Anathem

Anathem by Neal Stephenson is one of the best books I’ve read recently. A fun, explorative piece of science fiction, Anathem was much needed.

One of my favorite parts of Anathem is the beginning. I love being tossed into an unknown world and being left there to work out basic concepts. It was a joy landing in Arbre and figuring out what concents, maths, orders, praxis, theors, etc are. As I told Shin, Stephenson did a great job with slowly revealing mysteries. Or, in one of my favorite metaphors, as you fully explored one area, you realized there exists yet a larger one still shrouded in the fog of war. Right as we become accustomed to life in the Concent, extraordinary events occur and we are thrown out. Much of the beginnings of the book is full of such mysterious adventuring. However, there did come a point when I began to feel typical plot/action devices came to the foreground, which made the book seem a bit less special to me. After the adventure portion, the book shifted towards more scientific topics as the encounter with the Daban Urnud approached, which I enjoyed.

As usual with Stephenson, I enjoyed his exploration of a scientific topic. The Many Worlds Interpretation and the idea of a higher, purer theoretical world (Platonic idealism?) are the main topics covered, and they made for a fascinating plot backbone. I enjoyed that he used Project Orion. Also cool was how Raz discovered Jules by eating the alien’s food and realizing it did not interact with his body systems because it was composed of completely different matter from a different universe.

Finally, once again as usual with Stephenson, his characters were fun, quirky, and sharp. Of course popular with me were the Ringing Vale. I couldn’t help but feel extreme remorse when the four Valers went on their final emergence without anything remotely close to a second thought. Samman is funny and always in character. Fraa Jad, too, was always fun to hear from. Memorable characters as always from a Stephenson novel.