Sadly, quite inaccessible, 09 Jan 2009
I preordered this book since Neal Stephenson so far had never failed to impress me with his writing. I read the Baroque cycle back to back in one large "gulp" of 2400 pages and found it hard to put down any of his previous works, especially "The diamond age".

Sadly, I found "Anathem" to be quite inaccessible. For me the use of created terms was particularly distracting, obscuring the narration rather than enhancing it. I wish I could have gone beyond the first 100 pages of the book, but even 50 pages into it, the book failed to provide me with enough interest to keep going.

This is the book which made me understand the criticism aimed at Neal Stephenson's previous works.


an Amazing book for thinkers only, 07 Jan 2009
I was expecting to post a review of this book similar to the 'professional' reviews which said that it was too hefty and needed a good editor to trim it down. I could not have been more wrong.

The book is just amazing. It explores quantum dynamics, mathematics, multiple universe theory and more all in a language that shifts it slightly from our current understanding of these things. Yes: it is definitely a book for thinkers. Yes: you need to give it attention to get the most out of it.

The 'dialogs' and 'calca' (exposition of the ideas above - and presumably the sections which others have suggested should have been cut) were simply my favourite part: I felt like I was in Dialog with the author, or there in the concent with Erasmus. Furthermore, unless close attention is paid to these, the story will seem to spiral out of control for you, they are the bedrick that will guide you through the book.

In summary, a hugely rewarding read - the best I've had in at least a decade - but only for those willing to put aside the time to acutally read it through - not a book for skimmers.

Rewarding but not easy to read, 01 Jan 2009
I have been a fan of Neal Stephenson's work for a good while. Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon are seminal works of cyber punk literature and Cobweb is a great comedic thriller. Some of the Baroque Cycle left me cold, but I know others who enjoyed them.

Anathem is a very different beast from Stephenson's previous work. It is founded in the dream of the Stewart Brand's Long Now Foundation and clocks play a central part of the book. It also deals with the uneasy relationships that academia and the scientific community have with society at large. The book is part mystery, part adventure and an exploration of metaphysics.

In the same way that J. R. R. Tolkein derived Middle Earth from his experience as a scholar of old English, mythology and his catholicism together with his distaste of the industrial age; so Stephenson has created his world of Arbre based on mathematics, philosophy and science with a corresponding distaste for modern consumerism. Anathem duplicates Tolkein's creation of a complete world and layers of plots with sub-plots. The book takes a while to get into and is not easy reading, but ultimately rewarding to read.


Apert, auts and theorics, 26 Dec 2008
The opening to this book is an odd way of doing things. Stephenson overwhelms the reader with neologisms and ceremonial details that could be off-putting. It's worth fighting your way through though because after 50 or so pages, the talk of auts, apert, theorics and itas, dies into the background and the real story begins.

Erasmas is part of a concent, a place that holds scientists and mathematicians known as the avout in perfect isolation from the Saecular world, until Apert, when the two worlds can intermingle. The intermingling does not always go well but ends after ten days allowing the avout to go back to their reputedly better world. But something else is happening, there's a rogue star in the sky that may represent the need for a massive paradigm shift in how the universe is seen and soon Erasmas has to leave the concent, perhaps forever, in order to save his world.

Along the way ideas are discussed that you'll probably recognise if you've read any Plato, Kant or Philip K. Dick. If you already have an interest in the nature of reality you probably won't find anything new, but that's okay, because Erasmas is a fine protagonist to travel with and there are enough ambiguities and incidental ideas to keep you interested. As ever with Stephenson the kitchen sink is in there, too, but he does it all with a light touch and a sense of humour that allows you to get comfortable.

At the end is where it all goes a little wonky. I can't give away too much but there is an application of thought experiment to reality that undercuts the story rather than illustrating its points. I think it was an effort to create a bigger pay-off, but in the end it feels a tad too mystical in the face of all that has gone before. Had it been brought in a little earlier in the narrative it might have felt less forced.

Despite this flaw, I still think it a fine book, but those new to Stephenson should try his earlier works first.

Respect and Delight, 12 Dec 2008
When this book arrived, I was, as is my won't, in the middle of four technical books at the time, and this was to be my fiction treat when I had got through them. These books were: a re-reading of Universes, a philosophical text on the anthropic cosmological principle, with detailed digressions on many worlds quantum theory, a re-reading of Edelman's A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination on the neurological underpinnings of consciousness, The Non-local Universe: The New Physics and Matters of the Mind on the interpretation of quantum mechanics in the light of the Aspect/Gisin entanglement experiments, and a quantum mechanics primer from my university days, that is no longer in print. Whilst reading these I began to play with a model of consciousness based on many worlds quantum theory. I do this stuff for fun, and I know other nerds with whom I can talk about this stuff for hours, and who love it as much as I do. I'm sure people much cleverer than me have written on this kind of model, in far more detail than I ever could, but so far I have not encountered the relevant books and articles, but I have no doubt that they are out there.

Anyway, imagine my surprise and delight when I get to the Stephenson book and it dawns on me that I am reading a techno/philosophical thriller centered on exactly the ideas I have just been reading about. And then I get to page 648 and find an exposition of a theory of consciousness so close, but not precisely identical to that I had been formulating. This is absolute heaven for a nerdy bloke with my particular interests, and I can't wait to get out there and hit some of my nerdy friends with this very heavy book and force them to read it. My awe and admiration know no bounds that this very clever man, who knows a lot of stuff has managed to take that stuff and imagine parallel worlds and storylines whereby this stuff actually crucially matters. The best Sci-Fi has always been about using the far out ideas from science to generate intriguing storylines, but this takes that process to a whole new level, as it embraces the whole history of Western thought.

At the centre of Stephenson's achievement is his comprehension of the history of ideas, from the Ancient Greeks on up to the key oustanding scientific mysteries confronting science in the present day: cosmology, consciousness and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. He understands that empires come and go, wars are fought, but in the long view the key to history is in the ideas humanity has about it's place in the universe, and the attendant technological developments that follow on their heals.

The only downside to this book is that you would have to have some familiarity with these ideas, or at least curiousity enough to hang with it and try and follow along, if you're going to comprehend it. I can see why some of the reviews are quite disappointed - space opera this is not. As usual with Stephenson it's a book by a nerd, for nerds. It is pure coincidence that Stephenson has chosen to construct a novel from philosophical and scientific ideas with which I am very familiar, so for me the book is pure entertainment and a light relief in comparison to my normal technical fare. I'm sure Neal would be more than capable of writing other books, exploiting other trains of thought, economics or pure mathematics say, that would make my head hurt as much as the next person.

Oh, and a final thing. He's convinced me NOT to send Christams cards this year :-)

Neal Stephenson enjoys cult status among science fiction fans and techie types thanks to Snow Crash, which so completely redefined conventional notions of the high-tech future that it became a self- fulfilling prophecy. But if his cyberpunk classic was big, Cryptonomicon is huge, gargantuan, massive-- not just in size but in scope and appeal. It's the hip, readable heir to Gravity's Rainbow and the Illuminatus trilogy. And it's only the first of a proposed series--for more information, read our interview with Stephenson.

Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods- -World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first. Of course, to observe is not its real duty--we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed. Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious."

All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroes--inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe--team up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with conspiratorial ties.

Cryptonomicon is vintage Stephenson from start to finish: short on plot, but long on detail and so precise it's exhausting. Every page has a math problem, a quotable in-joke, an amazing idea or a bit of sharp prose. Cryptonomicon is also packed with truly weird characters, funky tech, and crypto--all the crypto you'll ever need, in fact, not to mention all the computer jargon of the moment. A word to the wise: if you read this book in one sitting, you may die of information overload (and starvation). --Therese Littleton, Amazon.com

Sadly, quite inaccessible, 09 Jan 2009
I preordered this book since Neal Stephenson so far had never failed to impress me with his writing. I read the Baroque cycle back to back in one large "gulp" of 2400 pages and found it hard to put down any of his previous works, especially "The diamond age".

Sadly, I found "Anathem" to be quite inaccessible. For me the use of created terms was particularly distracting, obscuring the narration rather than enhancing it. I wish I could have gone beyond the first 100 pages of the book, but even 50 pages into it, the book failed to provide me with enough interest to keep going.

This is the book which made me understand the criticism aimed at Neal Stephenson's previous works.


an Amazing book for thinkers only, 07 Jan 2009
I was expecting to post a review of this book similar to the 'professional' reviews which said that it was too hefty and needed a good editor to trim it down. I could not have been more wrong.

The book is just amazing. It explores quantum dynamics, mathematics, multiple universe theory and more all in a language that shifts it slightly from our current understanding of these things. Yes: it is definitely a book for thinkers. Yes: you need to give it attention to get the most out of it.

The 'dialogs' and 'calca' (exposition of the ideas above - and presumably the sections which others have suggested should have been cut) were simply my favourite part: I felt like I was in Dialog with the author, or there in the concent with Erasmus. Furthermore, unless close attention is paid to these, the story will seem to spiral out of control for you, they are the bedrick that will guide you through the book.

In summary, a hugely rewarding read - the best I've had in at least a decade - but only for those willing to put aside the time to acutally read it through - not a book for skimmers.

Rewarding but not easy to read, 01 Jan 2009
I have been a fan of Neal Stephenson's work for a good while. Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon are seminal works of cyber punk literature and Cobweb is a great comedic thriller. Some of the Baroque Cycle left me cold, but I know others who enjoyed them.

Anathem is a very different beast from Stephenson's previous work. It is founded in the dream of the Stewart Brand's Long Now Foundation and clocks play a central part of the book. It also deals with the uneasy relationships that academia and the scientific community have with society at large. The book is part mystery, part adventure and an exploration of metaphysics.

In the same way that J. R. R. Tolkein derived Middle Earth from his experience as a scholar of old English, mythology and his catholicism together with his distaste of the industrial age; so Stephenson has created his world of Arbre based on mathematics, philosophy and science with a corresponding distaste for modern consumerism. Anathem duplicates Tolkein's creation of a complete world and layers of plots with sub-plots. The book takes a while to get into and is not easy reading, but ultimately rewarding to read.


Apert, auts and theorics, 26 Dec 2008
The opening to this book is an odd way of doing things. Stephenson overwhelms the reader with neologisms and ceremonial details that could be off-putting. It's worth fighting your way through though because after 50 or so pages, the talk of auts, apert, theorics and itas, dies into the background and the real story begins.

Erasmas is part of a concent, a place that holds scientists and mathematicians known as the avout in perfect isolation from the Saecular world, until Apert, when the two worlds can intermingle. The intermingling does not always go well but ends after ten days allowing the avout to go back to their reputedly better world. But something else is happening, there's a rogue star in the sky that may represent the need for a massive paradigm shift in how the universe is seen and soon Erasmas has to leave the concent, perhaps forever, in order to save his world.

Along the way ideas are discussed that you'll probably recognise if you've read any Plato, Kant or Philip K. Dick. If you already have an interest in the nature of reality you probably won't find anything new, but that's okay, because Erasmas is a fine protagonist to travel with and there are enough ambiguities and incidental ideas to keep you interested. As ever with Stephenson the kitchen sink is in there, too, but he does it all with a light touch and a sense of humour that allows you to get comfortable.

At the end is where it all goes a little wonky. I can't give away too much but there is an application of thought experiment to reality that undercuts the story rather than illustrating its points. I think it was an effort to create a bigger pay-off, but in the end it feels a tad too mystical in the face of all that has gone before. Had it been brought in a little earlier in the narrative it might have felt less forced.

Despite this flaw, I still think it a fine book, but those new to Stephenson should try his earlier works first.

Respect and Delight, 12 Dec 2008
When this book arrived, I was, as is my won't, in the middle of four technical books at the time, and this was to be my fiction treat when I had got through them. These books were: a re-reading of Universes, a philosophical text on the anthropic cosmological principle, with detailed digressions on many worlds quantum theory, a re-reading of Edelman's A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination on the neurological underpinnings of consciousness, The Non-local Universe: The New Physics and Matters of the Mind on the interpretation of quantum mechanics in the light of the Aspect/Gisin entanglement experiments, and a quantum mechanics primer from my university days, that is no longer in print. Whilst reading these I began to play with a model of consciousness based on many worlds quantum theory. I do this stuff for fun, and I know other nerds with whom I can talk about this stuff for hours, and who love it as much as I do. I'm sure people much cleverer than me have written on this kind of model, in far more detail than I ever could, but so far I have not encountered the relevant books and articles, but I have no doubt that they are out there.

Anyway, imagine my surprise and delight when I get to the Stephenson book and it dawns on me that I am reading a techno/philosophical thriller centered on exactly the ideas I have just been reading about. And then I get to page 648 and find an exposition of a theory of consciousness so close, but not precisely identical to that I had been formulating. This is absolute heaven for a nerdy bloke with my particular interests, and I can't wait to get out there and hit some of my nerdy friends with this very heavy book and force them to read it. My awe and admiration know no bounds that this very clever man, who knows a lot of stuff has managed to take that stuff and imagine parallel worlds and storylines whereby this stuff actually crucially matters. The best Sci-Fi has always been about using the far out ideas from science to generate intriguing storylines, but this takes that process to a whole new level, as it embraces the whole history of Western thought.

At the centre of Stephenson's achievement is his comprehension of the history of ideas, from the Ancient Greeks on up to the key oustanding scientific mysteries confronting science in the present day: cosmology, consciousness and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. He understands that empires come and go, wars are fought, but in the long view the key to history is in the ideas humanity has about it's place in the universe, and the attendant technological developments that follow on their heals.

The only downside to this book is that you would have to have some familiarity with these ideas, or at least curiousity enough to hang with it and try and follow along, if you're going to comprehend it. I can see why some of the reviews are quite disappointed - space opera this is not. As usual with Stephenson it's a book by a nerd, for nerds. It is pure coincidence that Stephenson has chosen to construct a novel from philosophical and scientific ideas with which I am very familiar, so for me the book is pure entertainment and a light relief in comparison to my normal technical fare. I'm sure Neal would be more than capable of writing other books, exploiting other trains of thought, economics or pure mathematics say, that would make my head hurt as much as the next person.

Oh, and a final thing. He's convinced me NOT to send Christams cards this year :-)

brain training, 28 Nov 2008
Agree with these other guys about what a great read this is. In fact it played a large part in me deciding to go back to university and study computing. What I love about it particularly is that it makes you feel clever. Some of the stuff in here is kind of complex and daunting, about maths and cryptography and hacking. But he explains it in such a way that you take it all in your stride, and then think - wow, I get this! I must be clever!
It's also really funny in places. And proper geeky. There should be more books about geeks.

one of the best books I have ever read, and I am really a SciFi buff, 15 Aug 2008
I bought this and Snow Crash as "cheap fillers" on another order, and I am so glad I did. It is so dense, and each thread is so fascinating, you find yourself so tempted to jump and find how the threads come together. Cannot recommend it highly enough.

Dazzling and defining, 29 Apr 2008
Sometimes a book comes along that leaves the reader dazed with the author's vision, scope and ambition. Neal Stephenson has done this a few times with his work, but arguably never better than in Cryptonomicon.

The novel follows two stories in parallel. In WWII, a group of cryptologists based at Bletchley Park are struggling to crack the German codes so the British and Americans can more effectively combat the German U-boat threat. In the present, a group of businessmen are attempting to build a data haven in the (fictious) Pacific state of Kinakuta. Both plotlines draw on codes, cryptology, cryptoanalysis and the blurring of the genres of science fiction and historical fiction (a line which is even further muddied by the subsequent Baroque Cycle, which serves as a quasi-prequel series to this novel).

It is difficult to describe the book. It's scope is huge, sprawling across Europe, America, the Phillippines and other parts of the world in two different time periods, incorporating dozens of major characters of note and very effectively educating the reader about the science of codes and puzzles (far more effectively than the amateurish Da Vinci Code) before the two storylines very effectively come together at the end of the book. Stephenson's style is very readable, occasionally dense, but often very funny. There are longeurs and apparently unrelated episodes in the book which are masterfully re-incorporated into the greater narrative to form a cohesive whole. It's a book about secrets, what it costs to hold those secrets, and the consequences when those secrets are revealed. It's a war story and a techno-thriller at the same time. It is a unique work.

Cryptonomicon won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2000 and unquestionably deserved it. If The Separation was the first truly great SF novel of the 21st Century, than Cryptonomicon is almost certainly the last great SF novel of the 20th, and one of the few works that I would apply the label 'genius' to.

A great story... squashed in too late, 18 Feb 2008
I would have to say that the 5 star reviews are spot on... but so are the less favourable ones.

Yes, it's a mammoth, obsessively researched, well-written yarn containing some great set-pieces, enthralling ideas and hilarious jokes. And it's surprisingly easy to follow, despite the numerous mathematical formulae and (inaccurate) reviews that liken it to Pynchon... but it just goes on and on! I could point out about two dozen major passages from the first half of the book that add nothing to the story/characterizations at all and only serve to test a readers patience. It took me a good 300 pages (a third of the book) to finally 'get into', yet the real plot (a tale of buried Japanese gold) is crammed into the last 150 pages or so. It's a real shame.

So whilst there is so much to enjoy here, prospective readers need to be aware of the 'task' ahead of them. This isn't the kind of book you can spend half an hour with on the train home - it's much better suited to a long holiday with few distractions (as long as you're happy to pay the weight penalty on your luggage - it's a bit of a monster). But patient readers WILL be rewarded.

It's all a bit of a puzzle...., 16 Aug 2007
Aptly, this book contains a hidden code....Somewhere inside this epic novel is the bones of the book he should have written.

Stephenson's ambitious scope and erudition dazzles but it also deceives. He has produced a book based on big ideas, what-if history, the developement of big world themes and hip-geekery, which many of us clearly enjoyed (76 reviews and counting......). But I have to confess that, apart from the entertaining history lesson in cryptography, most of the plotting, narrative and characterisation seemed a bit flat and methodical. As if he knew that there was a topic he wanted to address in more detail but he had a contractual brief to fulfil....So instead, he blinded us with a pyrotechnic display that almost screams "screenplay" at us. Look behind the whizzbangs and what can you see?

I wonder if he might have wanted to pursue a more character-driven study of high-functioning geeks and their interactions and impacts with and on the "real world". Rather like Mark Haddon's "Curious Incident" and autism, it tries to give an authentic voice to those sociopaths who seem to feel more comfortable with numbers than with people. It certainly seems to be more perceptive, human and empathetically written when he is dealing with the Randy/Lawrence "inner worlds" and their interactions with and transgressions of societal norms. Unfortunately these passages, although excellent, are rather few and far between. So we are forced to review the book he wrote, not the one he should have written. Taken as a whole, it seems less successful, perhaps more half-hearted when Stephenson is tracing his secondary characters, pushing the plot along, or just plain showing off.

Overlong? Mechanical? Digressive? Contrived? Infuriating? Yes

Enjoyable? Oh yes.

It's all a bit of a puzzle, isn't it?

From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city states, and the Internet--incarnate as the Metaverse--looks something like last year's hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist--hacker, samurai swordsman and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what's a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, Snow Crash interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, Snow Crash is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible. --Acton Lane

Sadly, quite inaccessible, 09 Jan 2009
I preordered this book since Neal Stephenson so far had never failed to impress me with his writing. I read the Baroque cycle back to back in one large "gulp" of 2400 pages and found it hard to put down any of his previous works, especially "The diamond age".

Sadly, I found "Anathem" to be quite inaccessible. For me the use of created terms was particularly distracting, obscuring the narration rather than enhancing it. I wish I could have gone beyond the first 100 pages of the book, but even 50 pages into it, the book failed to provide me with enough interest to keep going.

This is the book which made me understand the criticism aimed at Neal Stephenson's previous works.


an Amazing book for thinkers only, 07 Jan 2009
I was expecting to post a review of this book similar to the 'professional' reviews which said that it was too hefty and needed a good editor to trim it down. I could not have been more wrong.

The book is just amazing. It explores quantum dynamics, mathematics, multiple universe theory and more all in a language that shifts it slightly from our current understanding of these things. Yes: it is definitely a book for thinkers. Yes: you need to give it attention to get the most out of it.

The 'dialogs' and 'calca' (exposition of the ideas above - and presumably the sections which others have suggested should have been cut) were simply my favourite part: I felt like I was in Dialog with the author, or there in the concent with Erasmus. Furthermore, unless close attention is paid to these, the story will seem to spiral out of control for you, they are the bedrick that will guide you through the book.

In summary, a hugely rewarding read - the best I've had in at least a decade - but only for those willing to put aside the time to acutally read it through - not a book for skimmers.

Rewarding but not easy to read, 01 Jan 2009
I have been a fan of Neal Stephenson's work for a good while. Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon are seminal works of cyber punk literature and Cobweb is a great comedic thriller. Some of the Baroque Cycle left me cold, but I know others who enjoyed them.

Anathem is a very different beast from Stephenson's previous work. It is founded in the dream of the Stewart Brand's Long Now Foundation and clocks play a central part of the book. It also deals with the uneasy relationships that academia and the scientific community have with society at large. The book is part mystery, part adventure and an exploration of metaphysics.

In the same way that J. R. R. Tolkein derived Middle Earth from his experience as a scholar of old English, mythology and his catholicism together with his distaste of the industrial age; so Stephenson has created his world of Arbre based on mathematics, philosophy and science with a corresponding distaste for modern consumerism. Anathem duplicates Tolkein's creation of a complete world and layers of plots with sub-plots. The book takes a while to get into and is not easy reading, but ultimately rewarding to read.


Apert, auts and theorics, 26 Dec 2008
The opening to this book is an odd way of doing things. Stephenson overwhelms the reader with neologisms and ceremonial details that could be off-putting. It's worth fighting your way through though because after 50 or so pages, the talk of auts, apert, theorics and itas, dies into the background and the real story begins.

Erasmas is part of a concent, a place that holds scientists and mathematicians known as the avout in perfect isolation from the Saecular world, until Apert, when the two worlds can intermingle. The intermingling does not always go well but ends after ten days allowing the avout to go back to their reputedly better world. But something else is happening, there's a rogue star in the sky that may represent the need for a massive paradigm shift in how the universe is seen and soon Erasmas has to leave the concent, perhaps forever, in order to save his world.

Along the way ideas are discussed that you'll probably recognise if you've read any Plato, Kant or Philip K. Dick. If you already have an interest in the nature of reality you probably won't find anything new, but that's okay, because Erasmas is a fine protagonist to travel with and there are enough ambiguities and incidental ideas to keep you interested. As ever with Stephenson the kitchen sink is in there, too, but he does it all with a light touch and a sense of humour that allows you to get comfortable.

At the end is where it all goes a little wonky. I can't give away too much but there is an application of thought experiment to reality that undercuts the story rather than illustrating its points. I think it was an effort to create a bigger pay-off, but in the end it feels a tad too mystical in the face of all that has gone before. Had it been brought in a little earlier in the narrative it might have felt less forced.

Despite this flaw, I still think it a fine book, but those new to Stephenson should try his earlier works first.

Respect and Delight, 12 Dec 2008
When this book arrived, I was, as is my won't, in the middle of four technical books at the time, and this was to be my fiction treat when I had got through them. These books were: a re-reading of Universes, a philosophical text on the anthropic cosmological principle, with detailed digressions on many worlds quantum theory, a re-reading of Edelman's A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination on the neurological underpinnings of consciousness, The Non-local Universe: The New Physics and Matters of the Mind on the interpretation of quantum mechanics in the light of the Aspect/Gisin entanglement experiments, and a quantum mechanics primer from my university days, that is no longer in print. Whilst reading these I began to play with a model of consciousness based on many worlds quantum theory. I do this stuff for fun, and I know other nerds with whom I can talk about this stuff for hours, and who love it as much as I do. I'm sure people much cleverer than me have written on this kind of model, in far more detail than I ever could, but so far I have not encountered the relevant books and articles, but I have no doubt that they are out there.

Anyway, imagine my surprise and delight when I get to the Stephenson book and it dawns on me that I am reading a techno/philosophical thriller centered on exactly the ideas I have just been reading about. And then I get to page 648 and find an exposition of a theory of consciousness so close, but not precisely identical to that I had been formulating. This is absolute heaven for a nerdy bloke with my particular interests, and I can't wait to get out there and hit some of my nerdy friends with this very heavy book and force them to read it. My awe and admiration know no bounds that this very clever man, who knows a lot of stuff has managed to take that stuff and imagine parallel worlds and storylines whereby this stuff actually crucially matters. The best Sci-Fi has always been about using the far out ideas from science to generate intriguing storylines, but this takes that process to a whole new level, as it embraces the whole history of Western thought.

At the centre of Stephenson's achievement is his comprehension of the history of ideas, from the Ancient Greeks on up to the key oustanding scientific mysteries confronting science in the present day: cosmology, consciousness and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. He understands that empires come and go, wars are fought, but in the long view the key to history is in the ideas humanity has about it's place in the universe, and the attendant technological developments that follow on their heals.

The only downside to this book is that you would have to have some familiarity with these ideas, or at least curiousity enough to hang with it and try and follow along, if you're going to comprehend it. I can see why some of the reviews are quite disappointed - space opera this is not. As usual with Stephenson it's a book by a nerd, for nerds. It is pure coincidence that Stephenson has chosen to construct a novel from philosophical and scientific ideas with which I am very familiar, so for me the book is pure entertainment and a light relief in comparison to my normal technical fare. I'm sure Neal would be more than capable of writing other books, exploiting other trains of thought, economics or pure mathematics say, that would make my head hurt as much as the next person.

Oh, and a final thing. He's convinced me NOT to send Christams cards this year :-)

brain training, 28 Nov 2008
Agree with these other guys about what a great read this is. In fact it played a large part in me deciding to go back to university and study computing. What I love about it particularly is that it makes you feel clever. Some of the stuff in here is kind of complex and daunting, about maths and cryptography and hacking. But he explains it in such a way that you take it all in your stride, and then think - wow, I get this! I must be clever!
It's also really funny in places. And proper geeky. There should be more books about geeks.

one of the best books I have ever read, and I am really a SciFi buff, 15 Aug 2008
I bought this and Snow Crash as "cheap fillers" on another order, and I am so glad I did. It is so dense, and each thread is so fascinating, you find yourself so tempted to jump and find how the threads come together. Cannot recommend it highly enough.

Dazzling and defining, 29 Apr 2008
Sometimes a book comes along that leaves the reader dazed with the author's vision, scope and ambition. Neal Stephenson has done this a few times with his work, but arguably never better than in Cryptonomicon.

The novel follows two stories in parallel. In WWII, a group of cryptologists based at Bletchley Park are struggling to crack the German codes so the British and Americans can more effectively combat the German U-boat threat. In the present, a group of businessmen are attempting to build a data haven in the (fictious) Pacific state of Kinakuta. Both plotlines draw on codes, cryptology, cryptoanalysis and the blurring of the genres of science fiction and historical fiction (a line which is even further muddied by the subsequent Baroque Cycle, which serves as a quasi-prequel series to this novel).

It is difficult to describe the book. It's scope is huge, sprawling across Europe, America, the Phillippines and other parts of the world in two different time periods, incorporating dozens of major characters of note and very effectively educating the reader about the science of codes and puzzles (far more effectively than the amateurish Da Vinci Code) before the two storylines very effectively come together at the end of the book. Stephenson's style is very readable, occasionally dense, but often very funny. There are longeurs and apparently unrelated episodes in the book which are masterfully re-incorporated into the greater narrative to form a cohesive whole. It's a book about secrets, what it costs to hold those secrets, and the consequences when those secrets are revealed. It's a war story and a techno-thriller at the same time. It is a unique work.

Cryptonomicon won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2000 and unquestionably deserved it. If The Separation was the first truly great SF novel of the 21st Century, than Cryptonomicon is almost certainly the last great SF novel of the 20th, and one of the few works that I would apply the label 'genius' to.

A great story... squashed in too late, 18 Feb 2008
I would have to say that the 5 star reviews are spot on... but so are the less favourable ones.

Yes, it's a mammoth, obsessively researched, well-written yarn containing some great set-pieces, enthralling ideas and hilarious jokes. And it's surprisingly easy to follow, despite the numerous mathematical formulae and (inaccurate) reviews that liken it to Pynchon... but it just goes on and on! I could point out about two dozen major passages from the first half of the book that add nothing to the story/characterizations at all and only serve to test a readers patience. It took me a good 300 pages (a third of the book) to finally 'get into', yet the real plot (a tale of buried Japanese gold) is crammed into the last 150 pages or so. It's a real shame.

So whilst there is so much to enjoy here, prospective readers need to be aware of the 'task' ahead of them. This isn't the kind of book you can spend half an hour with on the train home - it's much better suited to a long holiday with few distractions (as long as you're happy to pay the weight penalty on your luggage - it's a bit of a monster). But patient readers WILL be rewarded.

It's all a bit of a puzzle...., 16 Aug 2007
Aptly, this book contains a hidden code....Somewhere inside this epic novel is the bones of the book he should have written.

Stephenson's ambitious scope and erudition dazzles but it also deceives. He has produced a book based on big ideas, what-if history, the developement of big world themes and hip-geekery, which many of us clearly enjoyed (76 reviews and counting......). But I have to confess that, apart from the entertaining history lesson in cryptography, most of the plotting, narrative and characterisation seemed a bit flat and methodical. As if he knew that there was a topic he wanted to address in more detail but he had a contractual brief to fulfil....So instead, he blinded us with a pyrotechnic display that almost screams "screenplay" at us. Look behind the whizzbangs and what can you see?

I wonder if he might have wanted to pursue a more character-driven study of high-functioning geeks and their interactions and impacts with and on the "real world". Rather like Mark Haddon's "Curious Incident" and autism, it tries to give an authentic voice to those sociopaths who seem to feel more comfortable with numbers than with people. It certainly seems to be more perceptive, human and empathetically written when he is dealing with the Randy/Lawrence "inner worlds" and their interactions with and transgressions of societal norms. Unfortunately these passages, although excellent, are rather few and far between. So we are forced to review the book he wrote, not the one he should have written. Taken as a whole, it seems less successful, perhaps more half-hearted when Stephenson is tracing his secondary characters, pushing the plot along, or just plain showing off.

Overlong? Mechanical? Digressive? Contrived? Infuriating? Yes

Enjoyable? Oh yes.

It's all a bit of a puzzle, isn't it?

Too little care in continuity, 07 Dec 2008
Okay, so Neal is a far better writer than I'll ever be. But as a reader I thought that the writing played better as a series of short stories rather than a cohesive novel. A couple of examples are Hiro's brilliant start as a pizza delivery guy, yet after the crash into the pool his firing from the job is never described nor hardly mentioned again in the entire book! This was after building such a tension in the beginning about his abortive delivery that I thought the whole novel would have pizzas or highways as the theme. Yet again Raven is portrayed as the chief evil guy with an almost mythical ability to kill all and sundry, and then turns in the boyfriend of the girl hero. I ended up not knowing who to back, nor who was really the good and bad guys&girls. I agree that may be acceptable in some genre, but in what I thought was plain entertainment and light hearted sci-fi it left me with a distaste and dissatisfaction in the outcome.

Original idea (at the time) but poor quality rushed ending, 07 Sep 2008
I bought the book for the subject matter and therefore did generally enjoy 80% of the book. The writing style was quite shallow with no depth to the characters and limited descriptive text however that was forgivable for the originality. But ... the end was terrible, it was inconsistent, incomplete seems to have been written in a rush as if the author had become bored with the story or had more important things to do. The acknowledgment at the end of the book seems to explain; the story was originally going to be an art based graphical novel but the graphics never materialised leaving a part finished book.
All that said, I liked some ideas in the book; as a Sci-fi or cyber-punk book it fails, but bear in mind that this was written in 1994, way before the various virtual worlds we have now and for that reason I don't really regret spending my time reading it. It's just a pity it wasn't finished off better.


Reasonable beginning, Amazing middle section, Weak ending, 07 Aug 2008

If you like the sound of this book based on the back of the book (hero called Hiro, pizza delivery, etc etc), then this book is for you. However if you have heard how great this book is but are slightly put off by the description, then there really isn't enough to keep your interested to the end. The book starts slowly; has an amazing middle section where I though "wow this could turn out to be a great novel"; however the ending is weak, and this is where the book really falls down. The trouble is that we find out what is going on far too early in the book and there is nothing left for the ending of the book, which is just one long chase scene after another.

Audience:
Seems to be aimed at the mid/late teen audience, people growing up in the early 90s would also get a lot out of it too.

The good:
There are some great ideas in the book and its influence on films like The Matrix is clear
Some intelligent concepts relating to language and religion
Main character is well written
Does a great job of creating an interesting world (from an early 90s perspective)

The bad:
*Laughably bad sex scene*
Supporting characters are poorly written and often fall back on stereotypes.
Too much filler when the story really needs to move along
Lack of peril/drama
Boring ending


High tech future runs out of steam, 21 Oct 2007
Neal Stephenson delights in setting up and describing a parallel reality. Just like our world but not quite. And what a set up. His imagination dazzles in the first third of this story set in the near future, but then things start to go awry. Introducing a librarian to allow long explanations of his ideas and plot is a clunky writing device, made worse still as the story heads towards its climax with the major characters gathered for a final explanation as though this were some 21st century Agatha Christie. As the first part of Snow Crash shows, Stephenson could do better, and would later in his career, as his writing chops caught up with his imagination.

How did I miss this?, 05 Sep 2007
As a fan both of the Cyberpunk genre and of Stephenson, it's hard to believe that I've only just found this book. As ever with this writer, there are layers and layers of detail which make the imagined society feel absolutely real. And in 2007, this requires far less of an imagination that it must have in the mid 90s; Stephenson's vision is already developing in reality.

The themes of infection, duality and societal anarchy are explored beautifully and my only quibble is the way we don't get a particularly satisfying conclusion.

Quicksilver is a massive, exuberant and wildly ambitious historical novel that's also Neal Stephenson's eagerly awaited prequel to Cryptonomicon--his pyrotechnic reworking of the 20th century, from World War II codebreaking and disinformation to the latest issues of Internet data privacy.

Quicksilver, "Volume One of the Baroque Cycle", backtracks to another time of high intellectual ferment: the late 17th century, with the natural philosophers of England's newly formed Royal Society questioning the universe and dissecting everything that moves. One founding member, the Rev John Wilkins, really did write science fiction and a book on cryptography--but this isn't history as we know it, for here his code book is called not Mercury but Cryptonomicon. And although the key political schemers of Charles II's government still have initials spelling the word CABAL, their names are all different...

While towering geniuses like Newton and Leibniz decode nature itself, bizarre adventures (merely beginning with the Great Plague and Great Fire) happen to the fictional Royal Society member Daniel Waterhouse, who knows everyone but isn't quite bright enough for cutting-edge science. Two generations of Daniel's family appear in Cryptonomicon, as does a descendant of the Shaftoes who here are soldiers and vagabonds. Other links include the island realm of Qwghlm with its impossible language and the mysterious, seemingly ageless alchemist Enoch Root.

As the reign of Charles II gives way to that of James II and then William of Orange, Stephenson traces the complex lines of finance and power that form the 17th-century Internet. Gold and silver, lead and (repeatedly) mercury or quicksilver flow in glittering patterns between centres of marketing and intrigue in England, Germany, France and Holland. Paper flows as well: stocks, shares, scams and letters holding layers of concealed code messages. Binary code? Yes, even that had already been invented and described by Francis Bacon.

Quicksilver is crammed with unexpected incidents, fascinating digressions and deep-laid plots. Who'd believe that Eliza, a Qwghlmian slave girl liberated from a Turkish harem by mad Jack Shaftoe (King of the Vagabonds) could become a major player in European finance and politics? Still less believable, but all too historically authentic, are the appalling medical procedures of the time--about which we learn a lot. There are frequent passages of high comedy, like the lengthy description of a foppish earl's costume which memorably explains that someone seemed to have been painted in glue before "shaking and rolling him in a bin containing thousands of black silk doilies".

This is a huge, exhausting read, full of rewards and quirky insights that no other author could have created. Fantastic or farcical episodes sometimes clash strangely with the deep cruelty and suffering of 17th-century realism. Recommended, though not to the faint-hearted. --David Langford

Sadly, quite inaccessible, 09 Jan 2009
I preordered this book since Neal Stephenson so far had never failed to impress me with his writing. I read the Baroque cycle back to back in one large "gulp" of 2400 pages and found it hard to put down any of his previous works, especially "The diamond age".

Sadly, I found "Anathem" to be quite inaccessible. For me the use of created terms was particularly distracting, obscuring the narration rather than enhancing it. I wish I could have gone beyond the first 100 pages of the book, but even 50 pages into it, the book failed to provide me with enough interest to keep going.

This is the book which made me understand the criticism aimed at Neal Stephenson's previous works.


an Amazing book for thinkers only, 07 Jan 2009
I was expecting to post a review of this book similar to the 'professional' reviews which said that it was too hefty and needed a good editor to trim it down. I could not have been more wrong.

The book is just amazing. It explores quantum dynamics, mathematics, multiple universe theory and more all in a language that shifts it slightly from our current understanding of these things. Yes: it is definitely a book for thinkers. Yes: you need to give it attention to get the most out of it.

The 'dialogs' and 'calca' (exposition of the ideas above - and presumably the sections which others have suggested should have been cut) were simply my favourite part: I felt like I was in Dialog with the author, or there in the concent with Erasmus. Furthermore, unless close attention is paid to these, the story will seem to spiral out of control for you, they are the bedrick that will guide you through the book.

In summary, a hugely rewarding read - the best I've had in at least a decade - but only for those willing to put aside the time to acutally read it through - not a book for skimmers.

Rewarding but not easy to read, 01 Jan 2009
I have been a fan of Neal Stephenson's work for a good while. Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon are seminal works of cyber punk literature and Cobweb is a great comedic thriller. Some of the Baroque Cycle left me cold, but I know others who enjoyed them.

Anathem is a very different beast from Stephenson's previous work. It is founded in the dream of the Stewart Brand's Long Now Foundation and clocks play a central part of the book. It also deals with the uneasy relationships that academia and the scientific community have with society at large. The book is part mystery, part adventure and an exploration of metaphysics.

In the same way that J. R. R. Tolkein derived Middle Earth from his experience as a scholar of old English, mythology and his catholicism together with his distaste of the industrial age; so Stephenson has created his world of Arbre based on mathematics, philosophy and science with a corresponding distaste for modern consumerism. Anathem duplicates Tolkein's creation of a complete world and layers of plots with sub-plots. The book takes a while to get into and is not easy reading, but ultimately rewarding to read.


Apert, auts and theorics, 26 Dec 2008
The opening to this book is an odd way of doing things. Stephenson overwhelms the reader with neologisms and ceremonial details that could be off-putting. It's worth fighting your way through though because after 50 or so pages, the talk of auts, apert, theorics and itas, dies into the background and the real story begins.

Erasmas is part of a concent, a place that holds scientists and mathematicians known as the avout in perfect isolation from the Saecular world, until Apert, when the two worlds can intermingle. The intermingling does not always go well but ends after ten days allowing the avout to go back to their reputedly better world. But something else is happening, there's a rogue star in the sky that may represent the need for a massive paradigm shift in how the universe is seen and soon Erasmas has to leave the concent, perhaps forever, in order to save his world.

Along the way ideas are discussed that you'll probably recognise if you've read any Plato, Kant or Philip K. Dick. If you already have an interest in the nature of reality you probably won't find anything new, but that's okay, because Erasmas is a fine protagonist to travel with and there are enough ambiguities and incidental ideas to keep you interested. As ever with Stephenson the kitchen sink is in there, too, but he does it all with a light touch and a sense of humour that allows you to get comfortable.

At the end is where it all goes a little wonky. I can't give away too much but there is an application of thought experiment to reality that undercuts the story rather than illustrating its points. I think it was an effort to create a bigger pay-off, but in the end it feels a tad too mystical in the face of all that has gone before. Had it been brought in a little earlier in the narrative it might have felt less forced.

Despite this flaw, I still think it a fine book, but those new to Stephenson should try his earlier works first.

Respect and Delight, 12 Dec 2008
When this book arrived, I was, as is my won't, in the middle of four technical books at the time, and this was to be my fiction treat when I had got through them. These books were: a re-reading of Universes, a philosophical text on the anthropic cosmological principle, with detailed digressions on many worlds quantum theory, a re-reading of Edelman's A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination on the neurological underpinnings of consciousness, The Non-local Universe: The New Physics and Matters of the Mind on the interpretation of quantum mechanics in the light of the Aspect/Gisin entanglement experiments, and a quantum mechanics primer from my university days, that is no longer in print. Whilst reading these I began to play with a model of consciousness based on many worlds quantum theory. I do this stuff for fun, and I know other nerds with whom I can talk about this stuff for hours, and who love it as much as I do. I'm sure people much cleverer than me have written on this kind of model, in far more detail than I ever could, but so far I have not encountered the relevant books and articles, but I have no doubt that they are out there.

Anyway, imagine my surprise and delight when I get to the Stephenson book and it dawns on me that I am reading a techno/philosophical thriller centered on exactly the ideas I have just been reading about. And then I get to page 648 and find an exposition of a theory of consciousness so close, but not precisely identical to that I had been formulating. This is absolute heaven for a nerdy bloke with my particular interests, and I can't wait to get out there and hit some of my nerdy friends with this very heavy book and force them to read it. My awe and admiration know no bounds that this very clever man, who knows a lot of stuff has managed to take that stuff and imagine parallel worlds and storylines whereby this stuff actually crucially matters. The best Sci-Fi has always been about using the far out ideas from science to generate intriguing storylines, but this takes that process to a whole new level, as it embraces the whole history of Western thought.

At the centre of Stephenson's achievement is his comprehension of the history of ideas, from the Ancient Greeks on up to the key oustanding scientific mysteries confronting science in the present day: cosmology, consciousness and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. He understands that empires come and go, wars are fought, but in the long view the key to history is in the ideas humanity has about it's place in the universe, and the attendant technological developments that follow on their heals.

The only downside to this book is that you would have to have some familiarity with these ideas, or at least curiousity enough to hang with it and try and follow along, if you're going to comprehend it. I can see why some of the reviews are quite disappointed - space opera this is not. As usual with Stephenson it's a book by a nerd, for nerds. It is pure coincidence that Stephenson has chosen to construct a novel from philosophical and scientific ideas with which I am very familiar, so for me the book is pure entertainment and a light relief in comparison to my normal technical fare. I'm sure Neal would be more than capable of writing other books, exploiting other trains of thought, economics or pure mathematics say, that would make my head hurt as much as the next person.

Oh, and a final thing. He's convinced me NOT to send Christams cards this year :-)

brain training, 28 Nov 2008
Agree with these other guys about what a great read this is. In fact it played a large part in me deciding to go back to university and study computing. What I love about it particularly is that it makes you feel clever. Some of the stuff in here is kind of complex and daunting, about maths and cryptography and hacking. But he explains it in such a way that you take it all in your stride, and then think - wow, I get this! I must be clever!
It's also really funny in places. And proper geeky. There should be more books about geeks.

one of the best books I have ever read, and I am really a SciFi buff, 15 Aug 2008
I bought this and Snow Crash as "cheap fillers" on another order, and I am so glad I did. It is so dense, and each thread is so fascinating, you find yourself so tempted to jump and find how the threads come together. Cannot recommend it highly enough.

Dazzling and defining, 29 Apr 2008
Sometimes a book comes along that leaves the reader dazed with the author's vision, scope and ambition. Neal Stephenson has done this a few times with his work, but arguably never better than in Cryptonomicon.

The novel follows two stories in parallel. In WWII, a group of cryptologists based at Bletchley Park are struggling to crack the German codes so the British and Americans can more effectively combat the German U-boat threat. In the present, a group of businessmen are attempting to build a data haven in the (fictious) Pacific state of Kinakuta. Both plotlines draw on codes, cryptology, cryptoanalysis and the blurring of the genres of science fiction and historical fiction (a line which is even further muddied by the subsequent Baroque Cycle, which serves as a quasi-prequel series to this novel).

It is difficult to describe the book. It's scope is huge, sprawling across Europe, America, the Phillippines and other parts of the world in two different time periods, incorporating dozens of major characters of note and very effectively educating the reader about the science of codes and puzzles (far more effectively than the amateurish Da Vinci Code) before the two storylines very effectively come together at the end of the book. Stephenson's style is very readable, occasionally dense, but often very funny. There are longeurs and apparently unrelated episodes in the book which are masterfully re-incorporated into the greater narrative to form a cohesive whole. It's a book about secrets, what it costs to hold those secrets, and the consequences when those secrets are revealed. It's a war story and a techno-thriller at the same time. It is a unique work.

Cryptonomicon won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2000 and unquestionably deserved it. If The Separation was the first truly great SF novel of the 21st Century, than Cryptonomicon is almost certainly the last great SF novel of the 20th, and one of the few works that I would apply the label 'genius' to.

A great story... squashed in too late, 18 Feb 2008
I would have to say that the 5 star reviews are spot on... but so are the less favourable ones.

Yes, it's a mammoth, obsessively researched, well-written yarn containing some great set-pieces, enthralling ideas and hilarious jokes. And it's surprisingly easy to follow, despite the numerous mathematical formulae and (inaccurate) reviews that liken it to Pynchon... but it just goes on and on! I could point out about two dozen major passages from the first half of the book that add nothing to the story/characterizations at all and only serve to test a readers patience. It took me a good 300 pages (a third of the book) to finally 'get into', yet the real plot (a tale of buried Japanese gold) is crammed into the last 150 pages or so. It's a real shame.

So whilst there is so much to enjoy here, prospective readers need to be aware of the 'task' ahead of them. This isn't the kind of book you can spend half an hour with on the train home - it's much better suited to a long holiday with few distractions (as long as you're happy to pay the weight penalty on your luggage - it's a bit of a monster). But patient readers WILL be rewarded.

It's all a bit of a puzzle...., 16 Aug 2007
Aptly, this book contains a hidden code....Somewhere inside this epic novel is the bones of the book he should have written.

Stephenson's ambitious scope and erudition dazzles but it also deceives. He has produced a book based on big ideas, what-if history, the developement of big world themes and hip-geekery, which many of us clearly enjoyed (76 reviews and counting......). But I have to confess that, apart from the entertaining history lesson in cryptography, most of the plotting, narrative and characterisation seemed a bit flat and methodical. As if he knew that there was a topic he wanted to address in more detail but he had a contractual brief to fulfil....So instead, he blinded us with a pyrotechnic display that almost screams "screenplay" at us. Look behind the whizzbangs and what can you see?

I wonder if he might have wanted to pursue a more character-driven study of high-functioning geeks and their interactions and impacts with and on the "real world". Rather like Mark Haddon's "Curious Incident" and autism, it tries to give an authentic voice to those sociopaths who seem to feel more comfortable with numbers than with people. It certainly seems to be more perceptive, human and empathetically written when he is dealing with the Randy/Lawrence "inner worlds" and their interactions with and transgressions of societal norms. Unfortunately these passages, although excellent, are rather few and far between. So we are forced to review the book he wrote, not the one he should have written. Taken as a whole, it seems less successful, perhaps more half-hearted when Stephenson is tracing his secondary characters, pushing the plot along, or just plain showing off.

Overlong? Mechanical? Digressive? Contrived? Infuriating? Yes

Enjoyable? Oh yes.

It's all a bit of a puzzle, isn't it?

Too little care in continuity, 07 Dec 2008
Okay, so Neal is a far better writer than I'll ever be. But as a reader I thought that the writing played better as a series of short stories rather than a cohesive novel. A couple of examples are Hiro's brilliant start as a pizza delivery guy, yet after the crash into the pool his firing from the job is never described nor hardly mentioned again in the entire book! This was after building such a tension in the beginning about his abortive delivery that I thought the whole novel would have pizzas or highways as the theme. Yet again Raven is portrayed as the chief evil guy with an almost mythical ability to kill all and sundry, and then turns in the boyfriend of the girl hero. I ended up not knowing who to back, nor who was really the good and bad guys&girls. I agree that may be acceptable in some genre, but in what I thought was plain entertainment and light hearted sci-fi it left me with a distaste and dissatisfaction in the outcome.

Original idea (at the time) but poor quality rushed ending, 07 Sep 2008
I bought the book for the subject matter and therefore did generally enjoy 80% of the book. The writing style was quite shallow with no depth to the characters and limited descriptive text however that was forgivable for the originality. But ... the end was terrible, it was inconsistent, incomplete seems to have been written in a rush as if the author had become bored with the story or had more important things to do. The acknowledgment at the end of the book seems to explain; the story was originally going to be an art based graphical novel but the graphics never materialised leaving a part finished book.
All that said, I liked some ideas in the book; as a Sci-fi or cyber-punk book it fails, but bear in mind that this was written in 1994, way before the various virtual worlds we have now and for that reason I don't really regret spending my time reading it. It's just a pity it wasn't finished off better.


Reasonable beginning, Amazing middle section, Weak ending, 07 Aug 2008

If you like the sound of this book based on the back of the book (hero called Hiro, pizza delivery, etc etc), then this book is for you. However if you have heard how great this book is but are slightly put off by the description, then there really isn't enough to keep your interested to the end. The book starts slowly; has an amazing middle section where I though "wow this could turn out to be a great novel"; however the ending is weak, and this is where the book really falls down. The trouble is that we find out what is going on far too early in the book and there is nothing left for the ending of the book, which is just one long chase scene after another.

Audience:
Seems to be aimed at the mid/late teen audience, people growing up in the early 90s would also get a lot out of it too.

The good:
There are some great ideas in the book and its influence on films like The Matrix is clear
Some intelligent concepts relating to language and religion
Main character is well written
Does a great job of creating an interesting world (from an early 90s perspective)

The bad:
*Laughably bad sex scene*
Supporting characters are poorly written and often fall back on stereotypes.
Too much filler when the story really needs to move along
Lack of peril/drama
Boring ending


High tech future runs out of steam, 21 Oct 2007
Neal Stephenson delights in setting up and describing a parallel reality. Just like our world but not quite. And what a set up. His imagination dazzles in the first third of this story set in the near future, but then things start to go awry. Introducing a librarian to allow long explanations of his ideas and plot is a clunky writing device, made worse still as the story heads towards its climax with the major characters gathered for a final explanation as though this were some 21st century Agatha Christie. As the first part of Snow Crash shows, Stephenson could do better, and would later in his career, as his writing chops caught up with his imagination.

How did I miss this?, 05 Sep 2007
As a fan both of the Cyberpunk genre and of Stephenson, it's hard to believe that I've only just found this book. As ever with this writer, there are layers and layers of detail which make the imagined society feel absolutely real. And in 2007, this requires far less of an imagination that it must have in the mid 90s; Stephenson's vision is already developing in reality.

The themes of infection, duality and societal anarchy are explored beautifully and my only quibble is the way we don't get a particularly satisfying conclusion.

Even the Royal Society don't know anyone who has finished it, 10 Oct 2008
Neal Stephenson's first part of the Baroque cycle is a rather large read, in every way. It is packed with history, from politics to the birth of natural philosophy (science). It is most enjoyable with these scientists, as they undertake studies out of sheer curiosity from a foundation of nothing - this is the birth of the enlightenment. The way the author explains the way they come to their conclusions, be it factual or not, is fascinating. However, the rest is very hard to read and keep up with, and it is far too easy to lose interest. There is almost too much going on that it becomes impossible to follow. I recently visited the Royal Society, which features prominently in the book. Having spoken to the staff there, even they have never met anybody who has finished it.

Loved it!, 08 May 2008
I think Neal Stephenson might be my favourite writer. Friends that came to this after Cryptonomicum or his cyber punk novels have sometimes found it heavy going - you need to be able to read it in big chunks to really immerse yourself, especially at the start when you need to get into the style. But it's dealing with the same Stephenson ideas as always: loyalty, the individual vs the system, and above all information: how to handle it, think about it, and that in the end everything including money is based on information.

It's an extravegant slice of history - Restoration in England, religious settlements in America, the founding of modern currencies and stock markets, the shift from alchemy to modern science and technology, colonies, world trade, - even Peter the Great and the sack of Vienna make appearances.... Plus laugh-out-loud humour and characters that live on in your head long after the books are over. Fantabulous.

Too dense, makes it painfull and boring, 25 Apr 2008
I loved Cryptonomicon, but Neal S. just had to cram all his knowledge of 17th century London in the book, admit it: it makes the book painfull to read, boring and tooooo long.

Awesome book. Huge read., 25 Feb 2008
This trilogy has been one of the most enjoyable and entertaining reads of my life. Top draw. It is a big project but it will pay back with many ways of enriching its reader. My only problem is finding something else to match its heights of enjoyment:) Go on treat yourself!

An endurance test!!!, 17 Feb 2008
Firstly, if you're new to Neal Stephenson, I'd recommend you try Cryptonomicon; it's a prequel of sorts to Quicksilver and, at about 900 pages, it will give you a better idea of whether you like his style and can endure his obsessive eye for detail, before embarking on the 3 book 2,500 page Baroque cycle.

Even then, you should be warned before taking up Quicksilver; it's a mammoth read, jam-pack full of historical facts, witty dialogue, amusing set pieces and interesting characters (perhaps a few too many though). But for all it's adventure and boldness, it lacks purpose and resolution (it finished on a cliff-hanger). Cryptonomicon took about 250 pages to get going and even then only began to unravel the plot in the last 100 pages. Quicksilver NEVER really gets going and never really attempts to give you any clues to the purpose of it's numerous mysteries. I would have to say that I was lucky that I started it on holiday with few distractions about me or I'm not sure I would have stuck with it; it's definitely not a casual 'tube read'.

So if you enjoy Cryptonomicon and have time and patience on your side, give Quicksilver a try as there's lots in there to recommend. Just be prepared for a slow, meandering journey - albeit through a fascinating landscape.

One other thing; I've now begun the second book in the Baroque Cycle - The Confusion - and it's already far more direct and purposeful than Quicksilver. I just wish Mr Steohenson hadn't made me wait so long for some action...

Sadly, quite inaccessible, 09 Jan 2009
I preordered this book since Neal Stephenson so far had never failed to impress me with his writing. I read the Baroque cycle back to back in one large "gulp" of 2400 pages and found it hard to put down any of his previous works, especially "The diamond age".

Sadly, I found "Anathem" to be quite inaccessible. For me the use of created terms was particularly distracting, obscuring the narration rather than enhancing it. I wish I could have gone beyond the first 100 pages of the book, but even 50 pages into it, the book failed to provide me with enough interest to keep going.

This is the book which made me understand the criticism aimed at Neal Stephenson's previous works.


an Amazing book for thinkers only, 07 Jan 2009
I was expecting to post a review of this book similar to the 'professional' reviews which said that it was too hefty and needed a good editor to trim it down. I could not have been more wrong.

The book is just amazing. It explores quantum dynamics, mathematics, multiple universe theory and more all in a language that shifts it slightly from our current understanding of these things. Yes: it is definitely a book for thinkers. Yes: you need to give it attention to get the most out of it.

The 'dialogs' and 'calca' (exposition of the ideas above - and presumably the sections which others have suggested should have been cut) were simply my favourite part: I felt like I was in Dialog with the author, or there in the concent with Erasmus. Furthermore, unless close attention is paid to these, the story will seem to spiral out of control for you, they are the bedrick that will guide you through the book.

In summary, a hugely rewarding read - the best I've had in at least a decade - but only for those willing to put aside the time to acutally read it through - not a book for skimmers.

Rewarding but not easy to read, 01 Jan 2009
I have been a fan of Neal Stephenson's work for a good while. Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon are seminal works of cyber punk literature and Cobweb is a great comedic thriller. Some of the Baroque Cycle left me cold, but I know others who enjoyed them.

Anathem is a very different beast from Stephenson's previous work. It is founded in the dream of the Stewart Brand's Long Now Foundation and clocks play a central part of the book. It also deals with the uneasy relationships that academia and the scientific community have with society at large. The book is part mystery, part adventure and an exploration of metaphysics.

In the same way that J. R. R. Tolkein derived Middle Earth from his experience as a scholar of old English, mythology and his catholicism together with his distaste of the industrial age; so Stephenson has created his world of Arbre based on mathematics, philosophy and science with a corresponding distaste for modern consumerism. Anathem duplicates Tolkein's creation of a complete world and layers of plots with sub-plots. The book takes a while to get into and is not easy reading, but ultimately rewarding to read.


Apert, auts and theorics, 26 Dec 2008
The opening to this book is an odd way of doing things. Stephenson overwhelms the reader with neologisms and ceremonial details that could be off-putting. It's worth fighting your way through though because after 50 or so pages, the talk of auts, apert, theorics and itas, dies into the background and the real story begins.

Erasmas is part of a concent, a place that holds scientists and mathematicians known as the avout in perfect isolation from the Saecular world, until Apert, when the two worlds can intermingle. The intermingling does not always go well but ends after ten days allowing the avout to go back to their reputedly better world. But something else is happening, there's a rogue star in the sky that may represent the need for a massive paradigm shift in how the universe is seen and soon Erasmas has to leave the concent, perhaps forever, in order to save his world.

Along the way ideas are discussed that you'll probably recognise if you've read any Plato, Kant or Philip K. Dick. If you already have an interest in the nature of reality you probably won't find anything new, but that's okay, because Erasmas is a fine protagonist to travel with and there are enough ambiguities and incidental ideas to keep you interested. As ever with Stephenson the kitchen sink is in there, too, but he does it all with a light touch and a sense of humour that allows you to get comfortable.

At the end is where it all goes a little wonky. I can't give away too much but there is an application of thought experiment to reality that undercuts the story rather than illustrating its points. I think it was an effort to create a bigger pay-off, but in the end it feels a tad too mystical in the face of all that has gone before. Had it been brought in a little earlier in the narrative it might have felt less forced.

Despite this flaw, I still think it a fine book, but those new to Stephenson should try his earlier works first.

Respect and Delight, 12 Dec 2008
When this book arrived, I was, as is my won't, in the middle of four technical books at the time, and this was to be my fiction treat when I had got through them. These books were: a re-reading of Universes, a philosophical text on the anthropic cosmological principle, with detailed digressions on many worlds quantum theory, a re-reading of Edelman's A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination on the neurological underpinnings of consciousness, The Non-local Universe: The New Physics and Matters of the Mind on the interpretation of quantum mechanics in the light of the Aspect/Gisin entanglement experiments, and a quantum mechanics primer from my university days, that is no longer in print. Whilst reading these I began to play with a model of consciousness based on many worlds quantum theory. I do this stuff for fun, and I know other nerds with whom I can talk about this stuff for hours, and who love it as much as I do. I'm sure people much cleverer than me have written on this kind of model, in far more detail than I ever could, but so far I have not encountered the relevant books and articles, but I have no doubt that they are out there.

Anyway, imagine my surprise and delight when I get to the Stephenson book and it dawns on me that I am reading a techno/philosophical thriller centered on exactly the ideas I have just been reading about. And then I get to page 648 and find an exposition of a theory of consciousness so close, but not precisely identical to that I had been formulating. This is absolute heaven for a nerdy bloke with my particular interests, and I can't wait to get out there and hit some of my nerdy friends with this very heavy book and force them to read it. My awe and admiration know no bounds that this very clever man, who knows a lot of stuff has managed to take that stuff and imagine parallel worlds and storylines whereby this stuff actually crucially matters. The best Sci-Fi has always been about using the far out ideas from science to generate intriguing storylines, but this takes that process to a whole new level, as it embraces the whole history of Western thought.

At the centre of Stephenson's achievement is his comprehension of the history of ideas, from the Ancient Greeks on up to the key oustanding scientific mysteries confronting science in the present day: cosmology, consciousness and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. He understands that empires come and go, wars are fought, but in the long view the key to history is in the ideas humanity has about it's place in the universe, and the attendant technological developments that follow on their heals.

The only downside to this book is that you would have to have some familiarity with these ideas, or at least curiousity enough to hang with it and try and follow along, if you're going to comprehend it. I can see why some of the reviews are quite disappointed - space opera this is not. As usual with Stephenson it's a book by a nerd, for nerds. It is pure coincidence that Stephenson has chosen to construct a novel from philosophical and scientific ideas with which I am very familiar, so for me the book is pure entertainment and a light relief in comparison to my normal technical fare. I'm sure Neal would be more than capable of writing other books, exploiting other trains of thought, economics or pure mathematics say, that would make my head hurt as much as the next person.

Oh, and a final thing. He's convinced me NOT to send Christams cards this year :-)

brain training, 28 Nov 2008
Agree with these other guys about what a great read this is. In fact it played a large part in me deciding to go back to university and study computing. What I love about it particularly is that it makes you feel clever. Some of the stuff in here is kind of complex and daunting, about maths and cryptography and hacking. But he explains it in such a way that you take it all in your stride, and then think - wow, I get this! I must be clever!
It's also really funny in places. And proper geeky. There should be more books about geeks.

one of the best books I have ever read, and I am really a SciFi buff, 15 Aug 2008
I bought this and Snow Crash as "cheap fillers" on another order, and I am so glad I did. It is so dense, and each thread is so fascinating, you find yourself so tempted to jump and find how the threads come together. Cannot recommend it highly enough.

Dazzling and defining, 29 Apr 2008
Sometimes a book comes along that leaves the reader dazed with the author's vision, scope and ambition. Neal Stephenson has done this a few times with his work, but arguably never better than in Cryptonomicon.

The novel follows two stories in parallel. In WWII, a group of cryptologists based at Bletchley Park are struggling to crack the German codes so the British and Americans can more effectively combat the German U-boat threat. In the present, a group of businessmen are attempting to build a data haven in the (fictious) Pacific state of Kinakuta. Both plotlines draw on codes, cryptology, cryptoanalysis and the blurring of the genres of science fiction and historical fiction (a line which is even further muddied by the subsequent Baroque Cycle, which serves as a quasi-prequel series to this novel).

It is difficult to describe the book. It's scope is huge, sprawling across Europe, America, the Phillippines and other parts of the world in two different time periods, incorporating dozens of major characters of note and very effectively educating the reader about the science of codes and puzzles (far more effectively than the amateurish Da Vinci Code) before the two storylines very effectively come together at the end of the book. Stephenson's style is very readable, occasionally dense, but often very funny. There are longeurs and apparently unrelated episodes in the book which are masterfully re-incorporated into the greater narrative to form a cohesive whole. It's a book about secrets, what it costs to hold those secrets, and the consequences when those secrets are revealed. It's a war story and a techno-thriller at the same time. It is a unique work.

Cryptonomicon won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2000 and unquestionably deserved it. If The Separation was the first truly great SF novel of the 21st Century, than Cryptonomicon is almost certainly the last great SF novel of the 20th, and one of the few works that I would apply the label 'genius' to.

A great story... squashed in too late, 18 Feb 2008
I would have to say that the 5 star reviews are spot on... but so are the less favourable ones.

Yes, it's a mammoth, obsessively researched, well-written yarn containing some great set-pieces, enthralling ideas and hilarious jokes. And it's surprisingly easy to follow, despite the numerous mathematical formulae and (inaccurate) reviews that liken it to Pynchon... but it just goes on and on! I could point out about two dozen major passages from the first half of the book that add nothing to the story/characterizations at all and only serve to test a readers patience. It took me a good 300 pages (a third of the book) to finally 'get into', yet the real plot (a tale of buried Japanese gold) is crammed into the last 150 pages or so. It's a real shame.

So whilst there is so much to enjoy here, prospective readers need to be aware of the 'task' ahead of them. This isn't the kind of book you can spend half an hour with on the train home - it's much better suited to a long holiday with few distractions (as long as you're happy to pay the weight penalty on your luggage - it's a bit of a monster). But patient readers WILL be rewarded.

It's all a bit of a puzzle...., 16 Aug 2007
Aptly, this book contains a hidden code....Somewhere inside this epic novel is the bones of the book he should have written.

Stephenson's ambitious scope and erudition dazzles but it also deceives. He has produced a book based on big ideas, what-if history, the developement of big world themes and hip-geekery, which many of us clearly enjoyed (76 reviews and counting......). But I have to confess that, apart from the entertaining history lesson in cryptography, most of the plotting, narrative and characterisation seemed a bit flat and methodical. As if he knew that there was a topic he wanted to address in more detail but he had a contractual brief to fulfil....So instead, he blinded us with a pyrotechnic display that almost screams "screenplay" at us. Look behind the whizzbangs and what can you see?

I wonder if he might have wanted to pursue a more character-driven study of high-functioning geeks and their interactions and impacts with and on the "real world". Rather like Mark Haddon's "Curious Incident" and autism, it tries to give an authentic voice to those sociopaths who seem to feel more comfortable with numbers than with people. It certainly seems to be more perceptive, human and empathetically written when he is dealing with the Randy/Lawrence "inner worlds" and their interactions with and transgressions of societal norms. Unfortunately these passages, although excellent, are rather few and far between. So we are forced to review the book he wrote, not the one he should have written. Taken as a whole, it seems less successful, perhaps more half-hearted when Stephenson is tracing his secondary characters, pushing the plot along, or just plain showing off.

Overlong? Mechanical? Digressive? Contrived? Infuriating? Yes

Enjoyable? Oh yes.

It's all a bit of a puzzle, isn't it?

Too little care in continuity, 07 Dec 2008
Okay, so Neal is a far better writer than I'll ever be. But as a reader I thought that the writing played better as a series of short stories rather than a cohesive novel. A couple of examples are Hiro's brilliant start as a pizza delivery guy, yet after the crash into the pool his firing from the job is never described nor hardly mentioned again in the entire book! This was after building such a tension in the beginning about his abortive delivery that I thought the whole novel would have pizzas or highways as the theme. Yet again Raven is portrayed as the chief evil guy with an almost mythical ability to kill all and sundry, and then turns in the boyfriend of the girl hero. I ended up not knowing who to back, nor who was really the good and bad guys&girls. I agree that may be acceptable in some genre, but in what I thought was plain entertainment and light hearted sci-fi it left me with a distaste and dissatisfaction in the outcome.

Original idea (at the time) but poor quality rushed ending, 07 Sep 2008
I bought the book for the subject matter and therefore did generally enjoy 80% of the book. The writing style was quite shallow with no depth to the characters and limited descriptive text however that was forgivable for the originality. But ... the end was terrible, it was inconsistent, incomplete seems to have been written in a rush as if the author had become bored with the story or had more important things to do. The acknowledgment at the end of the book seems to explain; the story was originally going to be an art based graphical novel but the graphics never materialised leaving a part finished book.
All that said, I liked some ideas in the book; as a Sci-fi or cyber-punk book it fails, but bear in mind that this was written in 1994, way before the various virtual worlds we have now and for that reason I don't really regret spending my time reading it. It's just a pity it wasn't finished off better.


Reasonable beginning, Amazing middle section, Weak ending, 07 Aug 2008

If you like the sound of this book based on the back of the book (hero called Hiro, pizza delivery, etc etc), then this book is for you. However if you have heard how great this book is but are slightly put off by the description, then there really isn't enough to keep your interested to the end. The book starts slowly; has an amazing middle section where I though "wow this could turn out to be a great novel"; however the ending is weak, and this is where the book really falls down. The trouble is that we find out what is going on far too early in the book and there is nothing left for the ending of the book, which is just one long chase scene after another.

Audience:
Seems to be aimed at the mid/late teen audience, people growing up in the early 90s would also get a lot out of it too.

The good:
There are some great ideas in the book and its influence on films like The Matrix is clear
Some intelligent concepts relating to language and religion
Main character is well written
Does a great job of creating an interesting world (from an early 90s perspective)

The bad:
*Laughably bad sex scene*
Supporting characters are poorly written and often fall back on stereotypes.
Too much filler when the story really needs to move along
Lack of peril/drama
Boring ending


High tech future runs out of steam, 21 Oct 2007
Neal Stephenson delights in setting up and describing a parallel reality. Just like our world but not quite. And what a set up. His imagination dazzles in the first third of this story set in the near future, but then things start to go awry. Introducing a librarian to allow long explanations of his ideas and plot is a clunky writing device, made worse still as the story heads towards its climax with the major characters gathered for a final explanation as though this were some 21st century Agatha Christie. As the first part of Snow Crash shows, Stephenson could do better, and would later in his career, as his writing chops caught up with his imagination.

How did I miss this?, 05 Sep 2007
As a fan both of the Cyberpunk genre and of Stephenson, it's hard to believe that I've only just found this book. As ever with this writer, there are layers and layers of detail which make the imagined society feel absolutely real. And in 2007, this requires far less of an imagination that it must have in the mid 90s; Stephenson's vision is already developing in reality.

The themes of infection, duality and societal anarchy are explored beautifully and my only quibble is the way we don't get a particularly satisfying conclusion.

Even the Royal Society don't know anyone who has finished it, 10 Oct 2008
Neal Stephenson's first part of the Baroque cycle is a rather large read, in every way. It is packed with history, from politics to the birth of natural philosophy (science). It is most enjoyable with these scientists, as they undertake studies out of sheer curiosity from a foundation of nothing - this is the birth of the enlightenment. The way the author explains the way they come to their conclusions, be it factual or not, is fascinating. However, the rest is very hard to read and keep up with, and it is far too easy to lose interest. There is almost too much going on that it becomes impossible to follow. I recently visited the Royal Society, which features prominently in the book. Having spoken to the staff there, even they have never met anybody who has finished it.

Loved it!, 08 May 2008
I think Neal Stephenson might be my favourite writer. Friends that came to this after Cryptonomicum or his cyber punk novels have sometimes found it heavy going - you need to be able to read it in big chunks to really immerse yourself, especially at the start when you need to get into the style. But it's dealing with the same Stephenson ideas as always: loyalty, the individual vs the system, and above all information: how to handle it, think about it, and that in the end everything including money is based on information.

It's an extravegant slice of history - Restoration in England, religious settlements in America, the founding of modern currencies and stock markets, the shift from alchemy to modern science and technology, colonies, world trade, - even Peter the Great and the sack of Vienna make appearances.... Plus laugh-out-loud humour and characters that live on in your head long after the books are over. Fantabulous.

Too dense, makes it painfull and boring, 25 Apr 2008
I loved Cryptonomicon, but Neal S. just had to cram all his knowledge of 17th century London in the book, admit it: it makes the book painfull to read, boring and tooooo long.

Awesome book. Huge read., 25 Feb 2008
This trilogy has been one of the most enjoyable and entertaining reads of my life. Top draw. It is a big project but it will pay back with many ways of enriching its reader. My only problem is finding something else to match its heights of enjoyment:) Go on treat yourself!

An endurance test!!!, 17 Feb 2008
Firstly, if you're new to Neal Stephenson, I'd recommend you try Cryptonomicon; it's a prequel of sorts to Quicksilver and, at about 900 pages, it will give you a better idea of whether you like his style and can endure his obsessive eye for detail, before embarking on the 3 book 2,500 page Baroque cycle.

Even then, you should be warned before taking up Quicksilver; it's a mammoth read, jam-pack full of historical facts, witty dialogue, amusing set pieces and interesting characters (perhaps a few too many though). But for all it's adventure and boldness, it lacks purpose and resolution (it finished on a cliff-hanger). Cryptonomicon took about 250 pages to get going and even then only began to unravel the plot in the last 100 pages. Quicksilver NEVER really gets going and never really attempts to give you any clues to the purpose of it's numerous mysteries. I would have to say that I was lucky that I started it on holiday with few distractions about me or I'm not sure I would have stuck with it; it's definitely not a casual 'tube read'.

So if you enjoy Cryptonomicon and have time and patience on your side, give Quicksilver