I struggled at first. In my defence it's the first book of its kind that I've sunk my cerebral teeth into. Initially (for the first 100 pages or so) it was like wading through molasses - slow and exhausting, but when I was able to stop for a moment and take a sip, sweet and stimulating.

Once the characters began to come alive in my mind, the concepts - maths and quantum mechanics, geometrodynamics, astrophysics, and more - gripped me and I found myself unable to put the book down and actually gaining at least a surface understanding of some very challenging subjects.

The first 100 pages took longer to read than the last 800. An amazing book that has left me with exciting thoughts and dreams. I will be reading more by this author.

Abandoned during the prologue, because a book that needs an explanation of place names and currencies and a glossary of terms before the story even starts is not going to be a good audio experience.

This came from the box of random audiobooks on CD that were loaned to me from a friend who loves audio but has very different tastes than I do. This is an odd choice, because it's not at all what she'd normally read. The synopsis sounded good, and this might very well be an enjoyable read, but clearly this would be best suited to a bound version, not audio. 

This is a funny book to reviewwith lots of good and bad things about it.  


First the bad:  The entire first half of the book is in many ways redundant and can be gotten rid of.  That's a really big problem.  The last 100 pages are written very well and fast, but the book very slowly reaches that pace.  I'm not criticizing the long philosophical discussins, which are fine, but could have built character better.  It has a lot of original terminology some of which is good, but some of which is very irritating.  For instance, video cameras are speely-captors and smart phones are jeejars.   However, the philosophical invented terminology is much better.  The characterization is poor and the prose lacks magic.

The actual story is clever and gets more and more clever as it goes along.  The book is an adventure story of ideas where the ideas are really the main characters.  The ideas themselves are sophisticated and get more and more sophisticated as they go along.  The book also has tremendous world building.  The world that is created is a fascinating one, with science and philosophy constrained within a monkish discipline.  I don't know that that is a realistic possibility for a world, but that does not really matter.  The book breaks into philosophical discussions frequently.  I think that is a very good thing and something that is lacking from modern literature.  Its perfectly legitimate and I'm glad to see it back, but I would have preferred more character development.

Its a clever innovative and thoughtful book, that is far too long and has many deficiencies.  On the balance though, it is a good thing not just for science fiction, but fiction as a whole.

Usually when I review a book I spend most of the reading time thinking about how I'm going to review it. Anathem was a little different, I feel like there are alot of things to say and none of them have come together to form a cohesive review in my mind, so I'm gonna start at the beginning and try to get it all down.

Anathem has a rather interesting concept at it's core. Set on a fictional planet called Arbre, the story revolves around 'avout' , monks who live in monasteries for philosophers, scientists, and other intellectuals. Each monastery (which the book refers to as concents) segregates it population into groups that are allowed access to the outside world for a few days every one, ten, hundred, or even thousand years. More than that would really be giving out spoilers.

This book was really, really difficult to get into. The plot took a super long time to take off. I was about 160 pages in before I felt like something was going on. The first thirty pages or so were particularly difficult and confusing.

And then there are the made up words. On a fictional planet far from Earth its absolutely logical to assume they are gonna use different words for stuff, but really? I don't really think most people would notice or care. Stephenson makes up words for EVERYTHING. The whole f'ing thing is littered with them. Every. Single. Page. Whats a jeejah? A speelycaptor? Drummon? Mobe? Ugh... Luckily Stephenson included a glossary in the back of the book. I just wish I wasn't halfway through the book when I found it.

So whats good about this book? When it does take off it does become engaging albeit at a slow pace. Stephenson treats the plot as kind of science mystery crossed with a bit of an adventure story and sprinkled with lots of complex discussions between characters.

Complex discussions you say? Have you ever wanted to read a discussion of the Many Worlds interpretation of quantumn mechanics wrapped in the format of a novel? No? Consider yourself normal, but if this doesn't sound like a total turn off continue reading. This sort of thing is ALL OVER this book. What doesn't help at all with these discussions is that even though Stephenson stayed true to his source materials he swapped out all the important words for his own bullshit ones. Just because theoretical concepts weren't confusing enough already for most people.

Oh and I should also mention this book is freaking LONG. 930+ pages kind of long. In the spirit of this blog its not really epic either. It could have been, but its just not. If you want skull bashing, blood boiling badassery this is not it. But it might make you think if your willing to the effort into it.

General rating 3 1/2

Epic rating 1 1/2