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Science Informer - Anathem
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List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $16.75
Your Save: $ 13.20 ( 44% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: William Morrow
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780061474095
ISBN: 0061474096
Label: William Morrow
Manufacturer: William Morrow
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 960
Publication Date: 2008-09-01
Publisher: William Morrow
Release Date: 2008-09-09
Studio: William Morrow
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: what a windbag
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sadly disappointing
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This book is wonderful
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: ANATHEM will assuredly find a following
Comment: 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
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sci-Fi equivalent of Eco's Name of the Rose
Comment: 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!
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Editorial Reviews:
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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.
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