“Anathem” is a 2008 science-fiction novel by Neal Stephenson. You can read the hype and find a link to read the first 160-or-so pages of the book at http://www.nealstephenson.com/anathem/. This post is based on reading those pages and additional material around the book (interviews with Stephenson and the like).
While reviewing a less than half-read book is risky business, I think it’s warranted for two reasons: I actually pulled myself to read that much, so I have to make something for it, and I can’t help thinking the people who praise it so much do it because they haven’t read a good book (look for my list at the end).
Anathem’s only success is to confirm spectacularly xkcd’s Fiction Rule of Thumb: The probability a book is good approaches zero as the number of words made up by the author increases.
