The future is nano ... And who could be smaller or more insignificant than poor Little Nell - an orphan girl alone and adrift in a world of Confucian Law, Neo-Victorian values and warring nano-technology? Well, not quite alone. Because Nell has a friend, of sorts. A guide, a teacher, an armed and unarmed combat instructor, a book and a computer.
Neal Stephenson is the author of the three-volume historical epic 'The Baroque Cycle' (Quicksilver, The Confusion and The System of the World) as well as the novels Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age (winner of a Hugo Award), Snow Crash, Zodiac, Anathem and Reamde. He lives in Seattle, Washington.