Feb 22 2009
Anathem
A few weeks ago I created an homage to Xkcd by evaluating my experience reading Neal Stephenson’s Anathem.
Well, I’m done.
Overall, I think Neal Stephenson will be remembered as one of the premier scifi authors of this generation. That doesn’t make his books any easier to read. This one in particular I found to be genuinely amazing in spots and fundamentally boring in others. The concepts he put together in surprising juxtapositions made the story move along and kept me reading but I won’t read the book again.
If you’re new to Neal Stephenson, read Snow Crash and Diamond Age before you read this book. That will ramp you and let you know what to expect (Cryptonomicon is in it’s own special category, less scifi). If you find it hard to get through either of those, do not read Anathem.
I loved Zodiac, too! Very readable and different from his other stuff.
@Rachel: Zodiac was ok. I don’t think I’ll read it again, though.
I enjoyed a LOT of the philosophy in Anathem, though much like the jail scene in Cryptonomicon it got kind of draggy toward the end.
@Listener: Your comment reminds me of a conversation I had with my wife immediately after finishing the book.
I said [paraphrasing]:
“I didn’t like the 100 pages of philosophy in the middle. You remember that bit in Snowcrash where Hiro was talking to the Librarian for a gazillion pages? It’s like that, but squared.”
She said, “Oh, you mean that part of the book that I absolutely loved?”
So, there’s room for people to like this. I just don’t happen to be one of them. This dovetails nicely with my recent posting about Hugo winners (and I’m sure Anathem will be a nominee) because it seems like my taste in novels is not aligning with the taste of the majority of WorldCon voters.
[...] I’ve read Zoe’s Tale, Little Brother (I gave a copy of this to my oldest nephews) and Anathem. I will probably get around to reading the other two before WorldCon in August. They’d been [...]