutions To The Problem Spring Up In Every Paragraph, On Every Page -- Without Which Not A Single Line Of Dialogue, A Single Character Study, Would Convince The Reader One Iota.

Nobel Prize-winner Roger Penrose, one of the most accomplished scientists of our time, presents the only comprehensive—and comprehensible—account of the physics of the universe.A "guide to physics’ big picture, and to the thoughts of one of the world’s most original thinkers.”—The New York TimesFrom the very first attempts by the Greeks to grapple with the complexities of our known world to the latest application of infinity in physics, The Road to Reality carefully explores the movement of the smallest atomic particles and reaches into the vastness of intergalactic space.Here, Penrose examines the mathematical foundations of the physical universe, exposing the underlying beauty of physics and giving us one the most important works in modern science writing.