Short Summary:

I did enjoy the Baroque Cycle. I was glad to see this story came to a conclusion in a single book, as I dislike having to wait a long time between books. I enjoyed this book less than the Baroque Cycle, mostly because the ending payoff was kind of flat after reading all the "math theory" to get there. That being said, I did enjoy the adventure of the main character "Raz" but in my opinion I've enjoyed Stephenson's other books more.

Details:

Stephenson went out of his way to make a different universe but everything is translated into English equivalent. A rabbit for instance would be a similar creature to our rabbit. Then there are made up words or words that have different meanings. Each chapter starts with a definition of a word during the different ages, usually that word will be in the chapter. Nothing new from that angle.

There are a lot of dialogs between the math guys explaining the concepts in the book. I read through these, I couldn't really repeat anything about them a week later. It does somewhat help with the plot/concepts in the book, but I thought this was a little over done at points.

I wish there was more chapters about the visitors in the book, it was glossed over at various points. But the point of view of the book was from the main character and he wouldn't know much about them... only what he was told. I guess we might see another book about that?

Outside of the hard sci-fi, this is a story of a guy put into extraordinary circumstances, and he has a fun adventure. During this he gets to see the world and we can explore the world through his eyes as he experiences it. This was an enjoyable part of the book.

There are a handful of characters in the book that are Raz's friends or relatives. Some are standard cookie cutter characters, others are flushed out in more detail. They are there to help move the story forward.

Some fascinating stuff here, and a really interesting and detailed world, but the "theorics" got very old and tedious. This could easily have been split into 2 books, one being a 'theorics companion' for those truly interested in multicosm philosophy and metaphysics.

When not bogged down in extended theorics conversations, the story is excellent and quite entertaining.

I'm a big fan (except for Baroque Cycle, which I just couldn't get into) and hope for more SF from Neal; such a gifted writer!

Anathem was the first Neal Stephenson book that I have read. I now intend to go back and read Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash as soon as I can.
I decided to read Anathem, based solely on reading the blurb. The idea of the intellectuals being rounded up and put into their own sub-community fascinated me, and the book certainly didn't disappoint.
Stephenson has imagined and created a deep and fully realised world, full with its own customs, devices, languages, and Stephenson manages to weave it all almost seamlessly. I say almost seamlessly in that the beginning 100 or so pages are a bit difficult to grasp. The reader is thrown into a world, and is expected to pick up on the slang and terminology instantly - there is however, a glossary to you help along.
While the first 100 pages are a tad difficult, they are not uninteresting. Mainly because this universe Stephenson has created is highly interesting, compelling and cerebral.
The story quickly picks up and doesn't let you go. It's an amazing intellectual adventure, and I couldn't recommend it highly enough.

I am a big Stephenson fan. Having mucked my way through the first 200 pages of "Quicksilver" before The Baroque Cycle story took off and I was richly rewarded for my patience, I can honestly say having forced myself to grind through the first 200 pages of "Anathem", I am tapping out of this free lance, creative mess. Reading a new language and definitions created by Stephenson was just too much for me. The story is flat out boring with pages and pages of conversation in a language and world I could care less about.

My time is too precious to wade through a brillant writer's unchecked ego looking for a worthy story reading words that appeared to have been made up after Stephenson spilled a Scrabble game board on the floor. Some of the sentences would have made Dr. Suess proud. I will gladly wait a few more years for his next book hoping Stephenson gets out of his system whatever drove him to try his hand writing this story and he gets back to being a serious, respected writer using a language actually spoken on our planet today....now there's a novel idea.

Overall this is not a terrible book. It develops fairly well with many exciting action sequences that are well coreographed for the reader. The downfall for this book comes in the last 50 pages in which Stephenson throws in some Quantum physics that stretch the books believability beyond the breaking point. The end almost seems like a shortcut as well, lopping off what should have been an excellent action filled climax. It could have used about 100 pages of climax and resolution that were entirely missing.

I'm a HUGE fan of Stephenson's work, ALL of his prior books hold a prominent place on my book shelves and in my heart. I had been waiting eagerly for his next work, and pre-ordered my copy of "Anathem" as soon as that option was available. I must say I have tried to give this work its fair shake, but I find it a shadow of the Baroque Cycle and Stephenson's earlier Sci-Fi stories, even "Diamond Age". What's missing? The FUN! Stephenson's other books are FUN. This one just isn't. And I'm very sad.

I'm a fan of Stephenson's previous works before the Baroque Cycle. But ever since then, his books have become boring, long-winded, and tiresome. Anathem follows that trend. Hopefully, he'll bounce back in his next book.

Some books are fluff without any lasting appeal. Anathem, on the other hand, is a book that will be discussed for a long time. Talk about HIGH CONCEPT, jeez. This is truly a culmination of Neal Stephenson's career and all of his prior books have led up to this book. I am confident that this will win most/all of the specualtive fiction awards this year.

Who will like this book:
Well if you enjoyed his prior novels I am not sure how you can not like this one. Any true fan of adult speculative fiction should enjoy this book. It is not easy but would you really prefer it that way.

Who will not like this book:
If you did not enjoy Cryptonomican or The Baroque Cycle by Stevenson than you should stay away from this one too. This is not a pulp fiction book like the Star Wars and Star Trek books out there. Those are for a more juvenile audience whom do not want to have to think much while reading. I am not saying there is anything wrong with reading those books but lets be honest and agree that not all books are for everyone. This book will require a higher degree of concentration and not everyone has the time or patience to read a book like this.

Neal Stephenson's Anathem is probably his master piece. I've read several of his earlier books: Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and the entire Triology. All of them are good to great reads, but I believe this one is special because it contains so many ideas (a valued characteristic of his stories), and is wonderfully written besides. Just one bit of advice going in: read the glossary first. This is one book that requires a glossary, and it was not added as an afterthought.

Yes, the author does deliver a nuanced world but where in the heck is an editor? Great spurts of adventure and derring-do sparsely planted in long winded philosophical passages. How's about a little brevity. Stick withe the adventure and ease up on the hair-splitting. Not for the faint of heart nor those in a hurry.

I'm with most of the others here giving 1-star, and I'm also a huge fan of Stephenson. But, while I appreciate his effort at something different, Anathem is TOO different for me.

In short, I truly felt like I was reading a 12-year-old's first attempt at writing fiction. Stephenson is a MUCH better writer than this, so I can't help but wonder "what's happened?" His writing in this novel feels very adolescent (borderline childish), and I found myself unwilling to read beyond the first several pages. You might insist to me that the "meat" is found futher on, but I'll pass, thanks.

I hope people will read these 1-star reviews fairly, for most of them come from true Stephenson fans (myself included, and I am 100% on-board for his next opus). We're disappointed because Anathem seems like it could be such a great story if it hadn't been ruined by Stephenson making such absurd "creative choices".

I'm truly not a NS-hater ... I just hate this book of his.

ANATHEM, Neal Stephenson's new novel, centers on a young man named Fraa Erasmas, a monk, of sorts, residing within the walls of the Concent of Saunt Edhar. There, he and his fellow residents/students devote their lives to the understanding of math, science, cosmology, metaphysics and more. Everything must have reason and be provable, or it is invalid. In such a place, the residents are segregated, to a degree, and in some instances none can know what the others know.

Fraa Orolo, Erasmas's mentor, finds himself "Thrown Back," or cast out of the concent for a violation. Erasmas, Lio, Ala, Jesry and a handful of others begin a secret quest to discover what it was Orolo was working on that got him Thrown Back. When they discover that he has located what appeared to be an alien ship orbiting the planet, it is not too long before they, and others, are called upon and shipped out of the concent as well, destined to meet at another location for a special gathering.

Erasmas, however, is intent on finding Orolo. Splitting off from the main contingent, he begins a quest to locate Orolo and bring him back to the meeting. There, the gathering of the avout will determine the proper course for dealing with this alien arrival...if they don't destroy each other first. Or if the aliens don't launch their attack before a decision can be made.

Yes, ANATHEM is science fiction. The events take place on a planet known as Arbre. Even so, it bears many striking similarities to Earth. While it can be somewhat disconcerting, a number of things are given new names, but descriptions eventually lead you to understand what they are. Of course the presence of an alien spaceship qualifies it as a science fiction tale, yet, at its core, the book is more about thought than, well, enjoyment.

At any given moment, Stephenson sits back and spends an inordinate amount of time regaling you with his brilliance. And let's be honest, he is brilliant. Even so, paragraph upon paragraph of intellectual infighting amongst scholars, page upon page of metatheoric argument and scientific regurgitation make the reading of ANATHEM a true slog. The book begins slowly, introducing you to Saunt Edhar and its setup, and the introduction of Erasmas and a few of his companions. And the clock. And how the clock works. And why the clock works that way. And who designed the clock. And who decided it would work the way it works. And what scientific formulae were used in such a decision. This depth of explanation, while creating a fully immense world, can weigh far too heavily on the mind of the person trying to read it.

Within ANATHEM, there is a book called, ironically enough, The Book. It is a tome of punishment. The punished are forced to read and copy and understand the chapters they have been assigned and will then be quizzed on those chapters. Each chapter of The Book is increasingly more difficult, and at one point they become so preposterously difficult that the reader is ultimately driven to insanity. Reading ANATHEM can have a similar effect.

Not wholly unworthy, ANATHEM will assuredly find a following. But on the whole, it pales in comparison to Stephenson's previous gems, such as SNOW CRASH, CRYPTONOMICON and The Baroque Cycle.

--- Reviewed by Stephen Hubbard

Since this is my first review and I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, this review will be short. Although difficult to read at first (you find yourself yelling at inanimate objects, husbands and cats), I found it to be one of the, if not the best, item I have read this year. And at the end, you still don't know why it was so enjoyable, but it was.

An excellent treatment of several different themes - philosophy of knowledge, role of science versus technology, nature of faith, cloistered living, and good old Science Fiction.

Some mentioned a slow start, but I found it fascinating from page one. Stephenson has done a masterful job weaving big themes into a coherent and engaging story.

I will read it for the second time very soon!

i would say not as balls to the walls enjoyable as "snow crash" and it takes a little while before things start firming up but once it does, you all of a sudden have a VERY rich world, made all the richer for the alien terminology (you'll be racking your brains for a while figuring out "earth analogs" and it becomes a fun game after a while) and a familiar but distinct history.

does indeed play off the motifs and themes in "a canticle for leibowitz" but stuffs in the mindf@#$ factor of the "2001: a space odyssey" movie, stirs in "rendezvous with rama" for taste, adds half a cup of "a brief history of time" and then throws in kung fu for luck.

and it's all still in the established style of neal stephenson: telling a fun story and then every so often stopping it cold to lay out interesting ideas, often in the form of an aristotelian dialog or something.

in another's hands, his stories and his exposition could very well end up being extremely pedantic and cold but NS keeps everything working by keeping the beating heart of humanity at the core of his work. no matter how epic the ideas, you are still involved with people you recognize and end up caring about.

it's funny, in my mind, i see lio as being a similar mental image as goto dengo from "cryptonomicon" and i see orolo and a priest in "a canticle for liebowitz" as ian holm!

the whole thing builds to a thrilling, breathless space finale that i can totally imagine being played out in cinema as a tense but MOS sequence almost where the only sound is one of mic'd breathing.

and an ending that is as self admittedly pro forma fiction as it is satisfying.

p.s. if you are inspired to learn more about ORBITAL MECHANICS from the space part of the book, http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ is a great free simulator! i'm already learning more about the stuff that stephenson introduced to me!

Like his previous works, Anathem is a bold world encompassing story. Few authors can raise your pulse and your intellect simultaneously, but Stephenson's blend of swashbuckle and science certainly does. My only regret was arriving at the last page.

...hung on an Ayn Rand framework for a 'novel' that spends a lot of it's time making expositions via characters who are more like mouthpieces. He forgets the 'love interests' for hundreds of pages, dusts them off hastily, and then hinges important plot turns on them. However, the ideas are big and there are some great moments. Of all his books, the least satisfying Stephenson read.

This book seems to be more of an experience in "look at what I can do as an author" than trying to create an engaging story like Snow Crash or Cryptonimicon. He has invented a new language which makes reading this book like trying to read a 16th century English translation of Man of La Mancha or Crime and Punishment. You will labor through every paragraph to keep track of what he is saying.

I used to really enjoy Stephenson's books, but he has moved to a different place as an author that is for a different audience that he used to target.

Neal Stepenson is my favorite novelist but this book is unreadable. Imagine taking a novel and replacing every tenth word with a nonsense word. So you basically have to learn vocabulary to read the book. A LOT of vocabulary. If I have to learn a foreign language Id rather learn Latin, it's more useful.

Great book

And for those who did not like it, they just have to shift to another reality where this book could be even better...

Anathem is not a simple book. There are plenty of pulp blockbusters for those 'slines' who might find this book "dull." Personally, I found the entire book -- including the first few chapters -- quite profound. Simply one of the best books I've ever read. It does delve quite deeply into mathematics, physics, and philosophy, but then again I do read Egan as well (his latest, Incandescent, is also quite good).

This book is quite unlike the Stephenson I've read in the past. Evidently I should not have skipped his Baroque Cycle.

As an aside: take the dust jacket off when you get the book. The binding is quite beautiful, even if it is not really cloth, nor sewn.

Neal Stephenson has written yet another mind-blowing novel, IMHO. I have read just about everything he has written, and this book is one of his best. Somehow he has produced a novel that is an amazing combination of science fiction, speculation, philosophy, mathematics, historical fiction, alternate universes/cosmi (read the book!), and character story. He's even managed to work in a love story or two as well.

A lesser author would have set this book in on Earth. Instead Stephenson has created a world that in many ways is similar to ours, and in the long run, related, with a language that hints at universalities. I found myself reading the glossary he supplies repeatedly, but that wasn't a bad thing.

I could go on with many details. I will say the book took time to get into, but patience is well rewarded. The characters are as fascinating as the world he has created. The story moves along and builds slowly and goes off in directions unexpected yet logical. I will warn you that he pulls some tricks and you are left wondering what is real and what isn't at some points, but it all works within the many many layers of thought and concept he manages to pile into this book.

Some of the storytelling is deceptively simple and straight forward. It is not as dense in the way it is written as the Baroque Cycle, but it is no less complex and fascinating. You WILL at times have to put it down as your mind comes out of an "oh WOW" response and you catch your breath. But you will enjoy it.

So altogether, if you have read any of his other work, you must read this one. Please don't be intimidated by its length. It works just fine to read it in small chunks. Enjoy!

Stephenson does a brilliant job of creating an alien yet familiar world -- which proves to be vital to the central idea of the book -- in this philo-scientific masterpiece. Setting up the world unfortunate takes a great deal of effort near the beginning, which can put off casual readers or those not willing to fully immerse themselves in the world. While reading I found myself thinking in Arbran terms (praxis, HTW, mathic) whilst going about my day to day life.

Very engaging and gives the reader much food for thought. If you're well read in philosophy, you'll have fun figuring out which Arbran philosophers are tied to which Earth philosophers...

Anathem creates a new world with a long history where Math is the basis of alternative society (as opposed to our society where it is the catholic church). The book uses this conceit to examine religion, thought, and basic philosophical questions in the most entertaining manner I have yet encountered. By providing a fresh, yet familiar, vocabulary, the author is able to strip away some of our prejudices and allow us to approach old, but relevant, questions with fresh eyes. this is a gift that is difficult to overvalue.

One of the enduring values of science fiction is the ability to examine issues of contemporary importance by recasting them in a novel setting so that we can look at them from new perspectives. Anathem succeeds in a way no other book of the genre has in a long time.

This was my favorite Neal Stephenson book yet. The mix of action and detail is excellent. Over 800 pages of great work!!

I enjoyed this book immensely. It was pretty slow going for the first 300 pages, and I was getting bogged down. Then thinks pick up significantly and I enjoyed it from there. (Ok, it got bogged down again in the "snowy" section in the middle as well.)

A very interesting book.

The best thing about Stephenson, in his other novels that I've read - all three of the Baroque Cycle, Snow Crash and, his ne plus ultra (still), Cryptonomicon - is his sense of humour combined with a detailed knowledge of what he tackles, be it history, economics, computer science or cryptology. Sadly, both the humour and knowledge are lacking here.

Well, yes, the witticism Orotho makes in the early going here about having ASD- Attention Surplus Disorder - is certainly droll. But, unless you enjoy adolescent jokes anent flatulence, the remainder of the book is arid in this respect, especially in contrast to his previous work.

I found about the two-thirds of the book to be engaging, but only because, for better or worse, I have a thorough knowledge of the history of philosophy and science, and it was fun teasing out the correspondences in Arbre to our history. An easy example: "Tredegarth: One of the Big Three convents, named after Lord Tredegarth, a mid-to-late Praxic Age theor responsible for fundamental advances in thermodynamics."p.603 - Obviously, Lord Tredegarth is Arbre's equivalent to Lord Kelvin. The others are a bit harder, but not much. Also, as should be obvious from this example, the book is a wheeze for anyone who takes delight, as I do, in etymology.

The problem with the last third of the book is that things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon Anathem: multiverses, parallel universes, page after page of tedious descriptions regarding the mechanics of space travel etc etc

Also, the writing gets a bit sloppy as Stephenson seems to take himself more and more seriously towards the end. Actually, it's been a bit sloppy since the beginning. Can someone please explain this quote (regarding the "iconographies") to me: "I'd heard of all of them, but I hadn't realized that there were so many..."? p.49

It's been my experience that anyone who tackles philosophy begins to take himself or herself a bit too seriously after a while (with the exception of a couple of the philosophers themselves, such as David Hume and Lord Russell, whom other philosophers are pleased to call names like "anti-philosophers" because they can't find any holes in their logic).

Anyway, I'm no doubt at the risk of seeming to take myself too seriously here. Let me just say that the Stephenson's Cryptonomicon remains his best work to date, in my humble opinion, and that this book, taken as a whole, is a bit of a kerfuffle. It makes too little sense and its latently sententious claims make it, on the whole, an unenjoyable read.

Curiously, and I'm not giving away the plot here, the book ends in an unresolved dispute over the old Latin aphorism: Poeta nascitur, non fit. This is odd, given that Plato (excuse please, the great Arbre philosopher Protas) banishes poets from his Republic. But, one never knows, perhaps he didn't in this parallel universe. Alas, this, like so much else in the book, is left a tangled, unresolved mess.

Three stars for the first two-thirds.

Like everyone else I love Neal Stephenson, own all of his books blah blah. I have been reading for 40 years and love SF. This just fell short for me. Not enough challenging ideas not enough humour and it just lacked something.

How entertaining it is that the reviews of Anathem posted so far perfectly mirror the societal divisions that Anathem explores! The "extras" are so very disappointed that Anathem isn't Snowcrash 2, coming soon to a "speely" near them. The "Avout" recognize that Neal is around 15 years older than when he wrote Snowcrash, and they would have been disappointed if the book failed to reflect a corresponding maturation in its author. Anyway, the range of reviews, good -and- bad, is a stronger affirmation of the book than any individual review.

Yes, it is occasionally "ponderous" as some have said, but it also has Snowcrash-esque moments, and it's amply sprinkled with Neal's always-entertaining social/techno commentary. (paraphrasing..."They put us in a real hotel...not a casino but an actual hotel.") While superficially unlike any of Neal's previous works, this reader can clearly see -all- of his previous works right through the Baroque Cycle blended in Anathem...and to great effect. It's a thought provoker first, a page turner much later, and his finest work yet, IMHO.

Compared with the 'Baroque Cycle' and 'Cryptonomicon', Stephenson's earlier works in a similar vein, I actually would call 'Anathem' both the easiest and the most rewarding. Once you get a hold of the new vocabulary in 'Anathem' (which should not take more than fifty pages or so), it's pretty smooth sailing -- not so much by virtue of its being 'easy', but because of the gripping (with tenacious tentacles) plot, the author's never-failing gift with words, and -- most of all -- the grand scope of the ideas the reader is exposed to. These are the Big Questions of philosophy, which thinkers have grappled with for centuries. If you have a background in philosophy, 'Anathem' will be familiar territory, though no less enjoyable a read; if you are, so to speak, a layman, then 'Anathem' will be even greater food for thought.

Because of its nature as a Novel of Ideas, 'Anathem' may not appeal immediately to everyone, especially those who get hives when asked to think hard, but I encourage you to give it a good long try, for lurking beneath all the philosophy is a fine plot and very lovable characters. Take a chance, and give your brain some exercise!

Wow, I loved this book! It has an interesting plot, fun details about Stephenson's world of Arbre, and fantastic theory about cosmology and multiverse theory. I loved reading every page and every few hundred pages is effectively a full, amazing novel unto itself.
I loved Stephenson's other book, Snow Crash, but this was far and above a different level of book. It may take you a little while to get through it (though personally I felt it read like a Harry Potter novel...rapidly), but it is very worth it. One of the great books I have ever read.

http://masontechbeat.blogspot.com

Neal Stephenson continues to grow as an author. Anathem creates a dense, challenging world, best explored without reference to the included timeline and glossary. It is an intelligent work written for the thoughful reader. The action is restrained, and there is significant expository dialog. The novel works on many levels, but is not SF adventure in the traditional sense. I found it extremely rewarding and is certainly a book I will re-read, probably many times.

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 quire 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)

I don't have much to add but to agree with many of the other reviews here-- this is a great Neal Stephenson book. It's hard to recommend Stephenson to the uninitiated as you never know who will get it or not, but if you liked his other novels, you'll enjoy this one as well.

For those who may be intimidated by the size, concepts and language of this book, don't be. Use the glossary liberally and frequently. (I read this on a Kindle, however, which made referring to the glossary very difficult.) After the first couple of chapters, you'll be well versed in the terms and language of Arbre. And don't be freaked out by the grand metaphysical/theoretical/philosophical concepts. You don't need to understand everything that's said to follow the plot and enjoy the book. Like all Stephenson novels, these concepts are interspaced with some great action and humor which keep the pages turning.

I'm already depressed I have to wait three/four years for the next Stephenson work.

First, of course, the caveats.

I love Neal Stephenson. I have enjoyed every one of his books. I am in awe of his talents, his knowledge, his breadth, and language. I was ecstatic when this book arrived.

Which is what makes writing this review so hard.

You can read the other reviews -- both positive and negative -- to get a feel for the story, the world, the concepts, etc. To me the missing piece is the humor. What makes Stephenson a truly great author -- and not merely another think tank'er turned writer -- is the humor. The challenge of the Baroque Series would have been interminable without the great Half-Cocked Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds. Cryptonomicon bounced beautifully between the intellect of Waterhouse and the fearless idiocy of Bobby Shaftoe. It's the humor that makes the intellectualism interesting.

It's missing here. Maybe I'm not grasping the evolving meanings of middle epoch Fluccish but I simply found this book to be boring. In short, impressive effort...but unsuccessful.

I'm a lifelong SF fan, and a huge Stephenson fan, especially considering the Baroque Cycle, which is one of the most enjoyable works of literature I've read, and damn funny, too. I liked Cryptonomicon almost equally well, wished it was a trilogy too. Didn't like Snow Crash especially back when I read it (much prefer Gibson for cyberpunk) but was expecting great things from Anathem.
Unfortunately, this book falls flat on its typeface, IMO. Believable characters and psychological truth have never been Mr. Stephenson's strong suit; rather he creates enjoyable, more-or-less cartoonish worlds, and explores interesting ideas. But here, the characters are not only implausible but shallow and mostly unlikeable. The protagonist is an oaf (and also a paragon of reason when convenient to the plot...) who undergoes many changes of scenery but no personal crises, or personal development, along the way. The rest of the characters are one-dimensional at best.
The world of Anathem is half-baked to say the least, full of logical contradictions and impossibilities that are especially galling considering that the none-too-subtle point of the book is a long lecture on critical thinking and scientific method. The world is predicated on supremely implausible first principles and assumptions, and goes downhill from there. I felt mildly insulted, and quite bored, by the "calca" both in the text and the appendices. In fact, "calca" might be a fitting description of this entire work, in several senses. I can still taste the chalk.
There is little of Stephenson's recent linguistic playfulness here, and what there is comes off clumsily- Zh'vaern? Please. I still cringe recalling the "saunt/savant" dialogue... It's all really forced and awkward, where BC was fluid and joyful.
The science of the Hedron is all wrong as well, which is again frustrating for a book that is really all about the interface of science and society, coming from a guy who is so clearly passionate about science, and so smart.
The worst thing I could say is that this reminded me of the unevenness and flaws of Snow Crash, but without any of the fun or clever ideas. Ouch.
I could go on, but that's my opinion. If you've got 900 pages worth of Stephenson to read, I'd suggest Cryptonomicon. Better yet, warm up with that and then read the incomparable Baroque Cycle- perhaps even twice, like I did. But give Anathem a miss.
I'll be looking forward to Mr Stephenson's next book, which will hopefully be far more fun. Actually, all up, I think he should stick to historical fiction. I would love to see him undertake a trilogy set in Medieval Europe, perhaps exploring the Crusades and the origins of the Zero...

"Anathem" is a giant doorstop of a novel that manages to remain interesting, even compelling, throughout its entire length. It is difficult to review it without giving spoilers. As the novel begins, we meet Fraa Erasmus, the equivalent of a monk, in monastic seclusion. However, on Arbre, unlike Earth, the cloistered orders are scientific and philosophical, and the "secular" world outside is the religious world. We see Arbre through his eyes, and one of the interesting aspects of "Anathem" is how one would perceive a society based on only seeing bits of it on short occasions, as opposed to being immersed it in as a participant. I'll stop there in describing the plot; other reviews have done a better job than I have, and you will enjoy it more the less you read about the details of the plot.

Stephenson has often been criticized for the endings, or perceived lack thereof, of his novels. I used to agree with that criticism, until I returned to some of his works and "got it" the second time around. Nonetheless, "Anathem" includes a more conventional ending that most readers will find satisfactory.

The idea of "more conventional" may explain why some readers did not like "Anathem" as well as some of Stephenson's past works. Most notably, "Anathem" lacks the digressions and diversions that have characterized his previous novels - from the chapter in "Cryptonomicon" about eating a bowl of Captain Crunch, to virtually all of the Baroque Cycle. Indeed, the Baroque Cycle didn't have a plot so much as thousands of pages of stuff happening - the journey itself was the destination. In contrast, "Anathem" is much more tightly plotted and rarely gets off-track in the course of 900 pages.

"Anathem" is SF as literature, or literature with SF elements. Although hard science is part of the story, this is not a hardware-dominated novel - in contrast to "The Diamond Age" or "Snow Crash." As such, people who do not read much SF may find this to be accessible and interesting. I recommend it highly to anyone who likes interesting, thoughtful writing.

If you are already a Neal Stephenson fan, you will probably read this from beginning to end, but I doubt if it will bring in new fans. It is a book set in the distant future, in a planet with an earthlike past of nuclear wars and environmental disaster. His hero is a member of an order of atheistical, rational monks, who live in enclosed monasteries, only rarely emerging. The planet is threatened by aliens from a different universe that interpenetrates with the universe of the novel. The narrative is simple, but packed with allusions to current (21st Century Earth) intellectual ideas. I am interested to see where Stephenson goes next. I still don't think he has surpassed Cryptomonicon.

I just finished Anathem, so I am giving my initial reaction. It has been noted by some other reviewers that the book took about 200 pages to get to the core of the plot. This is true. For me this was not a problem. The "Mathic" world that Stephenson introduces us to is intricate and well constructed. I found the unveiling of the world through its rituals and language to be fascinating.

Unfortunately, I started to lose interest in the book once the core plot became apparent. I can't say the plot was bad, since in comparison to many other sci-fi books it was excellent. It's just that the plot was not one of the best in comparison to Stephenson's other novels.

My main complaint is this: Stephenson built up such an interesting, intricate and DIFFERENT world, that it was a disappointment to see the plot become so conventional. Certainly, details of the world carry through the entire book, and on whole the book is well put together. But, I just felt that with such an interesting world, a less conventional plot would have worked better.

Nevertheless, this book like many other Stephenson novels has a lot of interesting ideas, very interesting language, solid characters and is very well written. It is well worth your time to read. I give it four stars because Stephenson has done better in the past, but this book is still likely the best sci-fi novel that has come out this year. I wouldn't be surprised if it wins a Hugo.

Just finished Anathem. I'll let you read the other reviews for content. As with other Stephenson novels (at least his more recent ones) he uses the story to convey interesting ideas. Here Stephenson is interested in the intersection of metaphysics and quantum theory. But the story moves right along, and his characters are very human. Name of the Rose meets Gödel, Escher, Bach in a sense, with some Learning the World mixed in. But it doesn't bog down. There is plenty of action, and a fair bit of Stephenson's humor. I got a kick out of every time they talked about the "monyafeeks."

Just finished Anathem. I'll let you read the other reviews for content. As with other Stephenson novels (at least his more recent ones) he uses the story to convey interesting ideas. Here Stephenson is interested in the intersection of metaphysics and quantum theory. But the story moves right along, and his characters are very human. Name of the Rose meets Gödel, Escher, Bach in a sense, with some Learning the World mixed in.

Neal Stephenson's new book, "Anathem", shows he's once again left the bounds of traditional Spec-Fic behind. Just as with the Baroque Cycle, wherein the reader, initially disappointed at the absence of VR and nanobots, eventually recognises that an 'historical' novel from a rationalist's POV, is a kind of backward-looking sci-fi story about the planet Earth, Stephenson takes us beyond Herbert's world-building and gives us the SF novel as a 'Principia Mathematica' of sociology.
I've read, in the NYTimes Book Review, that Neal's new book doesn't contain sufficient story-telling for their tastes. That's the trouble with the non-SF reader, they never understand that the Ideas are the story in speculative fiction. Mr. Stephenson's video interview even has him apologizing for the wordiness of some of the book's threads. I think he's being too hard on himself. When Sci-Fi gets too artsy for its own good, the fresh perspectives and original thoughts get shorter shrift. Look at Clarke and Asimov--talk about some stilted writing--but they got their ideas through to readers. Mr. Stephenson is more an artist where those earlier writers, by necessity, were teachers of sorts. Therefore, he's more likely to be misunderstood by the marketplace (artists always are). Nevertheless, for those of us who enjoy taking our cerebellums out for a walk in the fresh air, there is no better writer working today and this, his latest book, walks farther than I've ever been before. I believe Neil's only problem will be topping himself ever again.

As a fan of Stephenson since I first read his post-cyberpunk masterpiece Snow Crash in '93, I was looking forward to his return to sci-fi, but was worried about his increasing tendency to fall too in love with ideas (and his own writing) at the expense of the story. I felt his earlier works struck a nice balance between ideas, storytelling, and action, but beginning with Cryptonomicon and peaking with The Baroque Cycle, I felt his overly descriptive writing style sometimes bogged down his otherwise amazing stories.

Anathem, however, kept me captivated from beginning to end. It's a little bit of a chore for the first 100 pages or so, getting acclimated to the world and language of Arbre, but for me that was part of the fun. Alot of people criticized the first-person perspective of the story, but that just helped draw me in and relate with what Raz was experiencing when he stepped outside the concent's walls for the first time in 10 years to begin his adventure across the globe.

The scientific and philosophical concepts are well-integrated into the story, and the intellectual battles between members of the concent are as intense as most action sequences in other books. Stephenson definitely has a gift for making you care about the same things his characters care about.

But even though this is in large part a novel of ideas, there is a fair amount of action here, including some excellent martial-arts sequences, which Stephenson seems to have a special knack for. Also, the momentum of the ever-evolving plot never really slows down, even when the story delves deep into quantum theory or existential philosophy. For me this was a totally immersive reading experience, much more of a page-turner than his most recent books(as much as I enjoyed them.) And if you're anything like me, you'll be thinking about this book, it's characters, and it's concepts long after you've finished it.

bends your mind like an analemnna. at times it lags during third person theoretical sessions but when there actually is some action the theor comes together.

ive read all the other reviews and there isnt much i can say in the way of anything new. i guess that makes me a anathem lorrite hahaha. but i suggest putting a book mark at the glossary section in the back and flipping to it when ever you get confused by a word. by the time you get to chapter 3 or 4 you will be pretty much on top of all the vocab. also there are some detailed and heavy concepts that do get confusing but i dont think anyone should get hung up on it. if you can get a general idea of what is trying to be said youll do fine with the rest of it, its not like you are getting the book thrown at you and need to grasp the proofs to the point of having to pass a quiz by the hierarchs

It's been almost ten years since I read my first book by Stephenson. Snow Crash and The Diamond Age were entertaining, with innovative ideas mixed in with attention-grabbing action. Indeed, I struggled with Snow Crash because I thought it the literary equivalent of a comic book. I don't like comic books.

Since then, Stephenson has chosen to explore deeper and more complex ideas. If you're looking for action and adventure, Anathem will satisfy only in part. Here, the real meat is in the book's exploration of and observations on topics such as popular culture, philosophy, the philosophy of science, consciousness, and religion. Read Anathem not to be entertained, but to think.

As a member of the Long Now Foundation, I'm totally biased. I loved this book.

It's been a couple of weeks since I finished reading the Anathem, and I am still discussing it and the concepts it brings up with my friends.

Note: The beginning of the book moves a little slowly, then quickly picks up. I suggest that you withhold judgement of the book until you've reached the part of the story where the 10 year gates close.

i'm a huge neal stephenson fan - i think snow crash & cryptonomicon are amazing novels, & the baroque cycle is as awesome, enjoyable, & fun as anything i've ever read...

that said, anathem is a pretty terrible book. it feels very contrived, very impersonal, & very humorless. there are some interesting concepts present, but, owing to the weakness of the overall narrative, they pretty much exist in a vacuum...

i felt i needed to read this, or i'd always be kind of curious about it. well, now i've read it, &, if you're a stephenson fan contemplating reading it, i have to say, in all honesty, seriously - don't bother...

sorry, neal :( ...

Ambitious in scope but leaves several elements of story undeveloped and seems to overly focus on minutia of daily life of main character's community. Would be nice to read a tighter, more coherent story.

The story in Anathem takes place on a kind of alternative earth ("Arbre") where sholars ("Avouts") have sealed themselves off in closterlike milieus ("Concent") from the outside society ("The Saecular"). We soon learn that this has gone on for thousands of years, and that civilisation has developed, flourished and degenerated several times. Only on very rare occasions ("Apert") do the doors to the Concents for ten days and it's maths open for the saeculars. We follow fraa Erasmas, a young avout in the Concent of Saunt Edhard in year 3689, after the so called Reconstitution, awaiting the new Apert when he will meet his family for the first time in ten years. The scope widens as several avouts are called on by the Saecular to help solve a problem or crisis. And a strange object has been spotted on the sky... The word "Anathem" refers to when an avout is cast out from the Concent.

Some reviewers have been irritated by the use of alternative words in Anathem and even refused to read the book to its end. I would say that the frustration diminishes after about 100+ pages, but before that the reader has to go to the glossary. But if you read the whole book you will find that these alternative words have a clever function in the story, besides giving it a certain flavor. Also, many of them could almost be real alternatives: "speely" for movie, "theorics" for theoretical work, "syndev" (synthetic device) for computer and so on.

The book is too long though, at 890 pages. I found the first 200-300 pages very good. Here Stephenson introduces the scenario with the Concents and the Saecular, and gives hints of the history of Arbre. The part when Erasmas goes out in the saecular world to visit his family, and is confronted with it's vulgarity, is good. Then a couple of hundred pages follow that are more action-based, and I think that part could have been shortened a lot. The last 300 pages are a little uneven. Dialogues between the scholars are quite interesting (but sometimes longwinded), and here we are introduced to a theory of alternative realities with pieces of the philosophy of Plato.

The characters seems a little flat, but this is usual in idea-driven SF and Fantasy and did not bother me too much. I had only read Snow Crash before this, and Anathem is written in a more slow paced style and not so crammed with cool high-tech gadgets (but they appear here too a few hundred pages in). Also, as an alternative Earth scenario Anathem opens to reflections and questions about our own world and society. For example: should we let the scientists and scholars rule the world instead of the incompetent politicians (the "panjandrums" as they are called in the book), or is it better to have the best minds sealed inside their own cities without access to high technology?

All in all, a fascinating and well written scenario, a good plot that weaves all parts together nicely, but too long. 4 stars.