About 15 years ago I read though everything Neal Stephenson had written. It started with snow crash, then the cryptonomicon, then less popular works like zodiac and the diamond age. In general I loved them all. I stopped reading his books right before anathem came out...
But on a vacation last year I picked up a copy on my e-reader and started it. I enjoyed the concept, I loved the mat-as-philosophy, despite the difficulty getting into it. Anyway, vacation came to an end, I was about 40% through it, and I just stopped, picked up a couple other books, and moved on. No real reason, but a combination of how slow it moved, the extraneous details that seem like they could have been left out, etc.
Well, vacation this year hit so I picked it back up. After about the 50 percent point the book totally changed, as if I was reading an entirely different story. I'm trying to leave out spoilers, but now I am about 80% through and I'm having trouble with what the characters are doing in the book based on the history provided in the beginning.
Tap for spoiler
Like, these monks who shunned technology are suddenly flying space suits and plotting the takeover of an alien ship.
Don't get me wrong... I follow the story and the plot tracks well, but there was so much character development in the beginning and suddenly what they are doing doesn't track with any of that development.
The best summery I read by someone on reddit said "what do you think about Anathem? I think it is about 200 pages too long". I'm going to push through and finish it. My e-reader says I have about 7 hours to go and I think I am enjoying it. I just was wondering how others feel about it.
I think Stephenson is a genius but honestly I slog through large parts of his books. He always creates a dozen threads, over hundreds and hundreds of pages, and on the last three pages they tie together beautifully and you end the book with an ache in your heart because of how beautiful it was. Even when I know that's coming I sometimes can't make it. He's like the anti-Stephen King: the middle drags but the ending is wonderful.
Anathem is the exception. I couldn't put it down. It's one of those books that infected the way I think and little things remind me of it all the time.
Huh, I kind of think the opposite. I haven't read everything he's written, but it seems to me that he kinda sucks at endings.
I loved Anathem, and when you realize what's going on it's so cool, but then it doesn't explore that idea as much as I want, it just ends without looking around the next corner. Cryptonomicon is a fun, interesting read and gets you worked up about what a monumental shift is going to happen... And then ends right as it's coming to fruition. Even Seveneves had a 5000 year jump and spends hundreds of pages on the consequences of humanity's brush with death... And then tosses in another population with five pages left. I want to keep going!
Maybe I just don't like being tantalized in the last few pages of a book, but I feel like I'm left hanging and unsatisfied, like there's a missing sequel. His pulpier, early novels were much better in terms of wrapping up the story.