On October 4, 2004 Neal Stephenson gave a reading from his novel "System of the World" (the last of Baroque Cycle trilogy), signed books and answered audience's questions at Book People, an Austin, TX bookstore.
A year before that, in October of 2003, Neal Stephenson also visited Austin and answered questions about his then-latest novel "Cryptonomicon", as well as all sorts of question about writing, research, technology, and politics. One of the most notable moments in that conversation happened when he introduced the audience to the word "steampunk" and had to assure them he didn't make it up. Who could have guessed that in a few years steampunk jewelry will be sold at Walmart! Other notable bits were Neal Stephenson pronouncing "Qwghlm" (name of fictional islands), and Neal Stephenson's reading tastes (actually you may regret finding out about that one). Also, a very interesting observation of what we mean by "technology".
