New Neal Stephenson Book Out - Anathem
nealstephenson.com
New Neal Stephenson Book Out - Anathem
1–10 of 25 posts
Re: New Neal Stephenson Book Out - Anathem
#2Yeesh. Just put a hold on it with my local library, and I'm already 20th in line.
Re: New Neal Stephenson Book Out - Anathem
#3He's been doing a book tour, stopped by Cambridge yesterday. If you're not in a place he's stopping by, check out the Authors@Google talk he gave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnq-2BJwatE
He makes some long-winded jokes for the first few minutes (mainly about authors being ill-suited to public appearances), starts talking about Anathem around 3:40, and starts the Q&A time around 8:30.
Re: New Neal Stephenson Book Out - Anathem
#4If you can tolerate all the Stephensonian camp, you might enjoy this book. The ending is my favorite Stephenson ending. For extra credit, find the error in his astronomy.
Re: New Neal Stephenson Book Out - Anathem
#5If you can tolerate all the Stephensonian camp, you might enjoy this book. The ending is my favorite Stephenson ending. For extra credit, find the error in his astronomy.
The ending was certainly different to his usual endings. While most of his books feel like the last chapter is missing, this one just feels like the second-to-last chapter is missing.
Re: New Neal Stephenson Book Out - Anathem
#6painful. put it down at page 100. already recycled. oh i know what you are thinking, i must be some sort of caveman who prefers michael crichton. nonsense. when i read fiction, i want to have some fun. this book just isn't fun. stephenson knows how to write fun books. snow crash was a literal page turner...why do you stay up all night turning pages? because the book is fun.
Re: New Neal Stephenson Book Out - Anathem
#7painful. put it down at page 100. already recycled. oh i know what you are thinking, i must be some sort of caveman who prefers michael crichton. nonsense. when i read fiction , i want to have some fun. this book just isn't fun. stephenson knows how to write fun books. snow crash was a literal page turner...why do you stay up all night turning pages? because the book is fun.
"... why do you stay up all night turning pages? because the book is fun."
Well, sometimes, but "fun" is not how I'd describe the works of David Foster Wallace or Rick Moody, yet they (often, but not always) keep me engage with challenging use of language and structure.
Basically, it's enjoyable to have new stuff to think about, and that can happen in a number of ways.
Re: New Neal Stephenson Book Out - Anathem
#8painful. put it down at page 100. already recycled. oh i know what you are thinking, i must be some sort of caveman who prefers michael crichton. nonsense. when i read fiction , i want to have some fun. this book just isn't fun. stephenson knows how to write fun books. snow crash was a literal page turner...why do you stay up all night turning pages? because the book is fun.
I'm about 100 pages in as well, not about to stop though. Stephenson one of the few current authors that's not afraid to spend a hundred pages setting up the backstory for everything going on. Which accounts for the beginning of some of his books being exceptionally long and not the most interesting bits of writing that he's done. But the rest of the book - once you get into it - generally makes up for it.
Re: New Neal Stephenson Book Out - Anathem
#9painful. put it down at page 100. already recycled. oh i know what you are thinking, i must be some sort of caveman who prefers michael crichton. nonsense. when i read fiction , i want to have some fun. this book just isn't fun. stephenson knows how to write fun books. snow crash was a literal page turner...why do you stay up all night turning pages? because the book is fun.
I'm only half way in at the moment, but I must reply and say that I think this book is excellent. It may have helped that I did the first couple of hundred pages on a flight so was a captive audience (well, unless I wanted to watch "Son of Rambo"), but I don't remember feeling that it was a slog.
Re: New Neal Stephenson Book Out - Anathem
#10painful. put it down at page 100. already recycled. oh i know what you are thinking, i must be some sort of caveman who prefers michael crichton. nonsense. when i read fiction , i want to have some fun. this book just isn't fun. stephenson knows how to write fun books. snow crash was a literal page turner...why do you stay up all night turning pages? because the book is fun.
I think to determine if your tastes are aligned with others' (me, for instance), you'd have to say whether you liked Cryptonimicon and the Baroque cycle. I loved the first, and enjoyed the second.