Kindle
English language
Published Nov. 1, 2008 by William Morrow.
Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, is a magnificent creation: a work of great scope, intelligence, and imagination that ushers readers into a recognizable -- yet strangely inverted -- world.
Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside "saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no fear of the outside -- …
Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, is a magnificent creation: a work of great scope, intelligence, and imagination that ushers readers into a recognizable -- yet strangely inverted -- world.
Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside "saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no fear of the outside -- the Extramuros -- for the last of the terrible times was long, long ago.
Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite of Apert, the fraas and suurs prepare to venture beyond the concent's gates -- at the same time opening them wide to welcome the curious "extras" in. During his first Apert as a fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting with the landmarks and family he hasn't seen since he was "collected." But before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he embraced will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change.
Powerful unforeseen forces jeopardize the peaceful stability of mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramuros -- a threat that only an unsteady alliance of saecular and avout can oppose -- as, one by one, Erasmas and his colleagues, teachers, and friends are summoned forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global disaster. Suddenly burdened with a staggering responsibility, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world -- as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet . . . and beyond.
Harder to navigate than other Neal Stephenson novels I've read, but still (or maybe because of that)a very satisfying read.
That said, I'll probably need to revisit it some day to grasp some of the science treated in the book.
At the half way point I was completely in love with the setting of this book, I couldn't put it down, and then towards the end it becomes truly mind blowing. The only reason that this isn't a 5/5 for me is that I feel like the ending was satisfying, but it left a lot of things implied without delving into the consequences enough after the fact.
Still a great work of fiction and absolutely recommended.
To elaborate, we spend all of this time building a great world and dealing with the reactions to a sudden alien visitation, and like 90% of the way through we find Rhetors and Incanters are real, which is incredible and yet believable in this completely non-magical world... then after the Convox is evacuated and everyone splits into cells, and the space mission, and Fraa Jad obviously altering the worldtrack into one of the rare …
At the half way point I was completely in love with the setting of this book, I couldn't put it down, and then towards the end it becomes truly mind blowing. The only reason that this isn't a 5/5 for me is that I feel like the ending was satisfying, but it left a lot of things implied without delving into the consequences enough after the fact.
Still a great work of fiction and absolutely recommended.
To elaborate, we spend all of this time building a great world and dealing with the reactions to a sudden alien visitation, and like 90% of the way through we find Rhetors and Incanters are real, which is incredible and yet believable in this completely non-magical world... then after the Convox is evacuated and everyone splits into cells, and the space mission, and Fraa Jad obviously altering the worldtrack into one of the rare ones in which Arbre and the Geometers make peace... but after all of this takes place, there's virtually no discussion of the consequences of these people existing.
Erasmas et. al. all know that their perception of what happened doesn't line up with what everyone else perceived, and perhaps we're supposed to assume that their brains slowly altered to come into agreement with everyone else but I don't think that was directly stated and since the book itself is implied to exist in world (Erasmas having "started this record" when he was being punished I believe) that might not even be internally consistent.
I just would have preferred for this information to be gone over a bit more in dialog with the other avout, because the existence of these hyper powerful avout is pretty world breaking.
Instead, the Everything Killer situation kind of became a dead end and we get this very sweet, movie-like (which Stephenson even lampshades in the final sentence) ending to the book.
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Absolutely fantastic
As thought provoking and challenging a book as I've read in a long while. To any who choose to read this, don't make the same mistake I did, take notes as you read, you'll need them!
It took three months to read, but really it was done in three rather lengthy marathons with several weeks of not reading it in between.
Overall, a decent story. Very ambitious, and Stephenson's world-building is as good as ever. There were some great parts, and he even managed to make the long discussions mostly bearable.
That said, I had a few problems with the writing. For one thing, Stephenson is not the best word-maker, and his "slang" is hit or miss: "Concent" was the only word that really stuck out as a good invention. While this isn't a huge deal in and of itself, the problem came when characters started discussing complex mathematical/philosophical ideas in unfamiliar terminology.
All of this adds up to the fact that this book probably is one that would need to be re-read a number of times to really "get it." However, while it was enjoyable …
It took three months to read, but really it was done in three rather lengthy marathons with several weeks of not reading it in between.
Overall, a decent story. Very ambitious, and Stephenson's world-building is as good as ever. There were some great parts, and he even managed to make the long discussions mostly bearable.
That said, I had a few problems with the writing. For one thing, Stephenson is not the best word-maker, and his "slang" is hit or miss: "Concent" was the only word that really stuck out as a good invention. While this isn't a huge deal in and of itself, the problem came when characters started discussing complex mathematical/philosophical ideas in unfamiliar terminology.
All of this adds up to the fact that this book probably is one that would need to be re-read a number of times to really "get it." However, while it was enjoyable enough on a first read, I don't think it merits the sort of repeat readings that certain other works of similar size do.
I liked Anathem. It's a good mix of physics, philosophy and fiction. I don't want to give away too much - I really liked the way things were unraveled slowly and I don't want to deprive anyone reading this review of the same. Don't expect a lot of action. Toil through the first 10% of the book (it was hard for me) and you'll be rewarded. Think of the whole book as a thought experiment.
There are often many more words written in review of a book than in the book itself, and judging by many of the comments here, the same can be said about Anathem. I will not add to them, except to say many will be flabbergasted by this book and still many more will think it amazing just because it's a Stephenson and has many imaginative concepts discussed. I fall somewhere between the two. In this narrative I want to be able to reread it in a way which will allow me to understand it better and pursue life long learning in philosophy and cosmology. In another, I put it down after 400 pages and went off and read something else and never grasped the concept of narratives and became a bin man.
It took me 3 attempts to finally read this all of the way through. The first few chapters are daunting. Every 3rd word is entirely new to your vocabulary and there's no explanation of most of them. But, like learning a language via immersion, eventually the context makes the terminology clear. Hundreds of pages later, the new vocabulary is integrated and makes sense.
In the end, I enjoyed this book, like I have enjoyed the rest of Stephenson's writing. It entertained, prompted thoughts (and a few upsights) and painted a picture of a richly detailed world. All things I look for in my fiction, particularly anything from the speculative fiction shelf.
Liked the world which Neal Stephenson created.
Good, but not great, book!
I haven't read much philosophy so the philosophical parts of the book were fresh to me. I really enjoyed them. I found my mind constantly wandering on these subjects and had to re-read pages. The fantasy world was also well developed and interesting. The first part of the book, up to Bly's Butte, was really to my taste. I'd recommend closing the book at that point though, having absorbed most of the enjoyment already.
What would you miss out this way? A long (in miles and pages) trek through the Arctic with lots of action and characters that have minimal impact in the end. Elaboration of the fantasy physics, that I felt was a bit shaky. (Anyway, this makes for good conversation material.) An interesting but perhaps too long scene in space. An ending that is also good for a conversation, but that did not feel like a good closure. …
I haven't read much philosophy so the philosophical parts of the book were fresh to me. I really enjoyed them. I found my mind constantly wandering on these subjects and had to re-read pages. The fantasy world was also well developed and interesting. The first part of the book, up to Bly's Butte, was really to my taste. I'd recommend closing the book at that point though, having absorbed most of the enjoyment already.
What would you miss out this way? A long (in miles and pages) trek through the Arctic with lots of action and characters that have minimal impact in the end. Elaboration of the fantasy physics, that I felt was a bit shaky. (Anyway, this makes for good conversation material.) An interesting but perhaps too long scene in space. An ending that is also good for a conversation, but that did not feel like a good closure.
While I am not sure these later pages were worth it I had a lot of fun with the book. It can be read as a mystical description of scientists' culture of any age. When people around me are enthusiastically discussing the finer details of the Linux kernel at lunch, I feel like these are the characters and dialogs that Anathem idolises.
If you've met me, and you know me, I may have already recommended this book to you. I've read it three times, and I imagine I will read it 20 more before I die. There will never be a sequel, which means all we have is rereading.
This book was a little slow going at first, but once you get into the language and world of the "concent," you're fully immersed. And just when you think you've fully acclimated to that new universe, that's when things start to really get good, as the plot expands beyond the walls of the concent and into the wider world (and cosmos) beyond.
The story itself serves as an allegory of the nature of Stephenson's best writing--a perfect blend of the cerebral and plot driven pulp. The playful "dialogs" of these intellectual monks as they figure out the meaning of the universe is like of a band of vegan Berkeley students out on a quest to design an art car for Burning Man. It's all great fun, while hinting at something substantially and mystically deeper.
Neal Stephenson writes about big ideas. Frequently very big ideas. It can be a little off putting at times.
Certainly the first few chapters for Anathem were a struggle. Stephenson threw me head first into a new world with a new language and very little explanation. It was frustrating.
But perseverance sometimes pays off and it did in this case. Once I started to get a feel for the setting, the richness of it and some of the ideas that Stephenson was playing with started to shine.
Personally I found this a much more compelling story than Cryptonomicon. Admittedly at least half of it is people standing around and telling each other things, but Stephenson has a knack for making that seem interesting.
He's always had a fondness for playing with language and he gets to take that to the nth degree here. There's an impressive logical consistancy to the …
Neal Stephenson writes about big ideas. Frequently very big ideas. It can be a little off putting at times.
Certainly the first few chapters for Anathem were a struggle. Stephenson threw me head first into a new world with a new language and very little explanation. It was frustrating.
But perseverance sometimes pays off and it did in this case. Once I started to get a feel for the setting, the richness of it and some of the ideas that Stephenson was playing with started to shine.
Personally I found this a much more compelling story than Cryptonomicon. Admittedly at least half of it is people standing around and telling each other things, but Stephenson has a knack for making that seem interesting.
He's always had a fondness for playing with language and he gets to take that to the nth degree here. There's an impressive logical consistancy to the evolution of language displayed here and it's actually one of my favorite parts of the book. I'm not quite so keen on some of the more out there ideas that are introduced later on.
There are some sections that really weren't entirely necessary. Parts of the road trip seemed to serve very little actual purpose and at 900+ pages I'm pretty sure it could have benefited from some editing. But over all I think it's one of his stronger works.
This book resembles the Baroque cycle while being completely different.
This was an excellent book. I love the setting and the language in this world. I think I read it more to learn about this society than for any plot or characters. Here's a more in-depth review: strakul.blogspot.com/2012/02/book-review-anathem-by-neal-stephenson.html
