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"Anathem" Exclusive Video At MySpace
Shawn M. Smith writes "We've recently discussed Neal Stephenson's imminent new novel 'Anathem.' Now, MySpace has an exclusive video, The World of Anathem, that accompanies the book, filled with the 'Gregorian chants' and ambient noise that were so eloquently described by numerous Slashdotters who had scored advance copies of Stephenson's latest tome."
This is the end, no more posts!
Neal Stephenson's books have always been very compelling to me. This one looks to be astonishing. And actually, I think it is the first time that I have ever seen a video introduce a book. It actually makes me want to read it all that much more and wonder if they will actually make a movie of this.
Just add {In Space!} to anything.
One description of the chants is that they are based on mathematics. If this is interesting to you, you might want to check out a band call Slint. They tried to create a kind of fractal timing where different threads would converge and digress over time. Dark intense and interesting music.
Is this a parody? Or...? I can't imagine N. Stephenson signing off on this. I'm not a big fan of reading a synopsis ahead of time; if I hear good things about it I'll buy it and read it. The jocks in football jerseys sort of ruined any idea of the book being good. Or is this written in the tongue-in-cheek style of Snow Crash?
moox. for a new generation.
I'm glad that Stephenson finally figured out that it wasn't postcyberpunk or historic fiction that was his genre - it was battle monk epic.
I like his writing, but the video is more of an anathema.
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
I've never heard of this Stevenson guy
...dude, how many free minutes do you have left on your AOL account?
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
Myspace? Really? That's what Stephenson thinks is the closest thing we have to the Metaverse? This must be the idea of some tool at the publishing company, this can't be Neal's ... can it?
Oh, and hat video was so bad I think it gave me cancer. Super let down from the Snow Crash Universe with cars with enough potential energy to put a pound of bacon in the asteroid belt and side-car nukes and dual samurai swords and dentanas...
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
...they just watched a bad college film project?
How do you get an advance copy of Anathem? Amazon just pushed back delivery on my pre-ordered copy, and without the book, it's hard to see how this audio stuff fits in.
That's not Picasso, that's Kandinsky!
A rash of "quotes" broke out of locked compound today and have been rampaging across various websites. Many feared that "The quotes" (as the gang was known inside) would seek to liberate their brethren leading to misattribution and thus striking a blow against punctuation.
"The quotes" have now been sighted on several Slashdot stories with many wondering if there is a pattern to their current appearances. Police say that "even 'single quote' should not be approached lightly as other gang members may be close by".
I can't help but feel that a trailer beginning with the phrase "In an world..." is particularly poignant today, given that the real 'In a world' voiceover guy, Don LaFontaine, just passed away. Not the same without those gravelly, dulcet tones.
What else?
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
TZ
None of that was Gregorian chanting. Does anyone know of a dojo where I can learn that robe-fighting technique?
There are no gregorian chants in the video. The author's name is Stephenson, not Stevenson; and eloquence is generally not an attribute one assigns to slashdotters! (I jest...)
That video was terrible. Someone above mentioned a college video project, high school seems to be a more appropriate designation.
At least there's one good omen this year, which is that the book comes out on my birthday.
"Avout" and "Saecular"?
I shut the video off right there. We need better writers than that.
Have you read the book?
The problem is that is how the book is marketed, but it is not about that at all.
Knowledge has destroyed the world several times, knowledge created by the avout and released into the public.
The avout are kept separate so that any knowledge that they create can be filtered, and they are not allowed to practically apply any knowledge that they have.
Every time the saecular world destroys the avout (called Sacks) it is because the avout invented something that lead to near destruction of the people, or fear of that destruction. Such as something cute called "Everything Killers" which essentially would be like nuclear anthrax. IE little bundles of this could be spread, each little bundle able to kill anything (or everything) biological within some very broad radius (say a football field) but the little bundles are about the size of a pin.
Since these "everything" killers were used at one point, everyone has been relatively afraid of those able to generate the knowledge for such things. At least that is some of what I got out of the books. The avout are left around because their society is stable and the outside world periodically destroys itself, and during times of rebuilding its nice to have a group with knowledge around, otherwise i get the feeling from the book that the avout would have been destroyed outright several times.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
i read the first few chapters and lost interest. When does the story start?
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!