Anathem by Neal Stephenson: Kinda Like 'The Name of the Rose' If It Were About Pythagoreans

Anyone reading this? I'm about one-third of the way through.

Anyone?

There's been some talk on the revived thread.

Neal Stephenson predicted MySpace and down.

this book is so huge it came to the office in a freakin box
a box!

I'm about a third of the way through. It's a little slow-going, but I'm intrigued enough to keep reading.

a BOX

why is it so giant

i tried to read the first page
impossible

did you OPEN the box first??

why is it so giant

because he's a dick about it

i'm enjoying this far more than either of the system trilogy books i read, so far

This sounds pretty great given that I am a philosopher and a mathematician. I read Snow Crash a while back but nothing else by this guy, but this sounds right up my alley.

You will probably love this one.

Dude's in Portland tonight, going to talk at the Bagdad Theater in about 90 mins. Will report back.

ask him why it's so long

ask him about the box

I loved Cryptonomicon but was completely baffled by Quicksilver...would you recommend Anathem so far?

Dude writes in LONGHAND. The manuscript for Quicksilver is at the SciFi Museum in Seattle. Longhand! I can't imagine how he doesn't publish anything other than short pamphlets! Imagine the calluses...

ask why the box is so big

Being a big thinker, he needed something big to think out of.

did you ask abt the box

like why its so big

Did the box come full of his longhand manuscript, is maybe why, did you ask?

I'm also curious why it's so big (the box)

his next book should be about boxes. and their bigness.

http://store.slushee.ie/images/slushee_big_box.jpg

It's curious that this is so big. But I like the setup. I'm pretty sure there's lots of academic/geeks who've wanted to go into an atheist monastery just to get shit done.

it is a good book. or maybe two of them: the convent part and the space part. i read an advance copy, and i have to say it is a pretty swell release, espesh the early philosophy-lite stuff.

― remy bean, Wednesday, August 20, 2008 1:50 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban

the CD that comes with it is ... i know, by eno (right?) ... but kind of terrible, even unlistenable.

― remy bean, Wednesday, August 20, 2008 1:52 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban

oh, wait David Stutz, a former Microsoft techie now involved in early classical music—and an HBC member—composed and produced the effort, which is being considered for widespread release. "It's a pseudo-liturgical use of mathematics and higher thinking," Stutz says. Actually, to the untrained ear it sounds like the neo-Gregorian chanting that accompanies ritual baby sacrifice in horror films.

i am sorry david stutz. i do not have an untrained ear -- i just think it is ... too schematic or something.

― remy bean, Wednesday, August 20, 2008 1:54 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I haven't heard about this, I'll have to get my hands on it soon. I liked the Baroque Cycle so much because it was set in a period of history I love, but this will still probably be interesting.

so ya didn't like it huh

I keep meaning to read this and then forgetting about it

i read the latest a few months ago. it's good - well written - but ultimately it feels like three different books

1) mathy portrait of the artist as a young man
2) paul theroux on a different planet
3) rama w. monks

― remy bean, Monday, 15 September 2008 17:40 (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this (from another thread) is otm except it neglects to mention the awesomosity of those three ideas.

I thought it was just a bit dull...there was an interesting setup but it wasn't really much fun beyond that, the way his other books tended to be, and given that criticism it was way too long. It didn't have much of a spirit of adventure carrying through the way the Baroque Cycle did.

I think it had a huge spirit of adventure! But it was a very scientific and philosophically minded spirit. I guess if you liked the history aspect of the baroque cycle (which I haven't read) then this might not have appealed so much.

I am 200 pages into it and love it. Not unlike reading Eco: "I can't wait to find out what happens next...though I'm not sure I could actually explain what's happening now." Something about the way this is written, much like Cryptonomicon, you just follow where he leads you. The minutiae is interesting rather than daunting.

Maybe after this I can go back and try Quicksilver again.

I enjoyed this but found it really hard to reread for some reason...it might just be the way I tend to reread stuff (in miscellaneous chunks and favorite-parts), where here you really have to be sort of fresh on the monkly discourse and all the funny names for stuff. But a pretty great yarn and some good show-stoppers. Definitely owes a lot to Eco, but that may just be me reading this within a couple months of Name of the Rose. Eco obviously does a better job of keeping you in the thought patterns of medieval monks, but Stephenson seems to take the general tactic of writing the monks as being nerds, more or less, and running with that.

I will say that while the big ideas were all lots of fun to chew on, somehow his stock plot/character material really wore thin for me on this one. The romance in particular was everything that was flat and annoying about Hiro/Juanita, Randy/Amy, and Jack/Eliza. Try something else please!

but Stephenson seems to take the general tactic of writing the monks as being nerds

haha a common Stephenson ploy

haven't read this but I want to

I am 200 pages into it and love it

Neal Stephenson does write a great first 200 pages.

yeah, that's the thing with this: all the stuff about monastic life and w/e is pretty good stuff, but once it actually got to the ~plot~ my interest waned

like the world he created was great, but he did with it wasn't as great

I dunno, on one level I like that it sort of moved forward from there, like that was the training levels and now we're in the real game, but it's sort of a shame that (as in Snow Crash really) the future is basically like today, complete with church moms and outdoors nuts. Dude really loves to write scenes of people driving around in the far north, I guess.

i liked this a lot.

My only problem is I have a head like a sieve and the names of things are killing me. I keep forgetting what stuff means...glossary is already dogeared and I've barely scratched the surface.

I liked that the *SPOILER* 'alien' dude who helps them toward the end is a French dude from earth *END SPOILER*

Loved this, don't think I've felt so caught up in a fictional world since Mieville's Bas-Lag stuff.

Or possibly the Mortal Engines books.

New one, _Reamde_ is out today. First chapter dragging like hell.

Nothing about this photo surprises me:

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17o77krgcocv6jpg/original.jpg

Heh...I like this guy's books, but he's always given me a strange "would not bro down with" vibe.

His idea of cosplay would appear to be a power-metal version of Neurosis.

Just picked this up, cheap as chips, from a charity shop. (so no big box)

(and I was actually looking for Cryptonomicon but nm)

He has a new one out with Nicole Galland called The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. which I completely stumbled across in a bookshop. There really needs to be a Songkick-style service for authors.

Anyway, it's a time travel-y romp which features lots of his schtick (Sumerian, 16th century Holland, sword play etc) but with the usual deep digressions either entirely redacted or knowingly omitted.

(contains spoilers)

so almost at the end of this and gbx above otm,

yeah, that's the thing with this: all the stuff about monastic life and w/e is pretty good stuff, but once it actually got to the ~plot~ my interest waned

There is no need for this book to be so giant, given the full course of the story and events. I honestly don't know how he's managed that.

The whole aliens from space plot itself was too thin, and I was dissapointed by that as the first few chapters had me hooked. Plus he really skimps on the details when there's any kind of 'action'.

Well not terrible, enjoyed reading most of it. Glad it's almost over so I can get back to PKD and some Gibson stuff I haven't read yet.