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| Anathem | 
 enlarge | Author: Neal Stephenson
Publisher: William Morrow
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $16.77
You Save: $13.18 (44%)
New (52) Used (21) Collectible (2) from $13.85
Avg. Customer Rating:  94 reviews
Sales Rank: 406
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 960
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.8
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.5 x 2.2
ISBN: 0061474096
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780061474095
ASIN: 0061474096
Publication Date: September 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Interesting, solid, but not as fun ... September 10, 2008
21 out of 24 found this review helpful
Neal Stephenson has matured as a writer, which is good, but I think his writing has lost some of its charm. Stephenson creates a detailed, self-consistent world, full of some very interesting ideas, and that can't have been easy, but this book is almost wholly without the little turns of phrase and two page digressions on Captain Crunch which I so enjoyed in his previous work. There's no: "I'm sure they'll listen to Reason", or even a "Once again, Waterhouse is pleased to see his commanding officer displaying signs of a tasteful and expensive education." It's a good, solid work with some interesting ideas, but it's not as fun as some of his older stuff.
 Stephenson stays true to form and blows our minds September 9, 2008
17 out of 21 found this review helpful
If I could, I'd give it a four and a half, but since I can't, I'll round up.
Anathem is... actually, I don't know exactly what Anathem is. If you like Dune, you'll fall in love. If you liked the Da Vinci Code, well, look elsewhere. The story, when it gets going, is exciting and relatively fast-paced and all that. But it takes some 600-700 pages to get there, during which time you are immersed in the world of Arbre and its native culture. The first few pages are chock-full of in-world jargon a la A Clockwork Orange, and it will be difficult to read. (Not to worry-- there is a glossary, and selections from the Arbran dictionary appear throughout the text) Once you break through the wall of comprehension, though, you'll see that this book is even more ambitious than The Baroque Cycle-- where the Baroque Cycle took about one hundred years of real history and made it alive, Anathem takes eight thousand years of fictional history and makes it as relevant and meaningful as anything from the Cycle. Alas, there's really not that much I can say about the plot of the book itself that wouldn't give things away too quickly. But trust me-- slog through the initial phase and you won't be disappointed (I know I wasn't, and I'm a pretty harsh book critic.)
The book is not without its flaws (and perhaps someday when I am feeling less charitable, I will update this to reflect them). But they are minor flaws on a near-perfect diamond and don't diminish the beauty or power of the book.
Challenging and Rewarding September 9, 2008
15 out of 20 found this review helpful
I usually read with the television on, or at least some music playing. I read this book in a quiet room with zero distractions. It does not go quickly, and attention is required. Instead of chapter titles, this book separates chapters with "dictionary" definitions of words, many of which Stephenson has invented for this book.
The early pages can be arduous, with much mental energy spent learning the new vocabulary and absorbing the world. The reader's work begins to pay off at the one-third point, and continues to pay off throughout.
If you're a Stephenson reader, this is a similar reading experience to that of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle. Slow, dense, but ultimately rewarding.
 Waste of time, space, and space-time September 21, 2008
14 out of 33 found this review helpful
I used to love Neal's work, and I still think Snowcrash is one of the best SF novels ever written. But Anathem...I did not get it. I read about 150 pages of excruciating and meaningless description, all couched in cranium-grinding alternate vocabulary, only to wait for the big something to happen. It never did, I began skipping paragraphs...then pages...then chapters .
In browsing the other reviews, people seem to agree that this is a philo-scientifical masterpiece "if you can make it through the first 300 pages". Wow. I'm yearning for the old Neal, whence steroid-pumped gargoyles harpoon cars to go skating and then conspire with cool historian computer programs to bring down despotic mind-control floating island cults out in the ocean.
Don't get me wrong, I have a few doctoral degrees and love an intellectual challenge. But, Anathem was no fun at all.
Disappointingly unreadable September 21, 2008
13 out of 29 found this review helpful
As a fan of Stephenson's other works, I excitedly looked forward to digging in to this one. I write this review after simply giving up after the first 100 or so pages. It is filled with too many made-up words that require re-reading or referring to the references found in the book. Think Jabberwocky and Dr Seuss, but implemented in a lengthy novel. This is simply too distracting to allow me to try and involve myself in the story. Perhaps I'll try to tackle it again some day, but for now this book gets stored away unread on a sheft to collect dust. Very disappointing.
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