Liber Mundi: A world contained in Neal Stephenson's new book

[kestrell]

I'm still only about one-third of the way through Neal Stephenson's new book, _The Fall, or, Dodge in Hell, but, as mentioned in a previous post, am in love with this book, and am even willing to go so far as to say it may be his best book since _Snowcrash_, with which it shares some characteristics. Different readers are going to find different themes in this book, not only because it is that vast, but because what you take away from it is going to be shaped by your own preferred narrative fetishes, and whatever you have read before. Which is part of the point, because Stephenson proposes that, just as our own preferred tropes and filers influences how we interpret what we read, those same favorite tropes and filters shape our experiences and interpretations of technology. Books are, after all, as one of my favorite books, _The Name of the Rose_ reminds us, a technology, shaped in turn by factors such as politics and economics.

Ultimately, however, as in the case of _Snowcrash_ and _The Diamond Age_ (another of my favorite books), personal experience shapes technology, what inspires us to create it and how we use it and, despite what the technology alarmists love to preach, technology can be used to enhance human relationships, to enable people toward attaining agency and self-realization, and to remind us of what makes us human.

Also, this book has some of the best advice regarding how to create and word a thesis: undergrads, take note.

Here is a brief review of _The Fall_ which gives its own interpretation of what _The Fall_ is about.
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/fall-or-dodge-in-hell-is-neal-stephensons-technological-take-on-the-mythic-epic/