Comments on: Books You Should Read : Anathem

By: BruceR

BruceR — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 05:54:12 +0000

My experience with Anathem was as follows: about a week to read the first 200 pages, 2 days to read the last 700 pages, and 2 days to re-read the entire book. I had just finished re-reading “Snow Crash” for the first time in several years, and Anathem could not be more different, so it took a while for the world of Arbre to penetrate. (A short aside: Snow Crash just gets more relevant every time I read it – it will have to be reclassified as non-fiction pretty soon!) Anathem is certainly one of the most thought-provoking works of fiction that I’ve read in a while, and although I could certainly quibble over some aspects of the plot, there’s a whole lot to love about this book.

By: Andrew Hickey

Andrew Hickey — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:08:53 +0000

I’ve read a chunk since then. It gets better. It turns into a story about Hypertime… (don’t worry, I’m not ‘spoiling’ anything…

By: Duncan

Duncan — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:47:42 +0000

Hh. I’m at almost the exact same point as you, maybe about p.450 or so, coincidentally, and am surprised to find myself thrilling over a book largely about geometry. Fuck, if it’s used to find spaceships, though… it’s the Boy’s Own booster I need to deal with Plato, Leibniz and them.

By: Matthew J. Brady

Matthew J. Brady — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:05:29 +0000

I agree about Anathem, and Stephenson in general; I really think he’s one of the best living writers, and he never fails to astonish me with his books. Anathem is just amazingly excellent, and I love pretty much everything about it. Good reading.

Oh, and Dave, I definitely disagree about the “filler” aspect of the Baroque cycle; it’s all a big, glorious concentration of Stephensonian descriptiveness, plotting, characters, and setpieces; I wouldn’t have it any other way.

By: Dave Page

Dave Page — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:36:09 +0000

I’d be interested to read that; I’ve finally got the energy to plough through the remaining volumes of the Baroque Trilogy, and while it’s all very entertaining and diverting, I can’t help but think that most of it is witty filler and that the trilogy would be better served condensed into one volume.