Science & Nature

Amazon.com ReviewFrom the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet--incarnate as the Metaverse--looks something like last year's hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist--hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what's a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, Snow Crash interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, Snow Crash is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible. From Publishers WeeklyIn California of the near future, when the U.S. is only a "Burbclave" (city-state), the Mafia is just another franchise chain (CosaNostrastet Pizza, Incorporated) and there are no laws to speak of, Hiro Protagonist follows clues from the Bible, ancient Sumer and high technology to help thwart an attempt to take control of civilization--such as it is. When he logs on to Metaverse, an imaginary place entered via computer, Hiro encounters Juanita Marquez, a "radical" Catholic and computer whiz. She warns him off Snow Crash (a street drug named for computer failure) and gives him a file labeled Babel (as in Tower of Babel). Another friend, sp ok/pk Da5id, who ignores Juanita's warning, computer crashes out of Metaverse into the real world, where he physically collapses. Hiro, Juanita, Y.T. (a freewheeling, skateboard-riding courier) and sundry other Burbclave and franchise power figures see some action on the way to finding out who is behind this bizarre "drug" with ancient roots. Although Stephenson ( Zodiac ) provides more Sumerian culture than the story strictly needs (alternating intense activity with scholarship breaks), his imaginative juxtaposition of ancient and futuristic detail could make this a cult favorite. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

《意识上传中》：意识被盗之后，“我”深爱的一切都成了“我”的弱点。 《金库保管箱》：第八百次在别人的身体里醒来，今天“我”叫约翰·奥莱里。 《学习成为我》：“我”的头脑里有一颗小小的宝石，它模仿“我”、学习“我”，直到有天成为“我”。 《百光年日记》：从未来发回的日记里记录了今天约会的所有细节，唯独漏了那个吻………… 科幻是一门关于“如果”的艺术，格雷格将“如果”推向极致。

元素周期表中的第六号元素是什么？氢氦锂铍硼……是碳。没错，提到碳，你会先想到什么？是煤炭、石油这些现代人类社会赖以维系的能量来源——化石燃料，还是碳纳米管、富勒烯这些经常出现在科技新闻里的新词？又或者，你可能会首先想到碳中和、碳排放、碳捕集、碳封存、温室效应？ 碳无处不在。它是地球生命的基石，更为人类社会奠定了基础。从过去到现在，再到遥远的未来，各种形式的碳对地球、生命、人类有着无可匹敌的深远影响。 不过，你可能没有意识到这一点：尽管碳在太阳这样的恒星中含量丰富，但平均到整个地球来看，碳实际上是一种稀有元素。我们生活在一个富含碳的环境中，而这个环境位于一个贫碳行星的表面，这是如何发生的？ 天文学家西奥多·斯诺和唐·布朗利带我们踏上了一段跨学科的探索旅程，以宇宙学的宏大视角，回顾碳从宇宙诞生到地球演化、从生命起源到人类文明的非凡旅程。 读完本书，你将明白，奇妙的碳元素如何在最宏大的意义上真正塑造了我们的世界。