Anathem
by Neal Stephenson
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Book Reviews of Anathem
Book Review: Someone should have shot this novel and put it out of its misery!
Summary: 2 Stars
SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW!
"...Some have criticized Stephenson's creation of words and complain about the philisophical (sic) and scientific discussions. I can only come to the conclusion that they are lazy and need to stick with pulp fiction..." (Nathan Eckel, 23 Feb 2009)
What a pompous and condescending comment! I waded through this tome and found it to be largely tedious, egotistical, self-indulgent and ultimately, dull. The hardcover edition makes a terrific doorstop. This is my first exposure to Neal Stephenson. I had read the mixed reviews, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and I approached this novel with an open mind and the expectation of a challenging and exciting tale. I did not expect to keep one finger lodged in the glossary in order to acquaint myself with ridiculous, mind-numbing terminology that serves no purpose other than to distract the reader and obfuscate the story. As for Mr. Stephenson's frequent extended forays into the quasi-philosophical realm, well, I can attest that they are effective sleeping aids.
This is not to say the novel doesn't have its moments. Fraa Erasmas's odyssey in the Extramuros, from his Evocation from the concent to his reunion with Fraa Oloro, is epic. The manner in which the avouts discover, track, and surmise the atomic bomb putt-putt propulsion of the alien ship is fascinating. And, the depiction of Erasamas's and his comrades' launch into orbit and their mission is absolutely a page turner. That and the minutely detailed, realistic description of the alien ship from up close is ready-made for the big screen.
One could be more sympathetic to the not-quite-human inhabitants of the alien ship (yes, the aliens, um, Geometers) were it not apparent that their cuisine consists largely of a stew of synthetic hair and Lego blocks in a hearty anti-freeze broth. Yum.
Finally, what's with the spheres? Mr. Stephenson does a disservice to his readers by completely ignoring the properties of one of the three essential possessions of the avout. I kept hoping, for some nine hundred pages, that I would learn what it is that enables the spheres to do what they do. I feel that I was just blown off by a writer who is so keen to pontificate on the arcane that he missed the opportunity to share with the reader the techniques of an item right in front of his nose. I guess the answer is that the "praxis" of the sphere is so straightforward that it's beneath him to spend any time on it for simpletons. Or, perhaps it's just magic. Shame!
It's too bad that so much of what is good about this novel is spoiled by Mr. Stephenson's frequent allusions to parallel or alternate realities. These are prop crutches that move a tale of possibilities into the world of pure fantasy. They diminish the entire story.
For the record, I am a 60-year-old male professional with two post-graduate degrees, one earned in Europe, so I'm not exactly a turnip teetering on the edge of the truck bed. I read at least one book per week, challenging non-fiction and novels, and I maintain a comfortable familiarity with the ancient classic philosophical expositions, which I still consult on a regular basis.
In my opinion, Anathem has revealed Mr. Stephenson to be an emperor with no clothes.
Book Review: Entertaining Astrophysics
Summary: 4 Stars
Many stories end with the action heroes saving the day thanks to some world's-last-only-hope-McGuffin-weapon that the world's best scientists had been working round the clock throughout the story, albeit completely unbeknownst to the reader. This book shows you those scientists. And you quickly realize that what they're working on, the ideas they're debating and developing, are a lot more exciting and important than whatever Mr. and Mrs. Action Hero are up to. And frankly, they're more fun to read about, the wizards of Stephenson's recognizably futuristic world.
That summary above makes this book sound boring, but it's not. It is very, very smart, though. This is the first thing I've read by Neal Stephenson, and now I know what I've been missing. He's a modern-day science fiction writer in the metascience tradition of Aasimov and Bradbury. He's not afraid of introducing readers to some huge ideas--you'll come away with a better understanding of quantum mechanics, guaranteed--and incorporating them into an epic plot with characters who understand and use them.
Most of the conflict in Anathem takes place in conversations. But one of the more subtle tricks in writing is that conflict is conflict, whether it's fought with words or nuclear bombs. If you write it well and provide some stakes, readers can be just a wrapped up in a televised debate that will decide a course of action--and therefore the fate of the world--as they are in a fight scene. More so, perhaps, because in your life, when has a punch mattered more than an interview or argument? (psst: The answer is never. The real question is, have you come to realize it?) Stephenson understands this and uses it well, which keeps Anathem very exciting. It's riddles, revelations and ideas. And yes, there's plenty of action in the end, but after so much intellectual combat it's a little disappointing.
The other thing Anathem is is long, but not unrewardingly so because it's the kind of book that another author might have done as three separate books. The first part takes place in a cloistered, academic "conscent" (think of a monastery/university campus that only lets its professors out every 10, 100 or even 1,000 years). The second part is a slow trip across half the "saecular" globe. Then you're back in a math, and then in space. It's one of those books that covers so much ground that many of your old questions become irrelevant as new twists are revealed, only to come up again later when you'd forgotten about them, which is rewarding as a reader. It's seldom slow, although the 900-ish page book probably would have been better and just as complete if it shed about 200 pages.
So 4 stars. It's a bit indulgent and there are some parts I found ended a little too conveniently happy, but I really liked Anathem. It made me think, made me remember why it's good to be smart, to have real debates about things that matter more than sports, and to read things that give you new ideas that are worth some work to understand. Plus, how many books come with a CD of original music from an alien world and 25 pages of geometry lessons? (OK, you have to be a nerd to appreciate that last part... But any reader can appreciate the author wise enough to pull it out of his story and sequester the math course in an appendix.)
Book Review: ANATHEM will assuredly find a following
Summary: 4 Stars
ANATHEM, Neal Stephenson's new novel, centers on a young man named Fraa Erasmas, a monk, of sorts, residing within the walls of the Concent of Saunt Edhar. There, he and his fellow residents/students devote their lives to the understanding of math, science, cosmology, metaphysics and more. Everything must have reason and be provable, or it is invalid. In such a place, the residents are segregated, to a degree, and in some instances none can know what the others know.
Fraa Orolo, Erasmas's mentor, finds himself "Thrown Back," or cast out of the concent for a violation. Erasmas, Lio, Ala, Jesry and a handful of others begin a secret quest to discover what it was Orolo was working on that got him Thrown Back. When they discover that he has located what appeared to be an alien ship orbiting the planet, it is not too long before they, and others, are called upon and shipped out of the concent as well, destined to meet at another location for a special gathering.
Erasmas, however, is intent on finding Orolo. Splitting off from the main contingent, he begins a quest to locate Orolo and bring him back to the meeting. There, the gathering of the avout will determine the proper course for dealing with this alien arrival...if they don't destroy each other first. Or if the aliens don't launch their attack before a decision can be made.
Yes, ANATHEM is science fiction. The events take place on a planet known as Arbre. Even so, it bears many striking similarities to Earth. While it can be somewhat disconcerting, a number of things are given new names, but descriptions eventually lead you to understand what they are. Of course the presence of an alien spaceship qualifies it as a science fiction tale, yet, at its core, the book is more about thought than, well, enjoyment.
At any given moment, Stephenson sits back and spends an inordinate amount of time regaling you with his brilliance. And let's be honest, he is brilliant. Even so, paragraph upon paragraph of intellectual infighting amongst scholars, page upon page of metatheoric argument and scientific regurgitation make the reading of ANATHEM a true slog. The book begins slowly, introducing you to Saunt Edhar and its setup, and the introduction of Erasmas and a few of his companions. And the clock. And how the clock works. And why the clock works that way. And who designed the clock. And who decided it would work the way it works. And what scientific formulae were used in such a decision. This depth of explanation, while creating a fully immense world, can weigh far too heavily on the mind of the person trying to read it.
Within ANATHEM, there is a book called, ironically enough, The Book. It is a tome of punishment. The punished are forced to read and copy and understand the chapters they have been assigned and will then be quizzed on those chapters. Each chapter of The Book is increasingly more difficult, and at one point they become so preposterously difficult that the reader is ultimately driven to insanity. Reading ANATHEM can have a similar effect.
Not wholly unworthy, ANATHEM will assuredly find a following. But on the whole, it pales in comparison to Stephenson's previous gems, such as SNOW CRASH, CRYPTONOMICON and The Baroque Cycle.
--- Reviewed by Stephen Hubbard
Book Review: Learn How to Cut a Cake Equally
Summary: 4 Stars
If you're the kind of person that had difficulty with your math and physics classes, or if you were prone to fall asleep during philosophy class, this book is probably not for you. But for those who are not intimidated by such subjects, this massive tome is a treat.
First is the setting that Stephenson presents, one where mathematically/scientifically minded persons are typically shut up in convents, carefully isolated from outside society (in some cases, only allowed to make contact with the outside world once a century or more), with rigorous rules to control their daily behavior, and an outside society composed of those either religiously inclined or who really, really prefer their technology to be simple enough to be easily understandable. And Stephenson doesn't just give us the current setting, but has a fairly detailed history of his world stretching back several thousand years. As part of this setting, he's also given the reader a whole new vocabulary to learn, some of which have obviously parallels with their English roots, others of which seem to be totally divorced from any current language. All of this obviously requires quite a bit of effort by the reader to grasp what is going on, and the early portions of this book can be a bit of a slog.
But once you get used to the language and background, what comes to the fore is a very different first-contact story, in this case contact not just with beings from the `normal' universe, but beings who hail from different, alternate universes where the rules of physics are not quite the same. How such contact is possible, and just what the antecedent incidents were that `created' these different universes comes in for some rather deep looks at some of the implications of quantum mechanics, often investigated via the means of Socratic dialogues between various avouts. Of prime importance to these discussions is just how well Stephenson shows how a person's `mindset' influences not just how that individual views the universe around him, but how that mindset actually helps create that universe. As such, this is a book not only of hard-SF, but also very much a book of philosophy and character. And just when you thought you'd already had a little too much in the way of mathematics, Stephenson provides a few appendices (called `calca') to keep you topped off on your math quota for the day.
What perhaps is missing here that has been very prevalent in prior Stephenson books is his biting satire that was couched in terms that left the reader rolling on the floor with laughter, such as his blueprint for an IPO in Cryptonomicon or his digression on Captain Crunch cereal. There are items here that come in for a bit of satire, but they're small and not developed into galloping romps orthogonal to the plot as in these previous works. This definitely detracted from my enjoyment of this book, as I found myself doing an awful lot of heavy thinking about his various points and found little leavening of humor to make the headaches go away.
A very different book, well worth the time and considerable effort to read and understand it, but I thought it could have been better with a few more touches of Stephenson's lighter side.
---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
Book Review: Te-e-e-dious
Summary: 2 Stars
OK, let me be clear on a couple of things. One is that I have loved just about everything by Neal Stephenson to date, right up to and including "In the Beginning Was the Command Line."
Two is that I read for f.u.n. FUN. I don't mind being intellectually challenged, I don't mind being exposed to new concepts, as long as it's F-U-N.
This book? No fun.
I didn't know when I started that I was going to have to learn a second language -from context alone- while I was reading, that I would have to read 300 pages before the book actually *started*, that I would have to try to absorb a bunch of random physics and quantum and philosophical and god-knows what else theories, all disguised under different names...
I've gotten somewhat used to Neal's overwriting, his fascination with architecture and mechanical and physical objects. But he's always paid off with fascinating characters doing interesting things along the way.
This time his writing about buildings and clocks and machines is so excruciatingly ponderous and over-detailed that by the time I've plowed through it all I find that I have completely lost the ability to visualize in my mind's eye what he's describing. Too much verbiage weighing it down.
And his characters in this book are just names with a few basic mannerisms to flesh them out. They are two dimensional and spend most of their time through the book being acted *upon* rather than acting. There's no "Hiro Protagonist" or "Y.T." in this book, there's no Bobby Shaftoe or Half-cocked Jack or even stuffy but charming Daniel Waterhouse or John Percival Hackworth.
No, we get cardboard. Main character, Fraa Erasmus, the baby-faced young everyman. Would be played by a young Tom Hanks in the movie. Lio -the scrappy one, Jesry-- the perfect one, Arsibalt -the chubby one, Barb- the annoying autistic kid brother... stereotypes at best, cliches at worst.
There are a few specks of humor here and there, and occasional flashes of personality on the page, but they are broken up by long stretches of tedious, tedious, *tedious* pontification.
I nearly put this book down any number of times, but I kept telling myself, "It's Stephenson, he'll deliver." And it does start to have a few more interesting bursts of actual plot and character development and activity about oh, 600 pages in. Still broken up by random bursts of hyper-intellectual tedium of course.
And no, he doesn't really deliver. The ending is OK, but it's not the reward I was hoping to get for plowing through all 890 pages of this book.
Every Neal Stephenson book I have (and I believe I have all of them, including his 'Stephen Bury' novels), I have re-read at least once or more, and enjoyed the second or third times through. (OK, not the Baroque Cycle -yet-, but that's because it hasn't been long enough since I read it the first time. I will...)
But this book I am pretty confident that having read it, I will never pick it up again. Because this book, it was just No Fun.
I hope Neal Stephenson writes something interesting again someday.