Reviews

I can really appreciate the intelligence of the author to create this alternative world, particularly the multitude of theoretical dialogs the characters engage in. I consider myself a fan of high sci fiction (read Dune before it was cool) but struggled with this one. I'm not big into physics and theoretical debate, so I found the story overall VERY slow and at times hard to follow because delving into dialog, logic, and physics detail was such a huge portion of the book.

jennybun's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

Another Stephenson tome complete.

Massive world and a whole lot of characters to keep up with. It’s a great book and the narration is fine (I love the chant like songs), but when I eventually pick this book up again, I’m going for a physical copy.

alice_horoshev's review

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adventurous challenging informative inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

5.0

kylekettler's review

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adventurous challenging funny mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book is not for everyone. It’s long, complicated, and difficult, but if you stick through the difficulty of the beginning it is a beautiful, funny, and rewarding journey! The world-building, ideas, and prose are all top notch. Some of the characters are somewhat one dimensional, but I still grew to love the entire cast by the mid point. I don’t tend to reread books, but this one that I think it would be worth revisiting in the future.

jbliv's review

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5.0

It's been a while since I have been so astounded by a novel, so moved to heights of intellectual astonishment. While I loved Snow Crash and liked Cryptonomicon, I checked out of the Baroque Trilogy. But Anathem puts Stephenson back on the map. He riffs on so many concepts, from philosophy through religion onto lots of science, that during the reading, and especially after, you can't he;p but feel giddy at the mental gymnastics on display. And yet I found it easy to follow along, relishing each twist and turn and discovery.

The novel starts with the fascinating concept of a society in which science and its study have been split from the regular "saecular" world and sequestered in compounds, or maths. People enter them as "tenners" but can move on to become "hundreders" or "thousanders" (yes, think about it). For the tenners, the gates to the outside world only open every 10 years, at which time the maths can mingle with the saeculars. The concept of a world so frightened by technology that they place it behind walls to be studied in 10, 100, and 1,000 year increments was utterly fascinating to me. And that is but the setup.

From there, Stephenson takes you on a journey totally unexpected and utterly surprising at every turn, in a world both shockingly different from and yet eerily similar to our own. Not a single revelation was what I expected, and yet each was pitch perfect. He mixes the aforementioned concepts along with space travel, evolution, and quantum mechanics and makes it all fit and flow and jolt with awe.

Anathem is a book I will treasure and read again, and again. It even has its own Wiki: check it out at http://anathem.wikia.com/wiki/Anathem_Wiki.

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