Anathem

Neal Stephenson

Harper Collins, Oct 6, 2009 - Fiction - 1008 pages

A #1 New York Times Bestseller, Anathem is perhaps the most brilliant literary invention to date from the incomparable Neal Stephenson, who rocked the world with Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and The Baroque Cycle. Now he imagines an alternate universe where scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians live in seclusion behind ancient monastery walls until they are called back into the world to deal with a crisis of astronomical proportions.

 

Anathem won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and the reviews for have been dazzling: “Brilliant” (South Florida Sun-Sentinel), “Daring” (Boston Globe), “Immensely entertaining” (New York Times Book Review), “A tour de force” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), while Time magazine proclaims, “The great novel of ideas…has morphed into science fiction, and Neal Stephenson is its foremost practitioner.”

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - martialalex92 - LibraryThing

Was it interesting? Yes. Was it worth 1000 pages? No. Also like his other book Seveneves, it was pretty interesting for the first 2 thirds, then the last third he just decided to write a very different book with no satisfactory ending.

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - octoberdad - LibraryThing

It took three months to read, but really it was done in three rather lengthy marathons with several weeks of not reading it in between. Overall, a decent story. Very ambitious, and Stephenson's world ...

Contents

• part 1 Provener: 1
• part 2 Apert: 55
• part 3 Eliger: 159
• part 4 Anathem: 191
• part 5 Voco: 243
• part 6 Peregrin: 323
• part 7 Feral: 405
• part 8 Orithena: 531
• part 9 Inbrase: 599
• part 10 Messal: 651
• part 11 Advent: 757
• part 12 Requiem: 875
• part 13 Reconstitution: 919
• Glossary: 933
• Cutting the Cake: 955
• Hemn Configuration Space: 961
• Complex Versus Simple Protism: 973
• Acknowledgments: 983

About the author

Neal Stephenson is the bestselling author of the novels Reamde, Anathem, The System of the World, The Confusion, Quicksilver, Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Zodiac, and the groundbreaking nonfiction work In the Beginning... Was the Command Line. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Anathem
• Author: Neal Stephenson
• Edition: unabridged
• Publisher: Harper Collins, 2009
• ISBN: 0061982482, 9780061982484
• Length: 1008 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Fantasy / Historical; Fiction / Romance / Historical / Ancient World; Fiction / Science Fiction / Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic; Fiction / Science Fiction / General