X-Nico

12 unusual facts about Neal Stephenson


Bonanza, Spain

Neal Stephenson named half of his novel The Confusion after the port, and had a character describe it as functioning as a chief treasure port of Spain until 1686, and as losing to Cádiz most of what would earlier have been part of its trade, due to the combined effects of increasing vessel draft and of sedimentation at the mouth the river Guadalquivir.

China Marines

Neal Stephenson's book Cryptonomicon contains descriptions of the exploits of the China Marines in World War II and the book opens with the evacuation of Shanghai in 1941.

Colossus computer

Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon (1999) also contains a fictional treatment of the historical role played by Turing and Bletchley Park.

German submarine U-553

Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon includes a fictitious U-553 which runs aground about ten miles north of Qwghlm, a fictional pair of islands, Inner Qwghlm and Outer Qwghlm, off the northwestern coast of Great Britain.

German submarine U-691

Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon includes a fictitious U-691, a Type IXD/42, launched at Wilhelmshaven on 19 September 1940 (four years before IXD/42s were actually developed) and fitted with an experimental schnorkel.

Golden Square

The square features, albeit in a fictional context, in the third part of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, The System of the World.

John Wilkins

The influence and ambitions of John Wilkins were an important thread in the historical fiction trilogy The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson.

Monument to the Great Fire of London

The Monument is a prominent setting in The System of the World, the third book in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle.

Neurosecurity

Neal Stephenson's book The Diamond Age (1995) briefly refers to corporations hacking neural implants in order to superimpose advertisements onto a user's field of vision.

Rossignols

Bonaventure Rossignol is an important character in The Baroque Cycle series by Neal Stephenson.

Vagina dentata

Snow Crash, the 1992 novel by Neal Stephenson, in which the character Y.T. uses an anti-rape device worn internally called a dentata.

Virtual globe

The use of virtual globe software was widely popularized by (and may have been first described in) Neal Stephenson's famous science fiction novel Snow Crash.


PopCo

The novel has been compared to Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, with similarities including a buried treasure subplot and flashbacks to Bletchley Park.

Sennacherib

Sennacherib is briefly mentioned in the science-fiction novel Children of Dune by Frank Herbert, and in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.

Smartwheels

Smartwheels are a fictional type of wheel featured in Neal Stephenson's science-fiction novels Snow Crash and The Diamond Age.

Sol Yurick

Appearing in Datamation, a then-leading trade magazine focused on enterprise computing, "The King of Malaputa" (translation: bad whore) predates by at least 15 years Neal Stephenson's better-known novel, Cryptonomicon (1999) and its imaginary island nation, Kinakuta, which has been set up for use in anonymous, computer-based banking activities.

The End of Mr. Y

The description of the Troposphere has been compared to the novels of Neal Stephenson and William Gibson, and shares similarities to The Matrix.

Wapsipinicon River

The novel The Cobweb by Stephen Bury (a pseudonym for author Neal Stephenson writing with his uncle George Jewsbury) is set in the fictional Iowa twin towns of Wapsipinicon-Nishnabotna.