Anathem

US hardcover, 1st edition.

Anathem is a speculative fiction novel by Neal Stephenson, published on 2008-09-09.

In the book takes place in a distant future where a series of religious wars have brought about a major schism between secular science and religious science. Secular science focuses mostly on technology and how it can be applied to consumers and is taught to the masses, while the religious science focuses on the philosophical aspects and is maintained and studied in convents in hopes of finding a purer form.

Personal

Having already become a fan of Stephenson's work, I decided to read this book.

Status

I own a US first edition hardcover of this book. I'm currently listening to the audio book read by Oliver Wyman.

Review

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The dialogues that the characters frequently get into where they nitpick, use analogies, and cite previous scholars reminds me very much of the enjoyable dialogues I've had with my more erudite friends.

Ugly

• The massive amount of new words you have to learn to understand what's going on in the book is very off-putting. In addition to needing to learn a lot about cathedral terminology, you have to learn scores of new words that have existing human analogs. I get that the book is meant to take place in a different time and is told from the perspective of convent members who aren't supposed to know much about secular terms, it really wasn't necessary to use a different name for film, phone, and various other common terms. This is just obfuscation for its own sake. For the first ten chapters of so, I was debating if I should give up on the book. Luckily, the story became interesting to hold my attention so I kept at it and slowly absorbed the terms.

Media

Covers

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  Hardcover - USA - 1st edition.

Links