Intricate world building, a firehose of philosophical ideas, real and fictional, to think about and a compelling narrative — all packed into a 900+ page brick of a novel.

I read some of Neal Stephenson’s earlier work (Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon) when I was younger but I didn’t “get” them at the time.

Anathem is such a me book that I’m curious to read those books again and see if they make more sense to me now.

If you find yourself often referring to art as “pretentious” or “up its own ass” then I think you’re likely to say the same about Anathem.

It’s a novel that is genuinely intellectually stimulating all throughout, that’s probably why I’m so enthralled by it, but if you’re unwilling or uninterested in engaging with the book in that way, you’re not going to have a good time.

I took an intro to social psychology class in university and the professor used examples from the Star Trek series to introduce most of the subjects covered in the class. I think that you could do something similar using Anathem in an intro to philosophy class because of how densely packed it is with philosophy, logic and rhetoric.

Knowing the premise of Anathem ahead of time, I was prepared for it to be as dry and boring as it could possibly be.

Fortunately, Anathem’s narrative is way more compelling than I was expecting it to be. Anathem isn’t just a book filled to the brim with interesting ideas it’s also packed with world-spanning journeys and potentially world ending (or creating) scenarios.

What’s not to love?

I love a good long-ass book (see Gene Wolfe’s the Wizard Knight, Mary Gentle’s Ash: a Secret History and Stephen King’s Under the Dome). Reading something in the first chapter and having it pay off hundreds of pages later, there’s nothing quite like it.