---
layout: post
title: Anathem
tags: [lit]
---

There's something about 3: They say bad/good things come in threes. Some things
in my life have been in threes: My favourite science fiction authors: Asimov,
Clarke and Crichton (an ACC instead of an ABC). The books that shaped my views
on society: *The Lord of the Flies*, *1984*, *Brave New World*. My views on
cosmogony so far have been largely influenced by Arthur C. Clarke's Rama series
and Orson Scott Card's Ender Quartet. Now, I have a third to add to that: Neal
Stephenson's *Anathem*.

Just under a third of the way in, I had no idea where the story was headed, but
I knew, I could feel it, that I was on to something special: *Anathem* is book
not easily forgotten. Two-thirds of the way in, the story has taken shape, and I
know for sure that this is as special as *The Garden of Rama* or *Xenocide*. I
should have known, coming from the author of *In the Beginning was the Command
Line*. One of the blurbs on the back-cover said: "[It] begins so quietly... and
winds up travelling so far." Perhaps the thing that I like most about this book
is that it does exactly that: starts along slowly, inviting you to step and
become one with its world, and then before you know it, you are in that world,
travelling along with Erasmus.

I had been reading *The Bourne Supremacy* before this, and I had been thinking
how good that book is: as good as Matt Damon was as Jason Bourne, he simply
couldn't have been Jason Bourne in the novels. Bourne, or Webb, is simply of a
higher level. And now *Anathem* comes along like a whirlwind and wipes out
Bourne from my mind. When I am done reading this, I'll have to read both of them
all over again. And read *Ender's Game*, *Speaker for the Dead*, *Xenocide* and
*Children of the Mind*. And *Rendezvous with Rama*, *Rama II*, *The Garden of
Rama* and *Rama Revealed*. My grades are going to be planed.
