Review: Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Published: Atlantic Monthly Press/William Morrow & Co. (2008)

Awards Nominated: British Science Fiction Association, Campbell Memorial, Arthur C. Clarke, and Hugo Awards

Awards: Won: Locus SF Award

The Book:

“On the unusual but strangely familiar planet of Arbre, those who study science and math generally live in monastery-like communities that are isolated from the saecular world. Every year, decade, century, and millennium, gates open to allow different groups of these scholars to mingle with the outside world for ten days. Fraa Erasmas is a member of the Decenarian math, whose gates open once each decade. 

During the first opening since he was collected as a child, Erasmas and his peers notice certain hints that something unusual is on the horizon.  Though their information is limited, they begin to apply their reasoning skills to determine what truth lies behind the things that they are capable of observing.  It soon becomes clear that their world is at the cusp of a cataclysmic change, and that he and his friends are going to be pulled right into the center of it all.” ~Allie

I bought Anathem because the e-book was on sale, and because I usually enjoy Neal Stephenson’s novels.  I had also decided that this would be a good choice for the “I just HAVE to read more of that author” Challenge, in which I am participating. It’s also the first book I’ve read for Stainless Steel Droppings’s Sci-Fi Experience.  When I first started reading, I thought I might have picked a little too ambitious a book for a holiday season in which I was already exhausted.  However, I’m really glad I stuck with this one to the end!   

My Thoughts:

Arbre is a really immersive world, and I especially loved the details about life in the concents, the monastery-like communities where the scientists live.  There were a lot of little interesting touches, such as multi-plant-species ‘tangle’ agriculture and library grapes, which contain the gene sequences for all varietals.  Of course, with the existence of grapes and wine, you can see that there are a lot of similarities between Arbre and our world.  There are actually story-related reasons for this, but I appreciated how it gave the reader a kind of handle to understand the world and its history.  Earth languages (especially French) are also used as a basis for creating a lot of the new vocabulary used by the characters, and I thought this really helped to keep the meanings clear. I enjoyed how Arbre was unusual enough to be intriguing but familiar enough to not be confusing.

I also loved that the story was basically about people in academia, and that it featured an average academic (i.e. not a genius).  The story followed Fraa Erasmas and his fellow fraas and suurs from the Concent of Saunt Edhar. Erasmas has a pretty apolitical view of the world, and generally refers to the ‘Saecular Power’ as a monolith. I enjoyed the focus on the communities and relationships within the ‘mathic world’, and most especially that between Erasmas, his closest friends, and his mentor Orolo.  I found it refreshing that the concents were co-ed, and that they did not forbid romantic relationships.  There is a bit of romance in the story for Erasmas, but relationships (and, honestly, characterization) have a lower priority in the story than the events and discussions that are changing their world.

While the story follows Erasmas’s adventures across Arbre and beyond, I think the core of the story revolves around two opposing philosophical ideas. In general, it is the argument of whether words have inherent meaning, or whether they are only symbols that we assign meaning. The first position leads to the idea that words refer to an ideal form, which exists in an idealized universe (see Platonic Ideal/Form). This ties in to the more physical idea of multiple universes (‘polycosmic’ theory), where (in the simplest case) each cosmos could be closer to or farther from the ideal universe.  There are also pretty interesting explanations for the nature of consciousness, if you take interference from multiple cosmos into account. I think it’s pretty impressive that Stephenson has managed to craft a story around this clash of ideas, and one that I felt was really engaging.

I was quickly drawn in by Erasmas’s journey from his small concent to the center of a dramatic change to the infrastructure of his entire world.  There were many exciting events along the way, such as his dangerous crossing of the pole and the events at Ecba.  However, a lot of the story also involves Erasmas discussing ideas and information with his peers and mentors, and constructing their picture of what is happening. I really enjoyed seeing how much they could figure out from just a little information.  Of course, there are also a lot of dialogues about ideal forms, the nature of consciousness, and polycosmic theory. These conversations are pretty long and frequent, so I think that a reader who doesn’t enjoy them would have a hard time getting into the story.  I thought that all the discussions helped to build up the foundation for the conclusion to make sense, and I enjoyed seeing how things might change for Arbre in the future.

My Rating: 5/5

I think Anathem may be my new favorite novel by Neal Stephenson.  The planet of Arbre was fascinating, and its similarities to our world kept it easily accessible.  I enjoyed the wordplay vocabulary and small creative touches that made the world unique.  The characters may not have been a major focus of the story, but I thought they were well enough developed to be emotionally engaging.  The real heart of the story is in philosophical ideas pertaining to ideal forms, the nature of consciousness, and multiple universes, and how these ideas would be involved in a very unusual first contact scenario.  I felt like there was enough action to move the story along, though the novel was also definitely heavy on interesting discussions and explanations.  I loved this book, and am happily anticipating reading more Stephenson in the future! 

Review: Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone

Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone

Published: Tor, 2013

Series: Book 2 of the Craft Sequence

The Book:

“Shadow demons plague the city reservoir, and Red King Consolidated has sent in Caleb Altemoc—casual gambler and professional risk manager—to cleanse the water for the sixteen million people of Dresediel Lex. At the scene of the crime, Caleb finds an alluring and clever cliff runner, Crazy Mal, who easily outpaces him.

But Caleb has more than the demon infestation, Mal, or job security to worry about when he discovers that his father—the last priest of the old gods and leader of the True Quechal terrorists—has broken into his home and is wanted in connection to the attacks on the water supply.

From the beginning, Caleb and Mal are bound by lust, Craft, and chance, as both play a dangerous game where gods and people are pawns. They sleep on water, they dance in fire... and all the while the Twin Serpents slumbering beneath the earth are stirring, and they are hungry.” ~WWend.com


This is the second book I’ve read by Max Gladstone, and I really loved his first, Three Parts Dead. I’m planning to pick up Full Fathom Five, his latest in the same series, sometime in 2015.

My Thoughts:

Two Serpents Rise is set in the same world as Three Parts Dead, but since it is otherwise unrelated, I don’t think it’s necessary to read the series in order.  Gladstone’s Craft Sequence takes place in a very creative fantasy world where magic is wielded by both humans and deities, and the flows of power are determined by faith and economics.  I was delighted by the originality in Three Parts Dead, and it has been a lot of fun to see yet another corner of the world in Two Serpents Rise.  Some parts of the story in the first novel, especially those relating to graduate school, hit a little closer to home for me than the business and romance of Two Serpents Rise.  It was still really exciting, though, and I was easily drawn into the story.

The main characters this time around are Caleb and Mal, though there’s also a handful of memorable minor characters–such as the Red King, Caleb’s best friend Teo, and Caleb’s father—that play important roles in the story.  Caleb’s position is a difficult one, as he has to handle his troubled relationship with his father and his loyalty to the company that has replaced his father’s religion. Mal is mostly seen through Caleb’s eyes, but I thought the narration did a good job of showing that his perception of her was not altogether accurate.  I enjoyed the complexity of the characters, but I felt that they were not quite as intelligent as the protagonists and antagonists of the first novel of the series.  Part of that might have been due to the romantic subplot of the story, since Caleb tended to go a little stupid when he was struck by his attraction to Mal. I’m not a huge fan of romance in general or this particular character trait, but I thought it was handled pretty well within the larger story.

The religion this time is clearly inspired by Mayan/Aztec culture, though the details of the specific ‘Quechal’ religion and culture are fictional.  There is a lot of focus on the morality of human sacrifice, which is central to the Quechal religion.  I think this particular inspiration and its link to human sacrifice are pretty commonly incorporated into fictional stories, so it did not feel quite as fresh as the Alt Coulomb of Three Parts Dead.  However, I appreciated that it took a closer look at the idea of sacrifice as an important aspect of supporting a society.  The idea of killing a random person to appease a deity is hard to defend, but the infrastructure of their society depends on the micro-sacrifices each citizen makes, as well as the suffering inflicted on the surrounding land to extract the resources needed to keep the city running.  In general, I appreciated that the story does not take a simple approach to this and other topics, and that it instead portrays a more complicated world, where the way forward is not always clear. 

My Rating: 3.5/5

I preferred Three Parts Dead to Two Serpents Rise, but the second novel is still an interesting addition to a very promising series. I enjoy the way Gladstone combines ideas of business and economics with human magic and deities, and he has managed to use that to tell yet another exciting story. The fictional religion involved in this novel is based on Aztec and Mayan culture, which is something that seems to come up pretty often in fantasy stories.  This novel also had more of a romantic focus, and the characters seemed a little less intelligent than those from the previous novel. However, I appreciated that the moral situation was a bit more complicated this time, and that it was not easy to see how the problems within the story could or should be resolved. It was fun to see another corner of this unique world, and I’m looking forward to reading Full Fathom Five!

Current Challenges: Sci-Fi Experience & Vintage Sci-Fi Not-A-Challenge

I meant to do an introductory post on this earlier, but a series of work crises and an illness ended up derailing the beginning of my month.  It's time to celebrate science fiction with Stainless Steel Droppings and Little Red Reviewer!

The Sci-Fi Experience, hosted by Carl V. at Stainless Steel Droppings, takes place during the months of December and January, and focuses on sharing experiences of science fiction.  More information on the Experience can be found here, and the site collecting reviews from participants is here.

There are still a few fantasy books I need to finish off this month for my 2014 challenges, but I'm already starting in on some good science fiction.  My first Sci-Fi Experience novel will be Neal Stephenson's Anathem, followed by Christopher Priest's The Separation, which I have enjoyed on audiobook.  After that, I suspect it will be time to dive into the overlapping non-challenge...


The Vintage Sci-Fi Not-A-Challenge, hosted by Andrea of Little Red Reviewer, takes place during the month of January, and more information can be found here.  For the purposes of the challenge, 'vintage' is defined as science fiction that was published in or before the year 1979.  There are a lot of books I'd like to read for this challenge, but we'll see how far I can get in a month! I'm planning to start with C.J. Cherryh's The Faded Sun: Kesrith, possibly leading into the rest of the trilogy.  Other books I'm hoping to read are Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama (I really should have read it years ago!), Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, and Robert Heinlein's Farmer in the Sky.  If by some miracle I finish all of those, I suppose I could finally start reading the notorious Hugo winner The Forever Machine!