Anathem
by Neal Stephenson
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Book Reviews of Anathem
Book Review: Not for the now generation
Summary: 5 Stars
Let me start off by saying that I am a huge Neal Stephenson fan. I have read Snow Crash, the Diamand Age, Cryptonomicon, and Quicksilver. I am also currently reading In The Beginning Was The Command Line. I may be a little biased so I am writing this review with two groups in mind: (1)those like me who are already huge fans and (2) those who have never read Stephenson before.
First things first. No matter which of the above categories you fall under, if you are a part of the now generation and subscribe to their philosophy then you will hate this book. By that I mean if you are into instant gratification and do not understand that nothing worth anything comes easy then do not purchase this book. This book is a lot of work and the payoff is great if you are willing to put in that work.
So what is this book about? Many previous reviewers have talked about Erasmus and his adventure but this book is not about him. He is just the narrator of a greater theme. What this book presents is a flipside word in which the deeply religious are not in seclusion but the deeply scientific are. The deep thinkers are cut off from the rest of the world. This setup ultimately leads to the question of faith vs. science and what is the better way to truth. It also asks if it has to be one or the other or does each have their value. So if these questions intrigue you then this book is for you and it will take over 900 pages to fully get the answers so be prepared for that.
If you like to think and/or you are already a Neal Stephenson fan then pick up Anathem now. You will not be disappointed.
Book Review: ponderous, derivative
Summary: 5 Stars
possible spoilers:
one of my biggest complaints about this book is that it is too darn heavy. One gets tired of falling out of bed in the beginning or end of this book, with it's massive and inhuman weight. the binding is actually beautiful and sewn with high quality thread, something I feel is overlooked by modern readers. If you buy a hardback from the UK, the books almost always use only glue, so that the book self-destructs after one reading. Also the paper at the front and back are wonderfully textured and the paper acid free which is I guess
something the people in England can only dream of. Please, if publishers are going to include a glossary, put it into a light, small pamphlet and package it in with the book.
I don't know how many times I turned to the back of the book only to have it knock all of the stuff off of my bedside table, which can be a drag after replacing all the junk on it 3 to 4 times a night -see enormity of weight mentioned above.
thank god for Hugh Everett because SF would be all military adventures in space if it hadn't been for his bifurcation theories. The story in this book, although slow at times, will stick with you for a very long time. Neal was clever in spending an early enormity
of time in character development, it pays off well for the remaining two thirds of the book. The story is detailed, clever, fun and memorable. What more can you ask for? If you are reading the book, do not be daunted by the first third of it, it may seem boring at first, but it is an integral and necessary part of the story. will this become a trilogy?
Book Review: If you have studied math, philosophy or physics, well, it's garbage
Summary: 2 Stars
Seriously, from his earliest works (Zodiac) it's been apparent that Neil Stephenson does the minimum amount of research necessary to make the story kind of hold together. Only, the willing suspension of disbelief can only go so far. Here again, as with Zodiac, only much, much worse. As in, with Zodiac he was spouting BS about a subject not in my bailiwick. But I've got enough math, physics and philosophy in me to know that this book is full of it. And then he's trying to teach us math and philosophy in some BS made-up language... It's just crap SF written out normally and then with find-replace used. Go on, replace "jeejah" in the book with phone. It won't hurt you one bit. And... It would make it a better book. Ah, but it would be shorter for all of the times he uses the word (hundreds, at least). Why, that would be hundreds of characters shorter! Oh, and so pedantic with the BS, made-up philosophy crap. Oh, please, and the pseudo-phonetic French. Way too much pseudo in this. Just too much. Sucks. I've enjoyed others of his novels even when he's been the BS artist in them (Snow Crash was a great story but the research was garbage, there, too) but this time he's just trying to shove WAY too much research down our throats (well, actually, the research he did in Snow Crash was pretty fricking obnoxious, too, only there wasn't quite so much as in this claptrap). Well, fine, I read it. Happy? You know what? If it were radically edited and made a book of about a third the length, well, it could probably be pretty darned cool. As it is, you should just avoid it.Book Review: Huge disappointment, literally
Summary: 1 Stars
I have read every neal stephenson book since he's been cranking them out. I loved, absolutely loved, the three volume series he just put out before this book. He had fun and adventure and wit and it was just a great trilogy, probably my favorite trilogy of all time.
Now we get anathem and if you're like me and read stephenson religiously, you were probably really excited, how could he top the trilogy? What new worlds of excitement await? Well, he didn't top the trilogy and maybe he never will. This book from the beginning read like a person reading to you from a philosophy text book. Okay, great philosophy, just what I was hoping for...(note the sarcasm). Only it got worse, you could tell by around page two hundred, yes 200, that the book was starting to flag, because it wasn't going anywhere, so what do what to do, oh I know, let's throw in some aliens. I about tossed the book across the room, I restrained myself though. It couldn't be that bad, right? Wrong, it got worse from there. The endless philosophic nonsense continued and continued. Even the aliens got in on it. How about the Jules Verne alien from Earth? What a great idea to reference one of the great sci-fi writers of all-time...Wait, Neal, you're better than that!! You, Neal, are one of the great sci-fi writers of all-time, you should have just shelved this behemoth and let it die. He even referrenced the end as being complete cheeseball nonsense in character, WTF?! Completely worthless!!! Burn ever known copy that you can find so others don't have to suffer.
Book Review: A Book From A Retarded Author
Summary: 3 Stars
Most of us spent at least part of our student days wrestling with Great Ideas, but almost all of us moved on to the prosaic life of paying bills and working at mind numbing jobs until our highest thoughts were about a football game or a cold beer.
The author of this book is retarded in the sense he never moved on. Years after his student days, age-wise, he's still thinking Great Themes. You can garner that from the many four and five star reviews on this site. However, for most of us, this books is just plain Too High -- all the way to inaccessible through incomprehensible.
Other reviews will tell you that if you manage to wade through 300 or so pages of gibberish, you'll finally get to an exciting and stimulating story. Having read this author's other works, I believe them entirely. I'm just not up to the job of reading sentences such as, "He rode his ieueu into the owiskslsl finding aksieyh had, after kadlasi settled, found much uuuaksl to aeuel". Presumably, had I been able to stay awake for those 300 pages, eventually that sentence would have made sense to me and I'd be off and reading in style. If that sort of sentence was isolated, well, that's ok with me, but that is the entire book.
I am rating 3 stars because I believe the others who read and managed to decipher this tome, but I need to warn those who may have day jobs - watch out. This book is quite heavy and it'll give you a nasty set of bruises falling on you after you fall asleep due to reading a paragraph or two.