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Sneak Peek At Neal Stephenson's "Anathem"

Posted by timothy on from the canticle-for-leibowitz-comes-to-mind dept.

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."

5 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmm.... by Otter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    1. Re:Hmmm.... by iplayfast · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:Hmmm.... by radarsat1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

    3. Re:Hmmm.... by solinari · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

  2. Advice: Don't Read the Article, Do Read the Book by Relic+of+the+Future · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.)

    --
    Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.