Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson is a hard author to like. His books, at least his newer books, tend to start slow and end weak - it's the middle where the value is. Stephenson can pack more ideas and make the reader think more in a chapter than most authors can in a multi-volume set.

Anathem is no exception. I started this book in July(?) when it was first released and couldn't get my head around it. This last week I finally felt up to tackling it again.

Set in a post apocalyptic parallel earth called Arbe Anathem follows the development of a cloistered intellectual monk, Erasamus, from self concerned 19 year old into a functioning adult in a secular world. The catalyst - discovery of an "alien" spaceship that brings an isolated clositered mathic (monks) world and the secular world into both extended contact and conflict for the first time in a thousand years. At the same time it exposes the internal divisions in the mathic world, and the lengths that some will go to to insure uncomfortable ideas are suppressed.

After the first 100 pages or so the book is very engaging, and attempting to identify the intellectual ideas and associate them with their real time originators is both a challenge and fun. My only real complaint is the climax of the book in which Fraa Jad and Erasamus finally confront the leaders of the "aliens" by skipping from narrative to narrative. If felt like a weak rip-off of The Matrix series combined with the Andromeda strain and some other film I can't quite place at the moment. I mean I understand that this is an extension of some of the quantum physics ideas explored earlier in the book but the way in which it was done was somewhat rushed and, I thought, weak. That however is a Stephenson trademark.

Overall I would recommend the book the strengths in the writing and the story outweigh it's weaknesses by a good amount. Just be prepared this is not an easy read by any stretch.