Neal Stephenson

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,...

The exploits of an alchemy-rejecting scientist, a vagabond leader, and a former Turkish harem prisoner intersect in the world of the American colonies, the Tower of London, and the courts of France, in a novel set against the backdrop of the late seventeeth century and early eighteenth century. By the author of Cryptonomicon.

"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...

In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves -- including one Jack Shaftoe, aka King of the Vagabonds, aka Half-Cocked Jack -- devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues -- a perilous race for an enormous prize of silver ... nay, gold ... nay, legendary gold. In Europe, the exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, is stripped of her immense personal fortune by France's most dashing privateer. Penniless...

An American computer hacker operating in Southeast Asia attempts to break a World War II cypher to find the location of a missing shipment of gold. The gold was stolen by the Japanese during the war. By the author of The Diamond Age.

In twenty-first-century America, a teenaged computer hacker finds himself fighting a computer virus that battles virtual reality technology and a deadly drug that turns humans into zombies.

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. The Big U is required reading for anyone interested in the early work of this singular writer.

In the aftermath of the world-shattering Mongolian invasion of 1241, Shield Brethren, an order of warrior monks, search for a way to overthrow the horde; Haakon must prove his mettle or lose his life in the ring; and Father Rodrigo takes up arms in the name of his Lord. After the Mongolian invasion of Europe in 1241, the warrior monks known as the Shield Brethren search for a way to overthrow the invaders as Father Rodrigo, thinking he has received...