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Anathem | 
 enlarge | Author: Neal Stephenson
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Category: Book
List Price: £20.47
Buy Used: £11.65
You Save: £8.82 (43%)
Used (11) from £11.65
Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 108909
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 960
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.9
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 2.2
ISBN: 0061474096
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780061474095
ASIN: 0061474096
Publication Date: September 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Over 28,000 Feedbacks Posted!!! SHIPS FROM THE USA!! **EXPECTED DELIVERY 14-21 WORKING DAYS** Great Buy!!!*** Never Used*** Might Have a Publisher's Mark~We have over 2,500,000 Books Sold!!!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 an Amazing book for thinkers only January 7, 2009
I was expecting to post a review of this book similar to the 'professional' reviews which said that it was too hefty and needed a good editor to trim it down. I could not have been more wrong.
The book is just amazing. It explores quantum dynamics, mathematics, multiple universe theory and more all in a language that shifts it slightly from our current understanding of these things. Yes: it is definitely a book for thinkers. Yes: you need to give it attention to get the most out of it.
The 'dialogs' and 'calca' (exposition of the ideas above - and presumably the sections which others have suggested should have been cut) were simply my favourite part: I felt like I was in Dialog with the author, or there in the concent with Erasmus. Furthermore, unless close attention is paid to these, the story will seem to spiral out of control for you, they are the bedrick that will guide you through the book.
In summary, a hugely rewarding read - the best I've had in at least a decade - but only for those willing to put aside the time to acutally read it through - not a book for skimmers.
Rewarding but not easy to read January 1, 2009
I have been a fan of Neal Stephenson's work for a good while. Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon are seminal works of cyber punk literature and Cobweb is a great comedic thriller. Some of the Baroque Cycle left me cold, but I know others who enjoyed them.
Anathem is a very different beast from Stephenson's previous work. It is founded in the dream of the Stewart Brand's Long Now Foundation and clocks play a central part of the book. It also deals with the uneasy relationships that academia and the scientific community have with society at large. The book is part mystery, part adventure and an exploration of metaphysics.
In the same way that J. R. R. Tolkein derived Middle Earth from his experience as a scholar of old English, mythology and his catholicism together with his distaste of the industrial age; so Stephenson has created his world of Arbre based on mathematics, philosophy and science with a corresponding distaste for modern consumerism. Anathem duplicates Tolkein's creation of a complete world and layers of plots with sub-plots. The book takes a while to get into and is not easy reading, but ultimately rewarding to read.
Apert, auts and theorics December 26, 2008
The opening to this book is an odd way of doing things. Stephenson overwhelms the reader with neologisms and ceremonial details that could be off-putting. It's worth fighting your way through though because after 50 or so pages, the talk of auts, apert, theorics and itas, dies into the background and the real story begins.
Erasmas is part of a concent, a place that holds scientists and mathematicians known as the avout in perfect isolation from the Saecular world, until Apert, when the two worlds can intermingle. The intermingling does not always go well but ends after ten days allowing the avout to go back to their reputedly better world. But something else is happening, there's a rogue star in the sky that may represent the need for a massive paradigm shift in how the universe is seen and soon Erasmas has to leave the concent, perhaps forever, in order to save his world.
Along the way ideas are discussed that you'll probably recognise if you've read any Plato, Kant or Philip K. Dick. If you already have an interest in the nature of reality you probably won't find anything new, but that's okay, because Erasmas is a fine protagonist to travel with and there are enough ambiguities and incidental ideas to keep you interested. As ever with Stephenson the kitchen sink is in there, too, but he does it all with a light touch and a sense of humour that allows you to get comfortable.
At the end is where it all goes a little wonky. I can't give away too much but there is an application of thought experiment to reality that undercuts the story rather than illustrating its points. I think it was an effort to create a bigger pay-off, but in the end it feels a tad too mystical in the face of all that has gone before. Had it been brought in a little earlier in the narrative it might have felt less forced.
Despite this flaw, I still think it a fine book, but those new to Stephenson should try his earlier works first.
Respect and Delight December 12, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
When this book arrived, I was, as is my won't, in the middle of four technical books at the time, and this was to be my fiction treat when I had got through them. These books were: a re-reading of Universes, a philosophical text on the anthropic cosmological principle, with detailed digressions on many worlds quantum theory, a re-reading of Edelman's A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination on the neurological underpinnings of consciousness, The Non-local Universe: The New Physics and Matters of the Mind on the interpretation of quantum mechanics in the light of the Aspect/Gisin entanglement experiments, and a quantum mechanics primer from my university days, that is no longer in print. Whilst reading these I began to play with a model of consciousness based on many worlds quantum theory. I do this stuff for fun, and I know other nerds with whom I can talk about this stuff for hours, and who love it as much as I do. I'm sure people much cleverer than me have written on this kind of model, in far more detail than I ever could, but so far I have not encountered the relevant books and articles, but I have no doubt that they are out there.
Anyway, imagine my surprise and delight when I get to the Stephenson book and it dawns on me that I am reading a techno/philosophical thriller centered on exactly the ideas I have just been reading about. And then I get to page 648 and find an exposition of a theory of consciousness so close, but not precisely identical to that I had been formulating. This is absolute heaven for a nerdy bloke with my particular interests, and I can't wait to get out there and hit some of my nerdy friends with this very heavy book and force them to read it. My awe and admiration know no bounds that this very clever man, who knows a lot of stuff has managed to take that stuff and imagine parallel worlds and storylines whereby this stuff actually crucially matters. The best Sci-Fi has always been about using the far out ideas from science to generate intriguing storylines, but this takes that process to a whole new level, as it embraces the whole history of Western thought.
At the centre of Stephenson's achievement is his comprehension of the history of ideas, from the Ancient Greeks on up to the key oustanding scientific mysteries confronting science in the present day: cosmology, consciousness and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. He understands that empires come and go, wars are fought, but in the long view the key to history is in the ideas humanity has about it's place in the universe, and the attendant technological developments that follow on their heals.
The only downside to this book is that you would have to have some familiarity with these ideas, or at least curiousity enough to hang with it and try and follow along, if you're going to comprehend it. I can see why some of the reviews are quite disappointed - space opera this is not. As usual with Stephenson it's a book by a nerd, for nerds. It is pure coincidence that Stephenson has chosen to construct a novel from philosophical and scientific ideas with which I am very familiar, so for me the book is pure entertainment and a light relief in comparison to my normal technical fare. I'm sure Neal would be more than capable of writing other books, exploiting other trains of thought, economics or pure mathematics say, that would make my head hurt as much as the next person.
Oh, and a final thing. He's convinced me NOT to send Christams cards this year :-)
theoretically speaking December 9, 2008
This is a huge book, both in its length and the scope of its ideas. It's not an easy read though and the first couple of hundred pages could put many people off. It leaves you to work your imagination and accept ideas, terminology and relationships that are pretty opaque at first. An excellent read if you like your SF deep and thoughtful.
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