Anathem

[Jeffrey of Troy]

by Neal Stephenson

Set on an alternate earth, a group of monks live in a monastery. There is a wall with a gate that opens to allow the outside world to come in, and the monks to go out, which opens once every ten years. Behind them is a wall that keeps other monks from the outside world for a hundred years. Behind them is a wall that keeps yet other monks sequestered for a thousand years. ( I learned of this book by reading the non fiction book Deep Work by Cal Newport, which is also good.)

It starts as Fantasy, then becomes Science Fiction. They even end up going into outer space.. and beyond.

One of the best fiction books I have ever read. Good writing, and very intellectually stimulating.

 

[Jeffrey of Troy]

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos shows how installation of 10,000 Year Clock is ticking along in Texas

Seattle science-fiction author Neal Stephenson picked up on the idea of having a millennium-measuring clock, tended by the equivalent of a monastic order, in his 2008 novel “Anathem.” (Stephenson also contributed ideas to the Long Now clock project, and worked for Blue Origin in that company’s early days.)

 

[gnosisxsophia]

Thanks for the heads up Jeff,

I haven't read sci-fi for years as anything less than Iain M Banks seemed a poor substitute, yet a quick look through Stephensons work looks interesting...

Going to start with 'The Diamond Age', as the Pygmalion reference caught my eye and will work up from there

Cheers

J

 

[wilfried]

Thanks for the heads up Jeff,

I haven't read sci-fi for years as anything less than Iain M Banks seemed a poor substitute, yet a quick look through Stephensons work looks interesting...

Going to start with 'The Diamond Age', as the Pygmalion reference caught my eye and will work up from there

Cheers

J

hello Gnosisxsophia,
i'm newbie here and i have the idea to share the anathem book by stephenson so i find this thread and want to continue the discussion because, by reading the guidelines introduction it makes me think that in anathem there are many topics covered that meet the goal of the forum.
in attention not to divulgate the story ( divulgacher in québecois), i will introduce the subject of the book here.

the teaching of all knowledge, the elders and the students, the differents schools, the self-sufficiency of the nuns and monks,...
Especialy how to protect knowledge during war or cataclysm during the end of civilization; the idea of ligneage ( with the hidden one like gnosis knowledge in our world, for exemple the Laura's idea that Gurdaieff is maybe a stoïc one, or like she presents the continuators of Socrate in her book the secret history of the world)
Neal Stephenson also explores the different types of human intelligency and their interactions;
and a formidable personnage, one of the millenium who are experimenting some kind of things with atomic radioactivity, vibrations of the thoughts by singing and the game teglon, wich is a mandala-geometrical-mathematical sorts of enigma to be resolve.
in brief a lot of subjects linked to the ones in the forum.
and the most relevant the space invaders or something like that.
i realy like the writing style of Neal, his humor first and his page-turner pending scenario.
i connect this books in the continuation of the glass bead game from Hesse a century later, in a way.

my question after all is in facing that Stephenson seems to work close to Bezzos, what is his position about the alienation?