Anathem

by Stephenson, Neal
ISBN: 9780061694943
4.3 (3)
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Used - Trade Paperback - 9780061694943

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Overview

A #1 New York Times Bestseller, Anathem is perhaps the most brilliant literary invention to date from the incomparable Neal Stephenson, who rocked the world with Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and The Baroque Cycle. Now he imagines an alternate universe where scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians live in seclusion behind ancient monastery walls until they are called back into the world to deal with a crisis of astronomical proportions.

Anathem won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and the reviews for have been dazzling: "Brilliant" (South Florida Sun-Sentinel), "Daring" (Boston Globe), "Immensely entertaining" (New York Times Book Review), "A tour de force" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), while Time magazine proclaims, "The great novel of ideas...has morphed into science fiction, and Neal Stephenson is its foremost practitioner."

  • Format: TradePaperback
  • Author: Stephenson, Neal
  • ISBN: 9780061694943
  • Condition: Used
  • Dimensions: 7.90 x 1.80
  • Number Of Pages: 1024
  • Publication Year: 2010

Customer Reviews

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5 ★   67%
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3 ★   33%
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4.3
3 Ratings

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  • Triumph of the science-monks!

    Alex B. - 2 years 7 months ago

    On a planet somehow more polarized than our own, civilization has divided itself into two castes: The Saeculars--people as we know them, more or less--and the Avout--bookish misfits unwanted by lay society. The Avout are content to advance their knowledge under imposed asceticism, segregated into monastic communities centered around giant clocks, surrounded by stone walls as the outside world spins its wheels in a never-ending cycle of apocalypse and rebirth. Our narrator is witness to a monumental discovery that will go through the millennia-old status quo into upheaval. Equal parts rollicking sci-fi action comedy and philosophical treatise, Stephenson's novel uses a fantastic setting to relate a message of cooperation across political, religious, and intellectual boundaries that grows ever more relevant with each passing year. A substantial attention span is required, as the epic tale unfolds over the course of 900 pages filled with imagined vocabulary and history, but the effort is well worth it.

    HPB Staff Review

  • All time favorite sci-fi novel

    Robert L. - 3 years 7 months ago

    This lengthy but totally worth it sci-fi novel is my all time fave! For the first couple hundred pages the reader will make the long and arduous journey of learning the book specific history and even vocabulary (a glossary is provided in the back of the book). Once you have put in the work of learning this alien environment and the author has you right where he wants you, you are then smacked in the face with a mind bending sci-fi space thriller that is both highly intelligent and incredibly imaginative. Totally worth the journey. Highly recommended!

    HPB Staff Review

  • More for fans of exhaustive diatribes on science and philosophy than sci-fi readers.

    Chris C. - 5 years ago

    Remember when Stephenson could get all his tremendous ideas and style out in 4-500 pages with masterpieces of sci-fi like "The Diamond Age" and "Snowcrash"? Those days are long gone as he pretty much exclusively drops 900+ page ponderous tomes. And 'ponderous' sometimes really is the key word, as it is with "Anathem". While there's not question to Stephenson's intelligence, his obsession with explaining every concept out to the point where sometimes you feel you're reading a scholarly textbook and not a novel, becomes extremely tiresome. Anathem explores a fascinating world of the distant future, and all the ways we are still the same, but man there is a LOT of unnecessary diatribes about philosophy, and any number of the higher sciences to get through to reach the meat of the story, and even then, prepare for more. I would suggest this more to fans of Umberto Eco than to typical sci-fi readers, but for those who love stuff like "Foucault's Pendulum", this will be right up your alley.