One of the most talented and creative authors working today, Neal Stephenson is renowned for his exceptional novels - works colossal in vision and mind-boggling in complexity. Exploring and blending a diversity of topics, including technology, economics, history, science, pop culture, and philosophy, his books are the products of a keen and adventurous intellect. Not surprisingly, Stephenson is regularly asked to contribute articles, lectures, and essays to numerous outlets, from major newspapers and cutting-edge magazines to college symposia. This remarkable collection brings together previously published short writings, both fiction and nonfiction, as well as a new essay (and an extremely short story) created specifically for this volume.

Stephenson ponders a wealth of subjects, from movies and politics to David Foster Wallace and the Midwestern American College Town; video games to classics-based sci-fi; how geekdom has become cool and how science fiction has become mainstream (whether people admit it or not); the future of publishing and the origins of his novels. Playful and provocative, Some Remarks displays Stephenson's opinions and ideas on

• The Internet, our dwindling national attention span, and the cultural importance of books and bookishness;
• Waco, religion, and the cluelessness of secular society;
• Metaphysics and the battle between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz;
• The laying of the longest wire on Earth - and why it matters to you;
• Technology, freedom, commerce, and the Chinese;
• How Star Wars and 300 mirror who we are today and what that spells for our future; and
• Modern Jedi knights, a.k.a. scientists and technologists, and why they are admired and feared by both the left and the right.