“The Diamond Age”

All the discussion of nanotechnology in Chip War made me want to reread this book, so here I am! I have, in point of fact, done something of a review of it before, but as that was over a decade ago, I figure it’s probably okay for me to take another pass.1

I’ve always thought of this as being set in the near future, but there’s actually no indication that’s the case, and some indications that it’s not. The bit where an elderly lady reminisces about having been a Cool Teen during the age of Snow Crash, which is set in (a very 1980s-flavored) near future, would indicate that it’s closer to a century out. Slightly disappointing for my hopes of seeing this level of post-scarcity reasonably-safe nanotech within my lifetime, I must say.

Diamond Age is the book that ruined 3D printing for me. I simply cannot be satisfied with a version of the technology that can produce plastic tchotchkes when what I’m envisioning is a device that can lay down individual atoms, assembling molecules from the ground-up to produce anything from a swarm of cancer-eating nanobots to a perfectly-nutritionally-balanced meal to a new mattress. But sure, making replacement parts for your kid’s dollhouse is cool or whatever, I guess.

The plot of the book remains a wonderful sprawling thing, something like twenty years in duration. This reread I found myself being more critical of the aspects of a ‘white savior’ arc going on with regards to one of the characters, but I may just have to file that as being the sort of thing that we simply weren’t concerned by at the time it was written. The overall theme, though, still works: this is, really, a book about growing up, and about parenting your child. Or someone else’s child that you’ve become an adoptive parent to. Or an entire generation of children.

And it’s also about cultures. I quite like the way Stephenson approaches cultures and subcultures; it’s also a key element in Snow Crash.2 In both cases, the setting he has created allows for more freedom of movement between cultures, and reduces the impact of birthplace in cultural development. Basically, he’s saying, what happens if your identity is tied less to where you’re from than it is to what you value? What happens when people can form interest groups in the way that was first truly allowed by the internet, and then we turn that freedom of association up to eleven? Imagine pseudo-countries, little enclaves worldwide where all the people with one set of values — Victorian-esque politeness and stoicism, to pick a non-random example — gather themselves together. That’s the world of Diamond Age, the world that Snow Crash portrays taking shape.

It’s an interesting concept, for sure! I don’t think we’re quite on track for things to go that way, but it’s a valuable thought experiment either way, and one I really enjoy reading every time.

Summing up: The Diamond Age holds up well ten years later, and I still recommend it. It’s a great piece of science fiction. Check it out!3

Note the first: That post went up ten years and a day before I started writing this one, which is a delightful coincidence.
Note the second: that’s not even the oldest post remaining available on this blog, much less the oldest one that remains in the visible-only-to-me part of the archives. It’s very weird to have been doing this “writing stuff on the internet” thing for that long. ↩

Which I will likely be doing a similar review for soon; books prompt me to read other books, and this one was prompted by one book club and wound up prompting the other book club. Fun! ↩

This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩