Comments on: Initial Thoughts About “Anathem”

By: Xain6^3

Xain6^3 — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:34:49 +0000

a good reference for a book series that is 2000+ pages long is the “Sword of Truth” saga reasons
1. its got magic, sex, violence, and a guy who can make things blow up just by looking at them as the main character
2. it may be pulp, but its very creative within its cliches
3. from the wikipedia, “As of 2008, 25 million copies of the series’ books have been sold worldwide, and the series has been translated into more than 20 languages. A television series adaptation of the novels, titled Legend of the Seeker, is currently being produced by ABC Studios and broadcast via syndication.”
nuff said

By: cm7

cm7 — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:53:47 +0000

Well, I’m reading it, english is not even my first lenguague and I can keep up with the futurespeak.

But its true, it’s not necesary to tell the story, and Stephenson editor needs to do his fucking work.

By: Herbert West

Herbert West — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:37:45 +0000

If you want an example of a long book/series with a zillion of themes and many “made up” (as in borrowed from arab, hebrew, and whatnot) words, I strongly suggest you try out thew Dune hexalogy from Frank Herbert. You can skip the last book (Chapterhouse:Dune), as it gets really pulp sometimes, but the rest have a very strong narrative/plot element, some that may not necessarily be evident in the first reading (examine Jesica’s position towards her son in the first novel, for example), and tackle huge sociological themes. Read them, now:)

Or for non-fiction (sort of, at least), I suggest Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses/Last Sigh of the Moor (sic?). You can try and tackle “Midnights Children”, but that suffers a bit from the “I want to tell everything” complex.

Stephenson is a bit too overhyped for my taste.

By: darkdriver

darkdriver — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 18:11:52 +0000

Sounds like Neal was able to swing a “Patience Worth” deal with his publisher…and that’s never good.

As for the idea of making one’s own language, that’s fine to some extent, but there has to be either some grounding in English (so as to give the idea that the words are the best translation of the actual terms) or terms used so consistently exacting that it helps with the immersion into fiction–and these should be rare enough to make the reader understand that “we’re dealing with alien thought processes”, so to speak.
For example, in my own stories about the world Vissatree, a telephone is called a “nobird”–as in it sends the message instead of a bird. And as the world has two races, each with a different number derivation, their common numbers, while sounding alien, are nothing more than an amalgam of a 4-derived system and a 10-derived system.
In short, a little “alienness” in the language is okay…but if there’s so much that the book needs its own translation guide, then it’s a wee bit overdone.

By: Pete Bondurant

Pete Bondurant — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:20:41 +0000

For a book like Anathem you really should have finished reading it before writing up a review. Yes its long, and a problem with Anathem is it doesn’t really get started until about 300 pages in, about the length of any other novel.

I really hope you’ll finish it because many of your complaints (the rewording for example) will all make sense when the book is done.

By: Merlkir

Merlkir — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:15:19 +0000

“a book so dense I can actually see small particles of matter breaking off my sandwich and orbiting the dust jacket”
this! :D good one.

Contrary to what some people believe, LOTR was always meant to be ONE book. Tolkien said so himself. Not three, not six. One book. The publisher divided it.

Anyway, I enjoy long books. If it’s good, I don’t care how long it is. Simmons’ Ilium and Olympos were great and they’re close to 1000 pages each. Egyptian Sinuhet was bloody long and I still read it as a kid, the same with IT by S.King (awesome book that.).
But it has to be enjoyable, books like The Historian or Strangle&Norrel just dragged forever and were boring quite often.

By: Maxwell

Maxwell — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 07:21:25 +0000

On a somewhat related note, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess was fucking awesome.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:30:47 +0000

Sounds like one to miss, I hate anything long-winded! On a side-note, smeg is a real word, or at least it’s short for a real
word; Smegma. I won’t go into detail about what it means but a quick Google should reveal all :)

By: Ghostpilot

Ghostpilot — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:13:14 +0000

As an aspiring writer, I was wondering about this very subject, myself: just how far should I go in establishing a new world. Although it can help to draw you into a world, I’ve never been a fan of the idea of creating new, arbitrary words to describe things that already exist (or butchering a language to establish a heavy accent, i.e. “Giff me a ‘alf-penny, Guv, an’ I’ll be sure t’ shut me gob ’bout th’ dollymop wot I saw in yer deadlurk”). It’s just tiresome to write and even moreso to read.

No one should need an interpreter to read a story written in their native language.

By: Spike

Spike — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:20:53 +0000

Such, Nonesuch. Interweb Tough Guy.