Anathem is Neal Stephenson’s latest novel and the first one that deals with an explicitly science-fiction setting since The Diamond Age. Stephenson also makes it a difficult read by using new, made-up words to replace common concepts and things. There are good reasons why he did this (and there is a dictionary in the back to help translate), but it takes a while before becoming comfortable reading without having to stop and look up words. Stephenson also provides a tremendous amount of back-story for his world and moves some of his larger digressions to appendixes.

Anathem is a 700 page book (1000 in paperback) that takes about 1/3 of the book to get started. The first third of the book is world setting. We get introduced to the world and it’s main characters lives in their monastery. But this is not a religious monastery (at least not in the way we would think of), these are mathematics monastery. The monks and nuns spend their time learning mathematic techniques, proofs and logic. The monasteries are split into four sections that are divided by how often they open their doors to the outside world. The groupings are one year, ten years, one hundred years and one thousand years. Our main characters are in the ten year group and the novel starts with a new decade approaching and the doors will open.

When the doors open, not only can the outside world come into the monastery, but the monks and nuns can go and see the outside world. This lets our monks and nuns (who haven’t seen the world in the last ten years) comment on what things look like and how they have changed. This technique allows the reader to see the world while our main characters are wandering through it.

After the world-building is done, the plot kicks in. After the monastery is closed again, our main characters are kicked out into the world because there is a situation that the civil government needs the monks help in solving. This brings us on the middle third of the book which not only forwards the plot, but brings us on a road trip to other areas in the world. The last third of the book is the climax and resolution of the story.

Anathem deals with topics in mathematics, philosophy and physics (especially quantum physics). There is also a tie in to the Long Now project (whose clock is the center of the monastery) which Stephenson is involved in. There are long sections of the book that have many characters talking about logic and philosophy, but Stephenson tries to break them up a bit to avoid the story getting bogged down. While Anathem doesn’t have the wild energy of Snow Crash or the extensive detailed plot mechanisms of The Baroque Cycle, it is a more mature work. We can see Stephenson has become a better writer as we go over his book history. His next novel REAMDE is set for 2011, and I’ll be waiting impatiently for it.