10.03.2009 03:57
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Anathem is a book by Neal
Stephenson, his latest, and for me his best work yet. Although
after reading it again I must say that Diamond Age
remains my favorite. I recommended Anathem to a few people
and got very positive feedback, people just love it.
The story is set on another world, where scholars live apart from the
rest of society. They live in concents and spend their whole
lives studying mathematics, physics, mechanics, cosmology... or
whatever makes them happy. This is one of my favorite concepts from
the book. Through their own pursuit of knowledge the reader gets
involved in numerous ideas from these fields. Of course there is a
fair share of adventure, and basically what Stephenson calls
"making a good yarn".
The book has around 1000 pages, as expected from Stephenson, and is
worth every cent. In the US it was distributed along with an audio CD,
the music is now available
on-line and it goes rather well with the book. Although you can't
create a playlist, and it was a good exercise to do something about
that, it's a story for another article... Since there are numerous
ideas and concepts in the book some people organized a wiki
for reference, it has some really good content and it's worth a visit.