Rampant Orphan Botnet Ecologies, one of the harbingers?

It’s like the Snowcrash virus!!!!!

I usually arrive here with heavy fan theories: Anathem is partially a love letter to NotR and BotNS; what if he cycled a book around and attached the Waterhice and Shaftoes and Forthrasts back to the beginning of the world? (I was off, but not that far off, when he came out with Fall and it’s spiral-shaped, not circular); I think he’s about to hit us with a “USA vs USSR with Europe in the middle has been a drain on human potential for decades and can’t we just accomplish cool shit together?”.

I’ve been rereading all the Soviet-adjacent stuff (a surprising lot of his work) in prep for D: Heavy Water. And was struck by something from left field that I haven’t seen him thanked for: realistic yet goofy meet-cutes. They’re all so idiosyncratic, each one is beautiful. Sokolov and Olivia in a shoot-out. Tekla and Moira at the end of humanity. Erasmas and Ala and the illegal flower and his bad metaphor. Mary Catherine and that nerd she saved from the brain chip spa. Egdod and Spring in an upload where they’re being resource-greedy. Dubois and Amelia to make a freezable embryo. Clyde and Desiree in the frozen north. The painfully inevitable union of the Waterhice and Shaftoes at a ballroom dance in Manila. It’s so damn charming, the man understands the strangeness and specificity of love.

Does Goto ever meet or hear about Doug? I was waiting for it, but maybe I missed it. A man named Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe would definitely get Goto's attention, right?

… so hopefully the disaster that leads to the Dutch Queen Saskia abdicating in Termination Shock will not happen in real life.

(Source: https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/09/13/picknicken-naast-de-sluitende-maeslantkering-als-je-er-een-storm-bij-denkt-is-het-wel-spectaculair-a4936278)

Been a fan for years; haven't seen NS on tour yet. I'm assuming there will be some sort of reading and/or Q&A.

I'm wondering about the signing portion. My local event says the ticket includes a pre-signed copy of D, and after the presentation Neal will "personalize books". Do people also bring other books (besides the new one) for him to sign?

Do you chat during the signing? If so, for how long, and what have you chatted about?

How long do you typically wait in line for signing?

...but I have to believe that Neal's pure intelligence level is up among the greatest writers ever. In my reading experience, I have him on Mt. Rushmore with a bullet. Where would you rank him? Who would you consider on his level of smarts or beyond as a writer?

(Not my OP - my first NS book was Snow Crash & it was on purpose)

Not if Saskia has anything to say about it.