New info about next Neal Stephenson novel!

[SiberianLlama]

From Nerd World (http://time-blog.com/nerd_world/2008/03/the_return_of_neal_stephenson.html) :

"Since childhood, Raz has lived behind the walls of a 3,400-year-old monastery, a sanctuary for scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians—sealed off from the illiterate, irrational, unpredictable "saecular" world that is plagued by recurring cycles of booms and busts, world wars and climate change. Until the day that a higher power, driven by fear, decides that only these cloistered scholars have the abilities to avert an impending catastrophe. And, one by one, Raz and his cohorts are summoned forth without warning into the Unknown."

Sounds very cool. I, for one, can't wait until September!

[neocheddar02]

Cool, thanks for the info!

[PalmerJoss]

F'n sweet! Every year since The Baroque Cycle ended I've been dying to hear some news about any new books from Neal. At least I know what I'll be doing now in September.

[SiberianLlama]

I'm wondering, giving the brief blurb so far with the monastary and what-not if our old friend Enoch Root will be showing up again ;)

[Tommy Ceez]

I believe I heard rumors that this book will involve

aliens, making it a TRUE sci-fi story

[SiberianLlama]

Enoch Root is an alien!

[Mordred]

Just in case anyone forgot, Anathem was released Tuesday.

[SiberianLlama]

I bought it, but haven't started it yet.

Did any watch the live webcast of Stephenson from the Long Now Foundation? I tried watching it but their site must have been getting hammered because it kept timing out. I should check back to see if it's available now.

And is it just me, or is the cover to the UK version of Anathem much better than the US one:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TtKVgZjmL._SS500_.jpg

[Mordred]

Hadn't heard about any webcast. I do like that cover, but I don't mind the cover on the US edition. I will say that the book is bound very nicely. I don't buy tons of hardbacks but I'll say this is certainly the nicest one I've purchased in several years.

I've cracked the book, just basically reading the introduction and the first couple pages. I'll definitely say it already seems like it will be completely different than any of his other books. It appears to be written in first person even. I'll probably try and dig into it tonight though.

[Tommy Ceez]

Written in first person and uses 'words' from a different culture, so you have to stop and figure out what a FREELEY is all the time.

FUCKING THING IS HUGE

[Mordred]

Written in first person and uses 'words' from a different culture, so you have to stop and figure out what a FREELEY is all the time.

FUCKING THING IS HUGEAfter about 100 pages you get a pretty good idea of the differences between fids, auds and speelys. The first 30 pages were pretty rough though.

[SiberianLlama]

Finished the book a couple of days ago and absolutely LOVED it. I thought it was great.... like most Stephenson books, it manages to be both intelligent and funny at the same time without being "hard" to read like many other "heavy" authors.

I will say this though, if you go in expecting Snow Crash or the Diamond Age, you will be very disappointed. If you didn't like the evolution of Stephenson's writing style from Crytonomicon to the Baroque Cycle, you probably won't like this book either.

I loved Crypto as well as the Baroque Cycle so I thought this book was great. I can see how this can be a very polarizing book with people either loving it or hating it. The ending was not nearly as "abrupt" as people have criticized his other novels to be.

I would also recommend that people DO NOT read the glossary ahead of time because I found it more enjoyable trying to figure out what everything means on my own. That said, I want to start using all kinds of "Anathem words" but no one will have any idea what I'm talking about. I was talking on my jeejah the other day to one of my sibs about some crazy deolaters who came to my house trying to have a dialogue with me and how much i wanted to plane them, but i held back... ;)

[Tommy Ceez]

Just finished too

Defiantly had an ending, unlike his other books

I agree, the glossary should be read after, as alot of the 'reveals' about what words mean are part of the story

Lets see if I have this right


Jad is able to manipulate himself 'between' all the narratives at once, and somehow he can 'bring' Raz into any of the narratives he wants.

So first he gets Raz to the level 1 bubble where he randomly punches a number into the keypad...in each cosmos he punches a different number and 'pulls' him and Raz into the cosmos where he guesses the right number.
Its here he learns that if he uses the keypad he is killed.

Learning this he then tries the acess hatch (which we dont see) where they are brought to the Admiral of the Geometers. Jad stays long enough to learn about the Geometer military structure...impressing on Raz that he has to take it from there.

Raz is then returned to a narrative where Jad died before boarding the ship, but retains the memories of the info he learned about Geometer politics.

Jad's death is important to diplomatically bring the races together (this im a little fuzzy on) but Raz uses the info he learned from his trip through multiple narratives to convince Emmon to never trigger the everything killers.

Thier sucess also leads to a sharing of power between secular and mathic.

Am I off track?


VERDICT -

LOVED it, but like the last 4 NS books, if you cannot stomach 25 pages of dialog about the motion of subatomic particles, these books are not for you

[SiberianLlama]

Jad is able to manipulate himself 'between' all the narratives at once, and somehow he can 'bring' Raz into any of the narratives he wants.

So first he gets Raz to the level 1 bubble where he randomly punches a number into the keypad...in each cosmos he punches a different number and 'pulls' him and Raz into the cosmos where he guesses the right number.
Its here he learns that if he uses the keypad he is killed.

Learning this he then tries the acess hatch (which we dont see) where they are brought to the Admiral of the Geometers. Jad stays long enough to learn about the Geometer military structure...impressing on Raz that he has to take it from there.

Raz is then returned to a narrative where Jad died before boarding the ship, but retains the memories of the info he learned about Geometer politics.

Jad's death is important to diplomatically bring the races together (this im a little fuzzy on) but Raz uses the info he learned from his trip through multiple narratives to convince Emmon to never trigger the everything killers.

Thier sucess also leads to a sharing of power between secular and mathic.

Am I off track?


VERDICT -

LOVED it, but like the last 4 NS books, if you cannot stomach 25 pages of dialog about the motion of subatomic particles, these books are not for you


I think you pretty much got the jist of it.

I think Jad's "death" was important for a variety of reasons: First, the idea of the Thousanders scared the crap out of the "aliens" because they thought they were Incanters, which, ironically enough, it turns out they were right. Secondly, and maybe this is just me because it's never spelled out in the book, but I think in one of the narratives that Jad survived, he stayed in Sphere One and probably met with the people who live there, the leaders of the ship and the cultural equivalent of the Thousanders. They probably exerted influence on the rest of the people to agree to the peace process.

Let me know if you think i'm way off base here. I could be...



I think my favorite character in the books was Leo, maybe followed by Barb and Yul. The Valers were just awesome but ninja-monks always are.

As much as I agree that this book had a definite ending, I would have loved another 900 pages on what happens after that, which is, I guess, one of the highest compliments you can give an author about his or her book.

[Hiro11]

Just finished it. Amazing, epic read. It kind of consumed all of my free time for about two weeks.

To me, the stand out sections of the book are the orbital and peregrine/polar expedition sequences. Both are incredibly exciting and tightly constructed. Having said that, the book doesn't really flag for 900 pages, that's pretty impressive.

If you're going to read this book, keep in mind that:

1. The first 150 pages are essentially exposition. However, pay close attention, every detail becomes important at some point in the story.

2. Any book needing a glossary of made-up terminology may seem intimidating and maybe a little pretentious, but Stephenson carefully doles out the language, allowing the reader to grasp his meaning when it's important. You don't really need the glossary. Also, the language is essential to the world-building and even the plot.

3. Stephenson loves to dig into complex topics by letting his characters talk about things, sometimes at length. These passages are almost always fascinating and worth taking the time to try to fully understand and enjoy. If you want a "page turner" to turn off your mind and flip through on a long flight, this probably isn't for you. If you want a book that grabs your attention so intensely that you wouldn't notice that your house is on fire, it will serve...

Altogether, yet another top quality read from Stephenson.