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Anathem Neal Stephenson 9780061474095 Books

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Anathem Neal Stephenson 9780061474095 Books

So, roughly 4,000+ pages later we come to Anathem. I am a huge fan of the first 4,000+ pages and only give this novel a 4 star because, for me, it was not as good as Cryptonomicon or the Baroque Cycle. That being said, this novel was a very unique foray into Science Fiction. It blends an ignorant, medieval, feudal atmosphere with mysterious, esoteric schools that preserve the knowledge of all things past. For the purpose of this novel, you ride the line between these two as a young novice leaving the common to join the esoteric. As such, you will know just enough to get into trouble; but, not enough to find your way out. The stakes are high and the revelations are more far reaching than in the previous novels.


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Anathem Neal Stephenson 9780061474095 Books Reviews

A number of friends who shared my enjoyment of Snowcrash and The Diamond Age warned me away from this one because it was "really different". It is, but it's certainly the same voice. I finally had enough time to catch up on my "to read" stack and this one was close enough to the top that I got to it. By a quarter of the way into the book I was completely hooked and now I'm having trouble putting it down. It starts more slowly than Snowcrash and The Diamond Age, and yes, it assumes you're reasonably conversant in high school math and physics and that you've got some understanding of how Catholic convents and monasteries work. With those basics, Stevenson spins out a captivating tale about what is, what might be, and how we know. I'm 75% of the way through and I've got some hunches about where it's going. I'm excited to find out how close I've come.
Neal Stephenson always creates a really unique story line with well-drawn characters and this effort is no different. I enjoyed the read with two minor caveats. First, the story is set in a unique world (seems Medieval at first, but that’s not really right) and the author uses new words for objects or ideas that sometimes get defined in the text and other times not. It took me about 100 pages (10% of the book) before I became comfortable with the new terms and started enjoying the story. If I had judged it at the end of the Sample I never would have finished it. Second, there is a section near the middle of the book (maybe 20-30 pages) where the story action stops and it gets a bit bogged down in philosophical musings. Plow through – the story starts up again in a really novel direction. The last half is hard to put down.
This book blew my mind.
Filled with mind bending philosophical questions, discussions and debates. Built in a fantastically complex yet very cohesive and coherent universe. I loved the characters, the storytelling... I loved everything about this book. It instantly became one of my favourite books ever.

The story is slow and this is nowhere near what I would call "action packed"... but it made me think and reflect like very few books have.

I loved this book and I wish I could be more eloquent in describing it. But I will definitely be reading it again.
For a retired mathematics and computer science professor this book was a perfect fit. I seek out references to mathematics in sci-fi, but this time I was immersed in a tale whose heroes and heroines were the experts on directed acyclic graphs, the Pythagorean Theorem, a pictorial proof of which actually appears in the book, symmetry groups and all things mathematical. As the story progresses, the references to computer science and quantum theory made it even better. Although these facts are woven into the story, it is apparent that Stephenson is not just fudging it, he knows his science well. The world he creates is an extremely interesting place to be during the telling of this tale. The only problem is that the details of monastic life, of cosmology, of mathematics, of logic, of philosophy, of physics, of space mechanics, all seemed somehow to have their own separate rooms in his world.
The book admittedly starts slow, and getting used to the invented language seems absurd when you first start. Mr. Stephenson takes a few hundred pages to set up his protagonist and core group of characters, building their world that is in seclusion from the rest of the world they live in. This is the part that a lot of the low reviews seem to give up.

Once you hit the point the seclusion breaks down and the protagonist is headed out into the world, though, it kicks into the kind of speed that Neal Stephenson is known for. The rest of the book blazes past as the young Raz is put through trial after trial. The final two chapters I simply couldn't put the book down. it was that kind of entertaining. You forget all about the language replacements and the place the story started.

Readers should be cautioned that at many, many points characters break into Socratic dialogues on various subjects. Many of these topics return later to be re-dialogued with new information, or the subject matter actually plays out in the story. if you don't like reading about people talking at length about complex ideas, you may not like portions of this novel. If you are annoyed that this novel's invented language seems like a copy paste replacement of key words instead of a genuine language, well I think that's a valid critique but I wasn't as bothered by it.

However if you are intrigued by the theories behind multiple universes, convergent universes, spaceflight, logic puzzles you will find all of them represented well in this novel. If you just want a neat science fiction novel with a grand adventure across continents and elsewhere, this could be your book.

Like many of the 1 star reviews I didn't give this book the chance it deserved the first time I tried to read it. My second attempt though, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Give it a go, maybe you'll love it too.
So, roughly 4,000+ pages later we come to Anathem. I am a huge fan of the first 4,000+ pages and only give this novel a 4 star because, for me, it was not as good as Cryptonomicon or the Baroque Cycle. That being said, this novel was a very unique foray into Science Fiction. It blends an ignorant, medieval, feudal atmosphere with mysterious, esoteric schools that preserve the knowledge of all things past. For the purpose of this novel, you ride the line between these two as a young novice leaving the common to join the esoteric. As such, you will know just enough to get into trouble; but, not enough to find your way out. The stakes are high and the revelations are more far reaching than in the previous novels.