guest post by mikl-em
This Tuesday (Sept. 9) San Francisco will be the site of the book launch event for Anathem the long-awaited new novel by Neal Stephenson.
The above video was directed by Brady Hall, a Seattle filmmaker who has done a series of “Book Films” for Harper Collins (publisher of Anathem). The video is intriguing, if a little odd, like a mix between the fight scenes from Romeo & Juliet and Westside Story mixed with The Warriors. For more examples of Hall’s short trailers for other novels see his website.
Since the Anathem launch event was announced in July, the venue was revealed to be the 99-year old Regency Ballroom. Word is that tickets are nearly sold out for the event, which will include a reading and conversations with the author, a full bar, a short live concert of music inspired by the book, as well as limited time for book signings (though you can pre-order a signed book to pick up at the event).
For those who can’t be there in person, The Long Now Foundation, who are producing the event, have announced a live video simulcast of the event on Tuesday at 7pm Pacific. Following that Fora.tv will have video of the talk on their site along with the other Long Now Foundation video they host.
Stephenson’s fame in science fiction circles began with his 1992 novel Snow Crash. His subsequent book Diamond Age featured a neo-Victorian society which in retrospect added fuel to the slow-burning steampunk fire which today consumes us all.
Stephenson’s most recent project was a three-volume series called The Baroque Cycle which actually contained 8 books in all, totaling about 2700 pages, the last of which was published in 2004. So four years in waiting and in the wake of such a monumental project, there are huge expectations and much impatience for this new book.
More on Anathem and Stephenson:
On io9, Annalee Newitz wrote a review of Anathem, that is well worth reading if you don’t mind finding out a lot about the story. Wired Magazine also recently wrote a profile of Stephenson and the new book.
Below is a video of Stephenson speaking from earlier this year, speaking at Gresham College London on “Science Fiction as a Literary Genre” and also in the process the nature of sci-fi geeks, also via fora.tv:
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