Anathem

US hardcover, 1st edition.

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

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 truth. It focuses on a 19-year-old who has lived in the convent for the past 10 years without any contact with the outside world. Unusual changes begin to occur in his convent, and his mentor if kicked out which he and his friends reason must be because he was studying forbidden information. They decide to figure out what he was studying and stumble upon something world-changing.

Personal

Having already become a fan of Stephenson's work, I decided to read this book. I very quickly became turned off by all the jargon, but the nerd in me still found the world to be fascinating, so I stuck with it.

Status

I own a US first edition hardcover of this book. I've listened 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 erudite friends.
• There is something rather romantic about the idea of having a church of knowledge where adherents spend all of their time learning meaningful wisdom and thinking up new ideas without being hassled by pop culture. And, just like how I imagine it would work in real life, in the story, it devolves into dogma.
• Stephenson is very good at writing detailed and believable characters, and this book was no exception.
• There are a lot of tense action scenes, especially when they reach in space.
• I love how terms like "crap" and "bulshytt" have become technical jargon.
• The world-burner is a pretty scary threat.
• The late reveal, that some of the aliens are actually Earthlings, and Arbre has always been the real alien world, is a nice idea.
• The Millennials, being able to control their role in the multiverse, is a very interesting idea, as is how Stephenson controls their ability to do so.

Bad

• Because there is so much unknown backstory and technical jargon, the characters are constantly using indirect exposition in their dialogue. A little sprinkled in organically is great, but the amount Stephenson had to use for the reader to make sense of the world, makes it feel artificial.
• Like with most of Stephenson's novels, this one could use some paring down. If it were around 100 pages fewer, I don't think we would miss much. For example, the long journey across the North Pole was pretty dull.
• The book is a bro-fest. Nearly every character is male, and none of the females are intrinsic to the plot. Ala serves almost as a reward.
• The idea of rogue spam bots was neat, but introduced far too late to be of any consequence. Same with the Everything Killers in the people who boarded the Icosahedron. It is hinted that the Saecular Power might give the order to detonate them, but it never comes up.
• Erasmus says "anyway," too many times.
• Neal Stephenson really should have hired a voice actor to read the dictionaries entries in the audiobook for him.

Ugly

• The massive amount of new words you have to learn to understand what's going on in the book is very off-putting. There are even many "new" words that are just replacements for words with acceptable analogs like "movie" and "mobile phone." And, even if you are already familiar with the jargon of religion and cathedrals, it won't help because many of those words that would fit perfectly have been replaced as well. I get that the book is set in a very different time and place and is told from the perspective of convent members who aren't supposed to know much about secular terms, but most of it feels like obfuscation for its own sake. For the first ten chapters or so, I was debating if I should give up on the book. Luckily, the story became interesting enough 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