I know how much you all love Neal Stephenson, so I infiltrated this blog to let you all know that he has a new book out called Anathem.
Since childhood, Raz has lived behind the walls of a 3,400-year-old monastery, a sanctuary for scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians. There, he and his cohorts are sealed off from the illiterate, irrational, unpredictable “saecular” world, an endless landscape of casinos and megastores that is plagued by recurring cycles of booms and busts, dark ages and renaissances, world wars and climate change. Until the day that a higher power, driven by fear, decides it is only these cloistered scholars who have the abilities to avert an impending catastrophe. And, one by one, Raz and his friends, mentors, and teachers are summoned forth without warning into the unknown.
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September 17, 2008 at 5:00 am
everythingbutthebook
How fitting! dictionary.com says anathema is ‘a person or thing accursed or consigned to damnation or destruction’ – which is exactly how I’d describe Neal S after our discussion of ‘The Diamond Age’!
LP 🙂
October 2, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Caesar
Hehe… something funny about Anathem from one of my favourite Web comics: http://xkcd.com/483/ (you should also read the little tool-tip that pops up when you hover the mouse over the picture)