7 reviews found

To whoever finds this,

I say unto you now thrice, look, this isn’t really a novel.

Reader, I write this with the hope that, one day, we might be successful in undoing (redoing? doing? DOing?) what has already been undone. But if you are reading this and scratching your head, then perhaps all our efforts have come to naught.

I believe that a concerted time-travel project (or “diachronic operation”) has been carried out, in…

Look, this isn’t really a novel.

Huh. Is there an echo in here?

I was thinking it had been several years since I last read a Neal Stephenson novel, but it turns out to be just under a year. I borrowed Cryptonomicon from a friend’s mother, because it’s truly not on that I’m a mathematician by training yet haven’t read the most mathematical Stephenson work. I put off reading it for a few weeks, because…

Look, this isn’t really a novel.

Seriously. I know that it has that stupid “A Novel” subtitle that dangles off the end of a book’s cover like an appendix because some publishers worry that readers are too dumb or lazy to look at a book’s description to figure out if it’s fiction or non-fiction. But in this case, that label is a lie—or at the very least, a simplification. Seveneves is not a novel. It…

Every once in a while when I open a box from Subterranean Press, I discover a surprise tucked inside. Such was the case with Zodiac; I received a free surplus ARC of their special edition of this novel. I seldom refuse free books, and of course, it’s Neal Stephenson. So off we go.

Even when attached to a name such as Stephenson’s, a novel that bills itself as an “eco-thriller” does not earn eager…

I entered the Metaverse ignorant of the fact that Snow Crash was first published in 1992 (i.e., pre-Internet). Hence, it took some time for the book to endear itself to me, because my reaction to the Metaverse, a virtual reality, was filtered through my experiences with the Internet. As such, I first found Neal Stephenson's depiction of virtual reality as camp, reminding me much of Net Force and its ilk. In other words, Snow Crash…

I love fiction set in the Victorian era. Sexually-repressive mores and cool, arrogant superiority aside, the Victorians embody a sense of order and etiquette that often escapes us these days. They had protocols for social interaction—protocols embedded in unfortunate distinctions between classes, and laden with the constant threat of small talk about the weather, but protocols nonetheless. The Victorian cadence and diction are so courteous, delightful without being overly flowery. While I would never want…

In writing this review, I'm faced with the fact that this is the 991st review of Anathem on Goodreads. It isn't the 991st detailed review, nor is it the 991st long review, but somewhere in those 990 other reviews, I'm sure other people have said anything I'm going to say, and probably better. (How Lorite of me.) Yes, the book is long, and yes, it's a dense philosophical exploration of our universe disguised as a…