Anathem
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Product Description
Product Description
Here is another brilliantly original novel from the cult author of "Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon".Since childhood, Raz has lived behind the walls of a 3,400-year-old monastery, a sanctuary for scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians. There, he and his cohorts are sealed off from the illiterate, irrational, unpredictable "saecular" world, an endless landscape of casinos and megastores that is plagued by recurring cycles of booms and busts, dark ages and renaissances, world wars and climate change. Until the day that a higher power, driven by fear, decides it is only these cloistered scholars who have the abilities to avert an impending catastrophe. And, one by one, Raz and his friends, mentors, and teachers are summoned forth without warning into the unknown.
About the Author
Neal Stephenson is the author of eight novels, including the cult successes Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon. he has been shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award five times, winning with Quicksilver. Three of his last four novels have been New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Seattle.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
There is a universe where...,
By
This review is from: Anathem (Hardcover)
.. this book gets started a lot more quickly than it does in our universe.
I'm an unashamed Stephenson fan, but he tried my patience at the start of this book, and you can see from other reviewers that this is a common experience. I did get to the point where I was thinking 'ok Neal, where is this going' but I had faith, and that faith was rewarded. The slow part at the start is exposition that I feel is ultimately necessary and a part of his literary creation. He describes a world with some similarities and many differences to our own; the exposition serves as backdrop and 'control' for the reader (and main character) on a journey through adventures and concepts that are startlingly at odds with what went before. In the end this made sense to me, like the chaotic writing in the London part of Gravity's Rainbow made sense as a representation of how the city was for people. In the end, there is a point to having an alternate world to compare with, too. Not just 'I made this stuff up for a laugh'. I don't want to get all high-falutin though - if you liked the pirate story part of the Baroque Cycle like I did, the first part will test you a bit. Like Stephenson's other works, this has some serious underpinnings, in this case really based around the collision of maths, philosophy and physics. Stephenson presents these topics in a coherent way with his story, without snapping the reader out of the world (well not too much, sometimes you stop to say 'ok what is the equivalent of this in my world'). I disagree that this book is some kind of exercise in snobbery because it tackles difficult subjects and it's a lengthy book. The theory parts are properly part of the story, not some stuck on exercise in showing off; you aren't required to have studied Godel or Husserl for 10 years to understand the story or the concepts. The jargon issue is a red herring in my opinion - this is part of the flavour of the alternate world, well integrated, and not confusing. Not when there's a glossary and a ton of context to help you. But if you hated The Clockwork Orange for this reason, you won't like this book. If you've never read any Stephenson, start with Cryptonomicon or The Diamond Age before this. That and the slow start cause me to give this 4 stars, not 5. And also no Jack Shaftoe or distant relative. But I still think it's an excellent book, and very thought provoking.
67 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rewarding reading if you persevere with it,
By wedge (Scotland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Anathem (Hardcover)
Anathem was a complete surprise to me. I had deliberately avoided reading anything about the book before I bought it, willing to trust the author to come up with another excellent novel comparable to Snow Crash, The Diamond Age or Cryptonomicon.
After reading the first 50 or 60 pages, I was wondering if I'd wasted my money. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. The many invented words peppered throughout the text didn't help either - you can immediately decipher many of them from context they're used in, but it is annoying to do it as often as Anathem requires. However, I kept going, and by the time I'd gotten through the first 100 pages or so I found myself quite enjoying it. After another couple of hundred pages I was reluctant to put it down, and eventually ended up reading the last third of the book in a single session. What I would say is that once you become familiar with the dialect used by the characters and get past the relatively slow opening chapters, Anathem becomes a far more engaging and interesting book. Sci-fi action sequences are interspersed with frequent philosophical or metaphysical discussions between various characters, which may of course not be to the liking of every reader, but I found it both interesting and entertaining. Now that I've finished the book I am planning to wait a few weeks and then read it again, as I suspect that reading the opening chapters will be a far better experience the second time around.
41 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding!,
By Donald Tremblay (New York) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Anathem (Hardcover)
I got the same feeling reading Anathem that I got reading Cryptonomicon - that is, after reading 100 pages, I was thrilled that there were 800 more. It's a ripping yarn peppered with mathematical, mechanical, and linguistic nuggets. There's a little odd vocabulary, but it doesn't take long to get used to, and it's fun to look up terms in the glossary, which is interesting in itself. If you are daunted by the fact that there's a glossary and few appendices, then don't bother. This isn't a book to be idly flicked through. But that's not to say it's difficult or tedious; it's driven by an intricate and enthralling plot, and I found myself completely immersed. Stephenson is a freak of a writer, and this book is wholly impressive.
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