| Book review: Anathem |
[Oct. 24th, 2008|09:35 pm]
Scott
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Title: Anathem
Author: Neil Stephenson
Rating: 2 out of pi
Anathem was a solid sci-fi book. Yes, solid. It was readable and enjoyable and page-turny and it delivered. But it was nothing to write home about, and I say that as someone who did write home about the last few Neal Stephenson books. At least I think I must have, because I got an email from my mom a few days ago saying "There's a new book out by that author you told me you liked last year, have you read it yet?".
It's set in a world like yet unlike our own, where civilization is ten thousand years old and has seen it all. After a particularly nasty apocalypse, scientists were shut away in monasteries called maths - partly to protect the world from the scientists, and partly to protect the scientists from the world. The arrangement proved useful; since then, the world's gone through cycles of despotism, fanaticism, apocalypse, barbarism, and back again, while Science is preserved through it all within the ultimate ivory towers. When civilization returns, the various governments that turn up (dismissively referred to by the scientists as "Panjandrums") ask for and receive whatever technology and information they need from the scientific monasteries.
The various orders of scientists work on a system centered around "Apert", the ten day period when they are allowed to leave their math and exchange information with each other and the outside world. Various orders called Unaries, Tenners, Hundreders, and Millenials have Aperts once every year, decade, century, and millennium respectively.
Barred from any technology more complex than a backhoe by the "Saecular Power", the scientists have turned to pure theoretics and metaphysics. At least, all the ones who anyone knows about have. It's been seven centuries since anyone last communicated with the Millennials, and no one knows what they've been up to - except for that time a complete fossilized dinosaur was found in a four year old block of parking-garage concrete as a result of some mysterious "experiment". Our hero, Fraa Erasmus, is a Tenner who stumbles onto a Saecular secret he wasn't meant to see, and has to break all the old taboos to set things right.
It sounds like an awesome concept, and it is an awesome concept. But the book is typical Stephenson - long and rambling - and while Stephenson's good at that style, the book doesn't really have enough meat to sustain it quite as long as he goes. The metaphysics (oh yes, this book has metaphysics) are very Platonic, and I hate Platonism, so there you go. Stephenson has an annoying tendency to concentrate on the metaphysics and science side of it at the expense of the plot, which seems to just incidentally fall into place whenever the narrative requires it. And then ending is both fast and unsatisfying.
And another thing! This has always annoyed me; mostly in animes but sometimes in books: when the government decides to entrust the Most Important Issue of the World to a team of untried but spunky kids because they respect their spirit. No government would ever actually do that. Now, I know that it's popular for various reasons to have some of the main characters of this sort of book be untested teens or young adults. And I know that the main characters have to be the ones who do things. But try to make it plausible, okay.
And while I complain: what's with authors who make the coolest-sounding word/phrase in the book the title, even when it's barely used and not really relevant to the main plot?
I would recommend this book to people who like philosophy of science, who appreciate really complex alternate universes, and who have a lot of time and patience. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who enjoys plot, action, or a plausible narrative.
I'm thinking of writing reviews for some other good or not-so-good books I've read in the past few months, only - does anyone ever use reviews in blogs? Or is it a waste of time? |
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| Comments: |
Use? Probably not so much. Read and appreciate? Frequently.
One could argue that blogging in general is a waste of time, but I certainly think that it's a good waste of time, especially for such a good writer as yourself.
The only Neal Stephenson book I ever got into was Snowcrash. Snow Crash?
I tried (really, really, REALLY tried) to read Diamond Age a few years ago but just could not pull myself through it. And whatever series he has out right now (It has "quicksilver" in the title, I think) is not all that engaging, either—flipping through it at the bookstore does not really whet my appetite.
All of this has nothing to do with your review but I thought I'd share, anyway.
I loved Snow Crash too, but also didn't much like Diamond Age.
I thought Quiksilver (first novel of the Baroque trilogy) was amazing, though it took some time to get into. Cryptonomicon is good too.
Really? I'll have to find them at the library some time, then.
Also more to the point of your entry: I do take reviews of artists/books/etc on my friends list into consideration when deciding what to read/listen to/buy next. So I certainly "use" them.
Half(more then half) the time it's for books I've never even heard of. So.. does me no good.
oh.. it's a neal stephenson book.
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