The Diamond Age: Difference between revisions

''The Diamond Age, [[Either or Title|Or]], A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer'' is a novel by [[Neal Stephenson]] about a world where nanotechnology has become ubiquitous and society has fractured along subcultural lines. Wait, no: it's about the role of human interaction in childrearing, as seen through the lens of an advanced educational simulation -- something like an infinitely more sophisticated ''[[Oregon Trail]]'' game. No, that's not it either: it's about the influence of culture upon psychological development. Or is it about the breakdown of hierarchical social structures, or about the certain ''je ne sais quoi'' that separates souls from simulations?

 

* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: In the beginning of the book, Hackworth prints a secret copy of the Illustrated Primer to give to his daughter. For this offense he is sentenced to ten strokes of the cane and ten years in prison. However this sentence is "mitigated" to {{spoiler|''one'' stroke of the cane and ''ten years in a secret mind-controlling cult'' during which he ''lives in a semi-dreamlike state performing tantric sex rituals, being buggered by men, and committing acts of pseudo-cannibalism in order to propagate and exchange nanomachines which live in his brain and are transmitted through bodily fluids.'' Oh yeah, and he's got a wife and kid, who know whats happening to him, but don't do anything about it. Except divorce his ass.}}

* [[Decoy Protagonist]]: As the book begins, we're introduced to a thuggish cyberpunk protagonist straight out of the low-rent sci-fi movies of the late Eighties, complete with spiffy black leather clothes, skull-mounted nanotech weapons, and life of petty crime. Within a hundred pages he's been {{spoiler|gruesomely executed for armed robbery}}, and his neglected four-year-old daughter turns out to be the book's ''real'' heroine.

* [[Edutainment Game]]: The Primer. Best edutainment ever.

* [[Either or Title]]

[[Category:Arthur C Clarke Award]]

[[Category:The Diamond Age]]