44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
Rewarding reading if you persevere with it
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,...
40 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
I'm not sure
Stephenson is probably my favourite author so I waited with bated breath for his latest, Anathem, and have just finished reading it for the first time.
The story is set on a fictional world which is divided in basically 'doers' and 'thinkers'. An event occurs which upsets the whole stability of this world.
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.
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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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Stephenson is probably my favourite author so I waited with bated breath for his latest, Anathem, and have just finished reading it for the first time.
The story is set on a fictional world which is divided in basically 'doers' and 'thinkers'. An event occurs which upsets the whole stability of this world.
It is not as accessible as his other titles, using as it does a fictional language to describe many ordinary things and does not rattle along like many of his other books. There is a large amount of philosophical discussion which can be rather dense, particularly when using the made-up language. I've also a feeling that you'll learn a lot about orbital mechanics while reading it. However, by the end of it, I think I understand what he was talking about. It's also a book you have to sit down and read - not one for reading on the train to work. There is also not as much overt humour as in his previous books.
That said, I am just about to start reading it again and I think it will make a lot more sense this time round (one of the things I like about his books is you can read them again and again and you'll always find things you hadn't noticed or understood previously). The rating may well change then.
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If you haven't read other Neal Stephenson books, whether you like this or not will depend on your definition of good sci-fi. If you're looking for lasers and warp drives, chances are you'll find this wordy, dull and unpleasantly mediaeval in tone (at least the first two thirds of it). If, like me, you want your sci-fi to challenge your assumptions about the real world by presenting you with a detailed alternative reality, then you'll enjoy it.
The best aspects:
- well thought-out large-scale, long-view alternative 'earth' history
- detailed and evocative picture of a kind of 'science monastery' system (you need to read it to see quite how amazing the realization of this is)
- fascinating overview of the history of science and philosophy, in accessible and often humorous chunks of dialogue
- pretty solid main narrative adventure and coming of age story that keeps you going till the end
The worst aspects:
- slightly cheesy teen romance moments (fortunately only sporadic as the plot separates the protagonists)
- a fairly major lurch into hard SF many-universe-space-adventure towards the end, which takes a bit of getting to grips with
All in all, if you're interested in the ideas and the alternative reality that's portrayed (and its implications for our reality), the weaknesses are easily forgiven. I've reread it a couple of times already and am still enjoying it.
For people who've read everything else Stephenson's written, I'd say this is one of the best. There's always a balance in his writing between elucidating ideas and getting on with telling the story, and I think he gets this right in Anathem and it reads more smoothly than some of the others. (I must confess after the first reading I've always skipped the sections on ancient Summeria in Snow Crash.) It combines the alternative social structures elements that work so well in SC and the Diamond Age with some of the broader sweep of ideas you get in the System of the World.
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Anathem is a great read. It encompasses a detailed tour of another world, from its most isolated convents, to its digital information networks and cities, including discussions on its history and languages. Most importantly, it does all this while still being entertaining. However, the author is not only examining whether it is possible to write sci-fi with this depth and scope; he is simultaneously laying out the social and practical implications of a scenario where the most theoretically complicated, counterintuitive concepts of the universe show out to be correct.
The only complaint one can have, is that the last surprise comes some hundred pages before the ending of the book, which means that the remainder is rather predictable and hence not as satisfying as one could have hoped.
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Neal Stephenson doesn't do short books - at least not any more, since Snow Crash blew my mind a few years back - but that's OK as long as you don't expect light and fluffy sci-fi. This is hard stuff, with a depth of research and thought that rarely makes it into print in popular fiction these days. It makes you think, demands focus and rewards those who comply with a riveting read.
The language will stymie some, as Stephenson makes liberal use of neologisms to create the sense of a recognisable but distinctly alien culture. Accept that as a legitimate tactic, and it gets easier as you go along.
His characters are typically well-wrought. As with the Baroque Cycle and its distant cousin Cryptonomicon, the characters grow rapidly from mere sketches into carefully constructed, richly illustrated people. From that emerges wry humour and clever dialogue.
And the plot he weaves is as byzantine, sophisticated and clever but also ridiculous and barely believable - unmistakably the man who sent Jack Shaftoe careening about the world in the Baroque Cycle.
Ultimately, this is a book that will reward the determined reader with philosophical insights, intelligent humour and some rip-snorting moments of drama and danger.
Are there flaws? Yes, of course. Stephenson has a penchant for getting carried away with his set-piece demonstrations of scientific principles (remember Waterhouse and parabolas, Newton and the calculus in Cambridge, etc), which makes some scenes feel like necessary reading. But his deft creation of The Book as a punishment suggests he is well aware of this and isn't above a little gentle self-mockery.
All in all, I'd say give this book a go if you want to be challenged and engaged by some serious but highly entertaining hard sci-fi. Lasers and spaceships and aliens with tentacles this is not, but it does what great sci-fi should do: takes deeply significant issues such as the nature consciousness, the role of science and cultural snobbery, and throws a strange new light on them by casting them into an unexpected, semi-alien setting.
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.. 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.
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If you're the kind of person that had difficulty with your math and physics classes, or if you were prone to fall asleep during philosophy class, this book is probably not for you. But for those who are not intimidated by such subjects, this massive tome is a treat.
First is the setting that Stephenson presents, one where mathematically/scientifically minded persons are typically shut up in convents, carefully isolated from outside society (in some cases, only allowed to make contact with the outside world once a century or more), with rigorous rules to control their daily behavior, and an outside society composed of those either religiously inclined or who really, really prefer their technology to be simple enough to be easily understandable. And Stephenson doesn't just give us the current setting, but has a fairly detailed history of his world stretching back several thousand years. As part of this setting, he's also given the reader a whole new vocabulary to learn, some of which have obviously parallels with their English roots, others of which seem to be totally divorced from any current language. All of this obviously requires quite a bit of effort by the reader to grasp what is going on, and the early portions of this book can be a bit of a slog.
But once you get used to the language and background, what comes to the fore is a very different first-contact story, in this case contact not just with beings from the `normal' universe, but beings who hail from different, alternate universes where the rules of physics are not quite the same. How such contact is possible, and just what the antecedent incidents were that `created' these different universes comes in for some rather deep looks at some of the implications of quantum mechanics, often investigated via the means of Socratic dialogues between various avouts. Of prime importance to these discussions is just how well Stephenson shows how a person's `mindset' influences not just how that individual views the universe around him, but how that mindset actually helps create that universe. As such, this is a book not only of hard-SF, but also very much a book of philosophy and character. And just when you thought you'd already had a little too much in the way of mathematics, Stephenson provides a few appendices (called `calca') to keep you topped off on your math quota for the day.
What perhaps is missing here that has been very prevalent in prior Stephenson books is his biting satire that was couched in terms that left the reader rolling on the floor with laughter, such as his blueprint for an IPO in Cryptonomicon or his digression on Captain Crunch cereal. There are items here that come in for a bit of satire, but they're small and not developed into galloping romps orthogonal to the plot as in these previous works. This definitely detracted from my enjoyment of this book, as I found myself doing an awful lot of heavy thinking about his various points and found little leavening of humor to make the headaches go away.
A very different book, well worth the time and considerable effort to read and understand it, but I thought it could have been better with a few more touches of Stephenson's lighter side.
---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
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It seems like the historical authors like Sansom and our own cherished Stephenson are finding common ground. This reminds me of the great explosion of British New Wave in the mid-60's, when they found it impossible to continue their great arc of bigger and louder technology.
Where that went was towards a trifurcation: The noodly elven folk, the head-trip beasties, and the sociological auters. It was no fun for anyone. Anathem is a successful attempt to merge all three strands.
I think that reviewers like "Plod" are missing the game (because game is what it is), regarding "Anathem". It does have a lot of text about detail, but this is rather the point: you have to immerse yourself in the protagonists' way of life, their being, their absolute solidity before you can allow yourself to enjoy the utter revelation of "other".
Later, the novel spends a lot of time exploring how the "now" here and the "now" elsewhere may be dependent not on physical recording, but rather on perception. At the same time, it's turned into an absolute bollock-buster of a hard SF novel.
It's a tour de force. It is magnificent. He's taken the stuff he learnt from the "Baroque" series and worked out how to deliver it in a third as many words, but with total immersion in the culture.
His interests clearly lie in the nature of reality and who chooses the current version. In that respect, he follows P.K.Dick from one extreme, following through the political polemicists into mainstream hard SF, ending with, say, Cordwainer Smith, or AE van Vogt. There is no concession given to the dragonriders, even though he chooses their ground to argue from.
If you want a synopsis, then you've come to the wrong review.
It's a bit of a good book.
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I was expecting to post a review of this book similar to the 'professional' reviews which said that it was too hefty and needed a good editor to trim it down. I could not have been more wrong.
The book is just amazing. It explores quantum dynamics, mathematics, multiple universe theory and more all in a language that shifts it slightly from our current understanding of these things. Yes: it is definitely a book for thinkers. Yes: you need to give it attention to get the most out of it.
The 'dialogs' and 'calca' (exposition of the ideas above - and presumably the sections which others have suggested should have been cut) were simply my favourite part: I felt like I was in Dialog with the author, or there in the concent with Erasmus. Furthermore, unless close attention is paid to these, the story will seem to spiral out of control for you, they are the bedrick that will guide you through the book.
In summary, a hugely rewarding read - the best I've had in at least a decade - but only for those willing to put aside the time to acutally read it through - not a book for skimmers.
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