

New Neal Stephenson Book Out - Anathem - fkrueger
http://nealstephenson.com/anathem/

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JayNeely
He's been doing a book tour, stopped by Cambridge yesterday. If you're not in
a place he's stopping by, check out the Authors@Google talk he gave:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnq-2BJwatE>

He makes some long-winded jokes for the first few minutes (mainly about
authors being ill-suited to public appearances), starts talking about Anathem
around 3:40, and starts the Q&A time around 8:30.

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sh
If you can tolerate all the Stephensonian camp, you might enjoy this book. The
ending is my favorite Stephenson ending. For extra credit, find the error in
his astronomy.

~~~
Angostura
"The ending is my favorite Stephenson ending."

... you mean, he's included one this time?

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hugh
The final chapter almost seemed to me like he was writing under duress.

Without wanting to spoil anything, it pretty much goes "Fine, you want an
ending you bastards? Here's your fucking ending, they all fucking lived
happily ever after. Happy now?"

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sh
Hm, you're right -- by 'ending' I was thinking of the climax. I really like
how the book turned out.

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babyshake
Wonderful book. As many good ideas as most authors would put into a lifetime
of work.

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Harkins
Yeesh. Just put a hold on it with my local library, and I'm already 20th in
line.

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wastedbrains
I am curious what do people think is Stephenson's best book?

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byrneseyeview
_Cryptonomicon_. People will read it to understand the 1940's _and_ the
1990's.

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wastedbrains
Cool this is the one I have heard the most about. I guess I will have to pick
up a copy of it.

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wastedbrains
Bought a copy on Amazon.com for $1.40

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wastedbrains
following up, finished reading it awhile ago, but finally wrote up a review...
So here were my thoughts

[http://www.mayerdan.com/2009/01/cryptonomicon_book_review_1....](http://www.mayerdan.com/2009/01/cryptonomicon_book_review_1.php)

up next Snowcrash

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quasimojo
painful. put it down at page 100. already recycled. oh i know what you are
thinking, i must be some sort of caveman who prefers michael crichton.
nonsense. when i read _fiction_ , i want to have some fun. this book just
isn't fun. stephenson knows how to write fun books. snow crash was a literal
page turner...why do you stay up all night turning pages? because the book is
fun.

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agl
I'm only half way in at the moment, but I must reply and say that I think this
book is excellent. It may have helped that I did the first couple of hundred
pages on a flight so was a captive audience (well, unless I wanted to watch
"Son of Rambo"), but I don't remember feeling that it was a slog.

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omouse
Son of Rambow is a good movie. Really really good. A feel-good movie if you
will. I can't believe you didn't want to watch it!

