Underway: Anathem by Neal Stephenson

“Anathem” (Neal Stephenson)

It’s a bit unfair to label this as “underway”, since by that I simply mean I’ve bought the book. My hope, however, is that promising a future review will actually encourage me to read said book.

Neal Stephenson’s interests and abilities are wide-ranging. Snow Crash is the only other book by Stephenson that I’ve read, but based on its merits alone I’m willing to rank him as one of the top five speculative fiction authors of our era.I also rank Stephenson as a great postmodern author alongside the likes of Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, and Jorge Luis Borges. Temporally and spatially, his works span the ages from 18th-century England to WWII-era Germany to near-future Los Angeles. No less impressive is Stephenson’s breadth of historical and scientific knowledge. From its tantalizing blurb, Anathem promises to prove a worthy successor in this illustrious pedigree.

Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, is a magnificent creation: a work of great scope, intelligence, and imagination that ushers readers into a recognizable—yet strangely inverted—world.

Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside “saecular” world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent’s walls. Three times during history’s darkest epochs violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no fear of the outside—the Extramuros—for the last of the terrible times was long, long ago.

Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite of Apert, the fraas and suurs prepare to venture beyond the concent’s gates—at the same time opening them wide to welcome the curious “extras” in. During his first Apert as a fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting with the landmarks and family he hasn’t seen since he was “collected.” But before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he embraced will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change.

Powerful unforeseen forces jeopardize the peaceful stability of mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramuros—a threat that only an unsteady alliance of saecular and avout can oppose—as, one by one, Erasmas and his colleagues, teachers, and friends are summoned forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global disaster. Suddenly burdened with a staggering responsibility, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world—as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet . . . and beyond.

Numerous professional and social engagements clamor for my attention in the coming week or two, and since I don’t have this book in audible form it’s going to take me a while to slog through it. Rest assured, however, that when I finish it you’ll be the first to know.

UPDATE: Success! I have procured the audiobook from Audible.com, and will start consuming it soon!