Stephenson, Neal -- Anathem
Stephenson has finally done it; he has invented an entire planetary
institution of people who spend their lives giving each other
lectures, in order to justify all the lectures he wanted to put in his
book. I enjoyed this, after being utterly bored by Quicksilver,
after enjoying Cryptonomicon. I think it's purely a question of the
subject matter. The storyline in Anathem is better-constructed than
usual, with a genuine no-shit-there-it-is ending. On the other hand,
the SF gimmicks were all utterly unconvincing to me, from the
alt-matter oxygen that was only "sort of" breathable to the
quantum-consciousness theories (I hate them, every one). Overall, fun,
but it was aiming for "awesome" and missed by miles.
Books I have acquired recently
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