Neal was invited to visit the Google Kirkland facility, and a small group of people got to have lunch with him while asking him a couple of probing questions.

The interesting bits are that the Diamond Age Mini-series is currently in production and the following bit about Anathem:

He’s writing a science fiction novel unrelated to Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle. It’s set on another planet and has aliens and so on. It’s really about Platonic mathematics, but he needed the aliens and space opera-ish elements to spice it up a little bit, just like the pirates kept people engaged in the Baroque books. He’s nearly finished writing it, and if he doesn’t finish by the end of the calendar year he’ll have to give some money back. If everything proceeds according to schedule, it should be available in stores in about a year.

Gretta Cook talks Stephenson