Sneak Peek At Neal Stephenson's "Anathem"

Shawn M. Smith writes "Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon, The Baroque Cycle) has a new novel coming out in just a couple weeks — Anathem. Boing Boing has an excerpt from the amazing glossary (including a definition for 'bulshytt') so take a peek at a copy of an abridged glossary of neologisms and language-bending goodies from the book."

Comments

Hmmm....

[Otter]

For people wondering whether this book was going to be breathtaking like Snow Crash or excruciating like the Baroque books -- apparently it's going to be more like Quicksilver-meets-The Silmarillion. I'm thinking this is at best a "Wait to get it from the library" book.

Re:Hmmm....

[SputnikPanic]

I've got my hold placed already and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it. I'm re-reading Cryptonomicon right now and I very much hope that Anathem represents a returning to form for Stephenson.

I slogged through most of Quicksilver before a busy time at work gave me the excuse I needed to put the book down. There was some particular quality to the writing in Cryptonomicon -- I can't quite put my finger on it, but it seemed to be missing from Quicksilver. For instance, there's this passage in Crypto that I absolutely loved:

[Shaftoe] gets [Glory] to the apartment, which is usually in a state of hysterical uproar even when the nation is not under military assault by the Empire of Nippon. Despite this, the appearance of Glory, shortly after the outbreak of war, borne in the arms of a United States Marine, is received by the Altamiras in much the same way as if Christ were to materialize in the center of their living room with the Virgin Mary slung over his back.

Nothing in my 500 pages of Quicksilver seemed to sparkle like that.

Re:Hmmm....

[Maximalist]

Well, I for one happened to like the whole of the Baroque Cycle... but then again I'm from that strangest faction of geeks, the historians of science.

If history of science doesn't do it for you, then I can see not loving the Baroque as much as Crypto, which covers the whole '90s boom startup thing, which may be more familiar to most /. readers.

Re:Hmmm....

[iplayfast]

While I agree that the Baroque Cycle trilogy was a more difficult read then Cryptonomicon I felt that it stood on it's own as a good and accurate historical fiction.

I thought that describing the diseases available at the time was interesting. We get kidney stones, they get bladder stones, which do not pass and will kill you.

The scene where Westinghouse is going through the flea infected rooms during the plague in order to pick up some experiment for Robert Hook was really creepy. (You could hear them ticking off your boots...)

Yes there was more to digest, and didn't have as much action/adventure it did have a fair share.

How about the intelligence test, where they were trying to get through a country. They were taken to the side one by one and shown a gun. If they knew what the gun was, they were immediately drafted into that countries army. If you were intelligent you would feign ignorance and be rejected for use in the armed forces.

There was a lot of good stuff in those books. You just can't read them over a weekend.

Re:Hmmm....

[radarsat1]

I felt the same way. I absolutely loved reading the Baroque Cycle books, I couldn't put them down. Now I'm reading that lots of people didn't enjoy them, which is too bad, but I really found them, if not profound, then really fun to read.

Particularly the last book, when he got into the history of economics, which I found both fascinating and entertaining. It felt like I learned a lot, maybe not about factual history, but about the history of how people have thought about things like money and politics, and how this history might have affected how we currently think about these things.

Re:Hmmm....

[solinari]

I was able to pick up an advanced reader copy and I've already read it cover to cover 3 times. I was asked not to relate any spoilers, so I'll stay away from any specifics. However if you're holding out for a return of Reason or hoping to find thugs with implanted skull guns ... I'm afraid you'll be a little disappointed.

There is a definite break from the action style of the Baroque cycle (which I also enjoyed). While Anathem is quite heavy compared to Stephenson's early works, the areas of hard theory transition smoothly into action and character development (rather than, say, having a chapter break and switching off Waterhouse with Half-@%^* Jack ;))

If I was going to compare it to any of his other books, I think it's the closest a rewrite of the Cryptonomicon with a focus on linguistics and philosophy rather than cryptography. Instead of a dissertation on quantom physics, you may simply find that Raz is both alive and dead ...

Oops, I may have said too much! ;)

So if you are into philosophy or linguistics or you liked Cryptonomicon without being a cryptography geek, you will definitely enjoy Anathem. Oh and don't forget the CD full of monk chants ... I highly recommend having them ripped and ready to queue up for the appropriate spots of the story because you won't want to leave your chair to go find them.

Re:Hmmm....

[ideonode]

I can provide a quick review. I read my copy (a pre-release ARC) a month or two ago.

First things first - the accompanying CD isn't brilliant. If you want some atmospheric music to listen to while reading the book, then get some Gregorian chant.

The book is a departure from both the post-cyberpunk sci-fi of Snow Crash and the historical counter-factuals of the Baroque Cycle. If nothing else, at least Neal Stephenson is keeping fresh in his narrative direction.

I'm not going to go into spoiler territory here, but I will say that my guess is that it will disappoint a lot of geeks. The book is actually very heavily based around philosophical concepts, with not a great deal of action, and technology itself playing an ancilliary role to experiments of the mind.

Does Stephenson end this novel well? Yes, far more cleverly than in previous novels. Note: I didn't say "more satisfactorily". How the narrative strands of the novel tie up at the end is well thought out.

I think it was Umberto Eco who said that the first 100 pages of his novel, The Name of the Rose was a challenge, and only dedicated readers who persevered would be rewarded. I think that this applies equally to Anathem. The comparisons to Eco don't end there - this is very much a novel of ideas. Not all of them original, but certainly originally executed.

  If it were a drink, it'd be a complicated whisky. Not to everyon'e taste, and certainly needing to be appreciated in small doses with adequate contemplation. But ultimately rewarding.

Advice: Don't Read the Article, Do Read the Book

[Relic of the Future]

I know it's probably not necessary to say, since "no one RTFA on /.", but advice I share to you from my librarian-girlfriend (who got an advanced copy at the ALA) is DO NOT READ THE GLOSSARY. She says a lot of the enjoyment she got from the book was first encountering the neologisms in context. The glossary is there for reading afterward, or if you really just can't figure out the meaning of something and feel like you're missing out.

(She's done with the book, I plan to pick up her copy soon.)

Re:Please, no Shaftoe/Waterhouse

[Free the Cowards]

That whole Baroque Cycle thing is extremely strange. Some people really enjoy it and some people really don't, and I can't figure out what makes the difference.

I'm in the "really don't enjoy it" column. I'm a big Stephenson fan. I loved Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and even Zodiac. I even found a copy of The Big U, although I realized my mistake relatively quickly.

So of course when Quicksilver came out I got a copy immediately, hardcover, and started reading.

Well, it was a real slog. I finished it, but I wasn't real happy with it. I kind of gave up on the rest of the series.

Of course later on I read about how The Confusion was better, so I picked up a copy. Same story. Now I was really discouraged with the whole thing.

But the story had enough grip on me that I couldn't just let it go. So finally, not too long ago, I got a copy of The System of the World out of the library and set about finishing the series.

I got about halfway through that book before I decided that there was absolutely no way I was going to finish, I couldn't possibly care what happened to any of these people, and I was done.

And here we are today.

So I'm cautious about this whole Anathem thing. I really hope it's a return to form, but if it's anything like the Baroque Cycle then I'm going to let it go.