Neal Town Stephenson was born October 31, 1959 in Fort Meade MD, and grew up in Iowa. In 1981 he graduated from Boston University with a BA in geography and a minor in physics.
His first novel The Big U, a college thriller with SF elements, appeared in 1984, followed by Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller (1988). The successful and influential Snow Crash (1992) is a cyberpunk classic, and made him