Diamond Age

Diamond Age. The Frontier World is a science fiction novel written by Neal Stephenson in 1995 . It was published in the German-language edition in 1996 by Goldmann Verlag in a translation by Joachim Körber ; the American original edition was published in 1995 under the title The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Bantam Books, New York. The book received the Hugo Award in the Best Novel category and the Locus Award in the SF Novel category in 1996 .

action

In the future described in Diamond Age , most nation states have largely lost their importance. There are two reasons for this: on the one hand, the revolution in nanotechnology, which makes it possible to use so-called matter compilers to produce almost any goods, regardless of production locations, anywhere in the world, and on the other, a global information network that states no control over financial transactions allows more and thus makes the collection of taxes impossible.

Only property rights to the construction plans (information for the compilation of the goods) and the infrastructure, consisting of sources , factories for atomic building blocks and at the same time control bodies for the matter compilers, and feeder lines to supply the compilers with material are of economic importance . In place of the nation-states, so-called tribes have emerged, geographically decentralized societies that are defined by the common economic interests and social norms of their members. The tribes no longer have a central state territory, but rather maintain small territories, so-called enclaves, scattered all over the world. The coexistence of the tribes and enclaves is guaranteed by the economic protocol , a binding legal basis for all enclaves that have joined the protocol, which is based on the economic evaluation of all deeds, and even a murder evaluates only from an economic point of view.

The economically dominant enclaves are New Atlantis and Nippon, there are also a number of other enclaves of different sizes and economic importance. New Atlantis is an Anglo-Saxon aristocratic society based on Victorian values, in which the economic elite, so-called dividend lords, have taken the role of the old aristocracy . Nippon is a comparable power factor and competes with New Atlantis. Both powers maintain outposts in the coastal republic , a capitalist-oriented, alleged successor state of today's Chinese free trade and special economic zones, from where they operate the economic development of the Middle Kingdom , the last nation-state, shaped by traditional Chinese social structures.

In addition to the enclaves, the coastal republic houses the leasing parcels in which a stateless, social underclass of various origins lives, although existentially secured by goods provided free of charge for the basic needs of life, but without access to education and prospects for social advancement through acceptance into one of the dominant tribes. This is also the origin of Nell, the protagonist of the plot.

The nano-engineer John Percival Hackworth developed the illustrated primer for the young lady , the only copy of an interactive book for imparting knowledge and for character and personality development of a member of the upper class of New Atlantis, commissioned by Lord Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle -McGraw, a dividend lord with the rank of duke, for his granddaughter Elizabeth. Hackworth designed the primer according to Finkle-McGraw's ideas, but has no ownership rights to the construction plans. Nevertheless, he illegally allows Dr. X, a scientist working underground, made a copy of the primer for his daughter, which he lost when a street gang was attacked by Harvard, or Harv for short. Although, like most of his class, Harv is primitive and largely uneducated, he instinctively recognizes that the book has special value. He gives the captured primer to his little sister Nell and instructs her to keep the book's existence a secret.

The primer gives Nell access to knowledge and education that would otherwise never have been possible for her as a member of the lower class. Using fables and stories tailored to the owner's personal circumstances and environment, Nell first learns to read, write and do arithmetic from her primer. Later, the manners of the upper class, access to information and nanotechnology, the key technologies and basis of power structures, and most importantly, subversive and critical thinking that enables them to understand the economic and social structures of the world in which they live. The Raktrice Miranda, a kind of hourly actress for interactive, virtual experiences, gives the primer her voice, and over the years takes on a kind of mother role for Nell, even if she does not deviate from the plot given in the primer or directly with Nell can communicate.

While Nell is growing into an educated young woman through her primer, Hackworth, who has become extortionate through his crime, is brought to light by Dr. X forced into a conspiracy to develop the seeds , a nanotechnology independent of the sources and feeders for the production of goods, with which the economic independence of the Middle Kingdom from the dominant societies New Atlantis and Nippon is to be achieved. For this, Hackworth is supported by Dr. X banished to the sect of the drummers living under the sea, which form an alternative, human information network whose infrastructure and computing capacity are based on the unconscious exchange of information through artificial nano-parasites living in the bodies of the members, through which the drummers become a collective Merge consciousness.

At the same time, an uprising of the fists, an underground army recruited from the people, is taking place in the coastal republic, which is supposed to destroy the feeder infrastructure from the coastal republic and achieve the reunification of the two Chinese states, while Hackworth is the technology developed for the economic independence of the new united China.

As the uprising spreads, gradually cutting off the coastal republic from the vital feeders and finally culminating in an invasion from the Middle Kingdom, Hackworth, who moves between the world of the drummers and the surface, sets out to exchange data without his knowledge who have favourited seed technology.

Hackworth and other survivors of the invasion can save themselves with the help of Nell and the drummers' tunnels under the sea from the coast to the enclave "New Atlantis" located on an artificial island.

background

In his vision of the future, Neal Stephenson describes the social effects of an advanced information age , its economic factors, knowledge, property rights to it and the control over the information infrastructure, which he also transfers to material goods through the narrative art of nanotechnology. The illustrated primer for the young lady who falls into the hands of Nell, who comes from the lower class, stands for the access to information necessary for social advancement, which is denied to most people in the future described by Neal Stephenson. The technology of the seeds, on the other hand, stands for access of the masses to resources and goods independent of property rights to information and the control of infrastructure and can be interpreted as an allusion to the open source movement. The movement of the fists to overcome the foreign rule of the western states in China is historically based on the Boxer Rebellion .

Position in literary history

The person of Lord Finkle-McGraw is the idea of ​​the illustrated primer for the young lady, among other things, inspired by the short story The Raven by Samuel Taylor Coleridge , written in 1798 and reproduced in full in the novel.

Impact history

The book is the template for a planned three-part television series for the American television station SciFi-Channel , which is supposed to be produced by George Clooney .

literature

• Neal Stephenson: The diamond age, or, A young lady's illustrated primer . Viking, London 1995, ISBN 0-670-86414-5 (English original edition).
• Neal Stephenson: Diamond Age. The border world . Goldmann Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-442-45154-X (new German publication)
• Wolfgang Neuhaus: The future as a farce. The science fiction novels by Neal Stephenson . In: Sascha Mamczak, Wolfgang Jeschke (ed.): The Science Fiction Year 2005 . Heyne, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-453-52068-8 , pp. 354-375

Web links

• Diamond Age in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ TheHugoAwards.org: 1996 Hugo Award. Retrieved April 10, 2017 . 
2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from May 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ SCI FI Announces New Flash Gordon and Other Programming . VFXWorld, January 12, 2007 ( online [accessed November 24, 2009]).