'It is an intricate Socratic puzzle, yet - though you may wish to banish me or pour hemlock down my throat for saying this - I’m not entirely sure it’s a novel.

Stephenson created this world and its inhabitants mostly so that he could explore a wide variety of philosophical and social ideas, with sources ranging from Pythagoras, Thales and Plato all the way to Godel and Danny Hillis.' - Glenn Harlan Reynolds, New York Post And, in the wake of things like Bill Joy's call for us to renounce some advanced technologies rather than risk social dislocation, such a morality tale might even have been useful.

'All this could have been a very simple morality tale: Science good, repression of science bad.

But what could be more literary than the metaphysical conclusions the novel wends its way to, which are that human imagination is a quantum device and the cosmos itself a kind of story ?' - Laura Miller, The Los Angeles Times (.) True, Erasmas is a bit callow (his cluelessness in romantic matters is one of the novel's running jokes), and his workmanlike first-person voice strips the customary brio out of Stephenson's prose. Anathem is also a campus novel, a counterpoint to Stephenson's little-known debut, The Big U.

'Whenever you feel you have a handle on the story, at the moment you settle in, thinking, 'Now I see what this book is about,' the novel is liable to pivot on some previously unnoticed axis and head in another direction entirely.The only catch to reading a novel as imposingly magnificent as this is that for the next few months, everything else seems small and obvious by comparison.' - Christopher Brookmyre, The Guardian 'Weighing in at 800 head-stretching pages, Anathem demands a near-avout level of commitment, but rewards those who enter its concent with bounteous gifts of wisdom, beauty and 'upsight'.It’s heavy stuff, but the weightiness is leavened by a knowing humour.' - James Lovegrove, Financial Times

' Anathem belongs to the larger-than-you-might-think subgenre of religion-centric science fiction.

Il pellegrino and Il nuovo cielo - Italia General information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs.

Anathem by neal stephenson