My Reading & Listening

I heard a lot about the late George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series in the past year and got the first book in the series. After 75 pages, I'm not impressed. If it doesn't improve soon I'm going to chalk it up as a loss.

Now that's I've finished it, I stand by my earlier statement that this new book is up to Stephenson's standards. I won't comment on the Earth=?=Arbre issue for now. There is some real science fiction aspects to the book too. I particularly liked the novel use of an electrodynamic tether in the Advent chapter.

Labels: Electrodynamic_tether Anathem Stephenson

I've read most of Stephenson's books and I'd say that Anathem is definitely on a par with his recent work from Cryptonomicon forward. There has been some speculation about how to categorize it and I'd have to say it's Philosophy Fiction or Phil-Fict.

Other speculation i've heard is whether it is set on Earth (AKA Arbre) or whether Arbre is another planet in another solar system. At this point in my reading (~page 480), I'm leaning toward the latter. However, if you imagine what our Earth will be like 1000 years from now, Stephenson's tale of a trip over the pole by Raz seems plausible.

If you start reading and find the first 50 pages slow going because of the Orth and Fluccish language words that are sprinkled throughout the book, don't worry - it get much easier after 100 or so pages. The Glossary is definitely appreciated.

Labels: books Stephenson