Cover Unveil for Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

Whenever Neal Stephenson comes out with a new novel it becomes a major event and his latest Seveneves sounds like the Space Opera we always knew he could write. I believe this would be a first for him though judging by the description he will surely give it his own original spin. I haven't been excited personally for a Stephenson novel in quite a few years, but this one has me salivating more than a little bit. It seems a bit like The 100 only on a grander and surely deeper scale. Here's the current blurb:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anatham, 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.

Seveneves will be release May 19th.

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US & UK Covers Unveiled for Neal Stephenson's Reamde

Reamde is Neal Stephenson's first standalone novel in quite sometime. At least it seems to be so far. One never knows with Stephenson. This should especially interest those who loved Snow Crash, but haven't felt a strong enough desire to wade through the somewhat unwieldy The Baroque Cycle.

This cover just flat out confuses me, but it also makes curious. Firstly, there is the title Reamde, which when I first read it months ago I could make neither hide nor hare of. Now that I see the cute play with gradation on the cover the cute trick works well: Read Me. A not so subliminal message perchance from Stephenson? Possible, but it also foretells a story involving intrigue quite quickly. The cover overall is certainly subtly impactful staying with such basic colors and fonts. I'm not entirely sure if this cover is the final or merely a placeholder. Either way it is interesting to take a look at. Stephenson is probably a big enough name now to push for this type of cover given his last 4 books have been New York Times best-sellers although it isn't as if he's been lacking in that department much in the past.

Here is the very scant blurb that has been released by Stephenson's US publisher so far on Amazon, which is a bit heavy on the sales-y references:

With Reamde, this visionary author whose mind-stretching fiction has been enthusiastically compared to the work of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Kurt Vonnegut, and David Foster Wallace—not to mention William Gibson and Michael Crichton—once again blazes new ground with a high-stakes thriller that will enthrall his loyal audience, science and science fiction, and espionage fiction fans equally. The breathtaking tale of a wealthy tech entrepreneur caught in the very real crossfire of his own online fantasy war game, Reamde is a new high—and a new world—for the remarkable Neal Stephenson.

From his UK publisher we get a bit more depth:

Across the globe, millions of computer screens flicker with the artfully coded world of T'Rain - an addictive internet role-playing game of fantasy and adventure. But backstreet hackers in China have just unleashed a contagious virus called Reamde, and as it rampages through the gaming world spreading from player to player - holding hard drives hostage in the process - the computer of one powerful and dangerous man is infected, causing the carefully mediated violence of the on-line world to spill over into reality. A fast-talking, internet-addicted mafia accountant is brutally silenced by his Russian employers, and Zula - a talented young T'Rain computer programmer - is abducted and bundled on to a private jet. As she is flown across the skies in the company of the terrified boyfriend she broke up with hours before, and a brilliant Hungarian hacker who may be her only hope, she finds herself sucked into a whirl of Chinese Secret Service agents and gun-toting American Survivalists; the Russian criminal underground and an al-Qaeda cell led by a charismatic Welshman; each a strand of a connected world that devastatingly converges in T'Rain. An inimitable and compelling thriller that careers from British Columbia to South-West China via Russia and the fantasy world of T'Rain, Reamde is an irresistible epic from the unique imagination of one of today's most individual writers.

Got all that? Because they'll be a test later on.  Now we have here the UK cover, which is much more in line with Stephenson's previous novels.

Reamde will be released September 20th in the US and the 15th in the UK. Will you be there for it?

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VIDEO | Neal Stephenson & Greg Bear on the historical scope of The Mongoliad

News is slowly trickling out about The Mongoliad and this video is the latest.  I'm hoping we get to see some samples online soon or maybe a release date, but it seems the group wants to keep things under the wraps for now.

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NEWS | New Neal Stephenson collective project

According to Mark Teppo, author of The Codex of Souls series, he'll be working on a collective fiction project headed by Neal Stephen called The Mongoliad. This is no normal collaboration or book though. In fact details are still a bit sketchy, but here's what I've found out thus far. Teppo starts by saying:

I gave notice at my day job today. Fourteen years I've been there. Wrapping it up in the next two weeks to go be a writer full-time. I know. All of a sudden, isn't it? Well, it's been a long process of working in the wee hours of the day and night, but I've finally reached a point where I can't do everything all the time. I have reached the point of needing to simply.

Of course, it get complicated when Neal Stephenson twitters& today that "Our first demo of the new novel I am writing with Greg Bear, Nicole Galland, Mark Teppo, and others" will be happening next week in San Francisco.

This is the Sekrit Project. Called The Mongoliad...

According to Stephenson's Facebook where the first announcement was made:

For those of you who don't know, The Mongoliad is a sort of serialized story, created by Neal Stephenson, and written by Neal, Greg Bear, Nicole Galland, and a number of other great authors. It will be told via custom apps on iPad, iPhone, Kindle, and Android, and will be something of an experiment in post-book publishing and storytelling.

This one has caught me quite by surprised, but Stephenson is the driving force and writer of the first story in this series(?) Foreworld,  but many other names look to be heavily involved. In some ways this reminds me of John Scalzi's Metatropolis as that was a collaborative world, but Stephenson seems to be taking this much farther afield and into the future using diverse platforms. Stephenson and company have set up a site for the collective called Subutai Corporation, which will carry more info as it is released as well as The Mongoliad. This project isn't only prose though as it looks like video will also be a component somehow and who knows what else. Here is a bit about the world:

The Mongoliad is a rip-roaring adventure tale set 1241, a pivotal year in history, when Europe thought that the Golden Horde was about to completely destroy their world. The Mongoliad is also the beginning of an experiment in storytelling, technology, and community-driven creativity.

Our story begins with a serial novel of sorts, which we will release over the course of about a year. Neal Stephenson created the world in which The Mongoliad is set, and presides benevolently over it. Our first set of stories is being written by Neal, Greg Bear, Nicole Galland, and a number of other authors; we're also working closely with artists, fight choreographers & other martial artists, programmers, film-makers, game designers, and a bunch of other folks to produce an ongoing stream of nontextual, para-narrative, and extra-narrative stuff which we think brings the story to life in ways that are pleasingly unique, and which can't be done in any single medium.

If you'll be in San Francisco on the 25th of May you can catch of preview of what we are in store for at the SF App Show. Since it will be released on Droid I'll definitely be taking a gander. Can you feel the meta? I know I do.

Hats off to Mark Teppo who is moving on to being a full-time writer. It must be daunting to make that move, but he is involved in a project at the ground floor that could help usher in a new way of publishing and interactive with stories.

UPDATE: Here is a bit more I just learned:

We're also working closely with artists, fight choreographers & other martial artists, programmers, film-makers, game designers, and a bunch of other folks to produce an ongoing stream of nontextual, para-narrative, and extra-narrative stuff which we think brings the story to life in ways that are pleasingly unique, and which can't be done in any single medium.

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