“The only person who might have envisioned a future as outlandish as our present is the Seattle-based author Neal Stephenson.”
That’s the interesting and notable view of British-American historian Niall Ferguson, expressed in his Time Machine column on Substack.
To back up his thesis, Ferguson offers a detailed argument revolving around Stephenson’s 1995 science fiction novel The Diamond Age.
Along with his earlier breakthrough cyberpunk (or post-cyberpunk) novel Snow Crash (1992), The Diamond Age put Stephenson on the map as a visionary writer to watch – and read.
STEPHENSON’S VISION IN THE DIAMOND AGE
The Diamond Age, subtitled Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, was the first of 10 Stephenson works to be nominated for the Prometheus Award.
Although it didn’t win, it was recognized as a Best Novel finalist and arguably raised his profile with Libertarian Futurist Society members enough to pave the way for Stephenson’s three later Prometheus awards for The System of the World, Cryptonomicon and Seveneves.
Set decades in the future (the 2020s), The Diamond Age revolves around a brilliant nanotechnologist who makes an illicit copy of the Primer, a state-of-the-art interactive device designed to educate a girl to think for herself.
In the process, the nanotechnologist violates the moral code of his powerful neo-Victorian tribe and is expelled. Embarking on an odyssey through the seamy and harsher underclasses and underworld-crime realms of his society, his quest uncovers a vast subversive information network with the power to decode and transform the future of humanity.
“The Diamond Age, like so many of Stephenson’s novels, offers us a troubling glimpse of a future we have already reached. Software has eaten the world. Venture capitalists and engineers reign supreme. But his networked society has reverted to tribalism,” Ferguson writes.
ARE WE LIVING IN A SCI-FI NOVEL?
A senior fellow at both the Hoover Institution and Harvard University and the author of 19 brilliant nonfiction books (including Civilization, The Cash Nexus, The Square and the Tower and most recently Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe), Ferguson brings up The Diamond Age in his Substack column to contextualize and critique several contemporary socio-political trends:
“Do you yet understand we’re living in a sci-fi novel”? That was the question posted on X last month by Mike Solana, a protégé of Peter Thiel. “Seems that way,” replied Elon Musk. He should know. Thirty years ago, you might have scoffed at a sci-fi book set in 2025 about a multibillionaire whose companies operate a vast fleet of self-driving electric cars, a social media network, a chain of satellites beaming the internet to terminals all over the world, and a private rocket programme bigger than Nasa’s; who is also developing brain implants and robots; and who ultimately intends to colonise Mars — all with the assistance of an artificial intelligence chatbot.”
Ferguson credits Stephenson for imaginatively anticipating at least some of the concerns and realities of the mid-2020s, including current hopes and fears surrounding artificial intelligence:
“Dreamt up by Stephenson 30 years ago, such a primer now exists in multiple, competing forms and is available to anyone with an internet connection. Small wonder that Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI — whose ChatGPT launched the AI Age just two and a half years ago — says we are on the brink of a new Renaissance. “Do you think you’re smarter than [the GPT o3 model] right now?” Altman asked the Financial Times rhetorically in a recent interview. “I don’t … and I feel completely unbothered, and I bet you do too.”
“Altman has every reason to want to soothe us: he needs our subscriptions. Yet it would be strange to be completely unbothered by the speed with which young people are adopting AI. As Altman himself has noted, “older people use ChatGPT like Google. People in their twenties and thirties use it as a life adviser.”
STEPHENSON’S AWARD-WINNING TRACK RECORD
Although The Diamond Age didn’t win a Prometheus award, it won the Hugo and Locus awards for Best Novel.
Stephenson also became a Prometheus Best Novel finalist with Cryptonomicon in 2000, the very competitive year that Vernor Vinge won the Prometheus Award for A Deepness in the Sky.
Cryptonomicon, which might well have won the Best Novel award in a normal year, later became eligible for consideration for the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction. The epic novel explores cryptology, privacy and adaptability during World War II and in the 21st century, while dramatizing how a country with elements of liberty might have advantages in war over an enemy with a more authoritarian mindset.
First nominated for Best Classic Fiction in 2010, Cryptonomicon was nominated four times in that category, finally being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013.
Stephenson was nominated for Best Novel again in 2004 for Quicksilver, the first of his Baroque Cycle trilogy exploring how the modern liberal/libertarian order of reason, science, free markets, limited government and the rule of law emerged over several centuries.
The other two novels in that series, The Confusion and The System of the World, were both nominated for the 2005 award, with The System of the World winning Stephenson his first Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
Stephenson his second Best Novel award in 2016 for Seveneves, an epic post-apocalyptic work dramatizing how the lust for power almost wipes out our species while voluntary, cooperative and entrepreneurial efforts address a crisis threatening humanity and our planet Earth.
Stephenson’s works have been nominated many other times as well, with Anathem a Best Novel nominee in 2009; REAMDE, in 2012; Fall, or Dodge in Hell, in 2020; and Termination Shock, in 2023.
Given the lasting relevance of The Diamond Age, perhaps the Stephenson novel first nominated for a Prometheus Award should be considered anew.
Under current LFS awards rules, no work that has won a Prometheus Award may be nominated again in any category.
At the same time, any pro-freedom works of fantastical or imaginative fiction (including former nominees or finalists that didn’t win) are eligible for nomination by LFS members for the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, beginning 20 years after their initial publication, recording, performance, screening or broadcast.
So Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, which seems to be acquiring the patina of a prescient classic of science fiction, might be worth another look.
ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS AND THE LFS
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, join the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
Libertarian futurists understand that culture matters. We believe that literature and the arts can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future. In some ways, culture can be even more influential and powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other’s rights, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.
* Prometheus winners: For a full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including in the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards – visit the enhanced Prometheus Awards page on the LFS website. This page includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards’ distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.
* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.
* Read “The Libertarian History of Science Fiction,” an essay in the international magazine Quillette that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.
* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Facebook page for comments, updates and links to the latest Prometheus Blog posts.
