Neal Stephenson is an American cyberpunk author. He's born in 1960 in United States and lives in Seattle, Washington. He also writes under the pseudonym Stephen Bury, shared with his uncle, J.Frederick George, an historian.

Neal Stephenson is the first second-generation, native cyberpunk science-fiction writer. Unlike most of the original '80s cyberpunks, he grew up in the new technoculture and, with a hacker's background, knows how it really works.

Neal Stephenson issues from a clan of rootless, itinerant hard-science and engineering professors. He began his higher education as a physics major, then switched to geography when it appeared that this would enable him to scam more free time on his university's mainframe computer. When he graduated and discovered, to his perplexity, that there were no jobs for inexperienced physicist-geographers, he began to look into alternative pursuits such as working on cars, agricultural labour and writing novels. His first novel, The Big U , was published in 1984 and vanished without a trace. His second, Zodiac: The Eco-thriller , came out in 1988 and quickly developed a cult following among water-pollution-control engineers. It was also enjoyed, though rarely bought, by many radical environmentalists. The highly successful Snow Crash , also available in Roc, was written between 1988 and 1991 as the author listened to a great deal of loud, relentless, depressing music.

Neal Stephenson now resides in a comfortable home in the western hemisphere where he spends his time -- when not side-tracked by his computer, rollerblading or parenting -- attempting to write more books.

Bibliography

Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller (1988)

Snow Crash (1991)

The Diamond Age (1995)

Cryptonomicon (1999)

About cryptography.

In the Beginning was the Command Line (1999)

About computer operating systems.

Links & References

Breaking Code with Neal Stephenson

One on one with the author of Snow Crash, the landmark futuristic virtual reality novel. By Michael Goldberg.