2009 Locus SF – ANATHEM by Neal Stephenson

Anathem is an ambitious, epic novel that deals with central questions in the philosophy of science.  This is the only novel I can think of that directly addresses the central episitemological and ontological questions: what is the nature of physical existence and how do we know what we know?  In many ways, the novel picks up Stephenson’s standard themes about information, science and spirituality, and it also picks up on his more recent obsession with great thinkers, but it’s also a fairly big departure, as Stephenson creates his own world.

Anathem takes place on a world not unlike our own called Arbre, where science is a sort of religion, and there has been a longstanding conflict between scientists and laypeople.  The scientists have retreated to monasteries called concents, and they only interact with the outside world at certain intervals (every year, decade, century, or millennium, depending on their level).  They’ve also been forced to renounce most technology, so the “avout” intellectuals spend all of their time on abstract and theoretical inquiries rather than applications.  At the novel’s beginning, the narrator, Fraa Erasmus, is in his late teens and tasked with personal dilemmas like his choice of order (which are divided around the aforementioned philosophical questions), but he soon becomes involved in a situation with global implications.

It’s hard to say much more about the novel without spoilers.  The plot doesn’t get going until over 300 pages in, and there are facets of the world itself that are major reveals fairly late in the book.  I will say that we’re told early that the titular “anathem” is a ceremony in which avout are expelled into the “saeculur” world, so it’s fairly obvious that these two worlds will eventually collide.

I think Stephenson is probably the most exciting sf writer out there right now, and this novel does deliver big ideas and (eventually) an exhilarating story.  The world building contains some nice ideas, and the monasteries are well-developed with their own politics and mysteries (and, hey, since they’re monks, they have to have cool martial arts as well!)  Stephenson spends a lot of time inventing etymologies for new words.  “Anathem” for instance, merges “anthem” and “anathema.”  Sometimes it’s entertaining; sometimes it can feel a bit precious and self-indulgent (and, are we supposed to assume that the novel’s language, Orthic, is identical to modern English?).  Also, the world’s history is very similar to Earth’s.  This is largely intentional, but some of the similarities go too far.  Thelenes, this world’s Socrates, makes all of the same discoveries, and uses the same techniques, and apparently lives the same life. Again, I can imagine arguments for why this might be, but it's mostly because Stephenson wanted to talk about Socrates in the context of this world. In other words, he skips some great opportunities for some Rice and Salt-esque alternate-history-building.

It’s also, like Stephenson’s last novel, too long.  I, for one, enjoy Stephenson’s long digressions.  He’s quite good at making a lecture into something that can illuminate the plot, world, or characters at the same time it gives you something to think about.  In this novel, however, the lectures seem to be far more repetitive than usual.  Almost every one has the exact same point, which thus gets hammered into the ground (I hope I never see the phrase Hylaean Theoric World again).  I preferred the more eclectic tangents of his previous works.  Anathem does feel like a chore sometimes.  If three or four hundred pages had been cut, this would have been a much stronger work.

These complaints aside, it’s an exciting novel that really pays off in the last few hundred pages.  Each act is more exciting than the last, and the climax is fantastic.  I’d have to say it would have been my Hugo pick.  I’d certainly recommend The Graveyard Book to more people, and it does seem like a more polished, and finished work, but I think the ambition and scope of Anathem more fully realizes the promise of speculative fiction.

Grade: A-

2004 Arthur C. Clarke Award – THE BAROQUE CYCLE: QUICKSILVER, 2005 Locus – THE BAROQUE CYCLE: THE CONFUSION and THE SYSTEM OF THE WORLD by Neal Stephenson

This one takes some explaining.  The Baroque Cycle is a massive work by Neal Stephenson – a sort of prequel to his information-opus Cyptonomicon that focuses on several of the characters’ ancestors in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.  Together, The Baroque Cycle forms one 2600 page story, though it was published as three separate novels at six-month intervals (and then later as eight smaller novels).  The first entry, Quicksilver, won the Clarke.  It finished third in the Locus voting in 2004, but the final two-thirds were both eligible in the next year, and they won as a single unit.  The first novel, Quicksilver, does start slow, so I can see why the Locus voters passed it by, though it does get quite good after 300 pages or so.  The second novel, The Confusion, is a work of genius.  The third novel overstays its welcome (after reading for thousands of pages, I found myself yelling “get on with it already!” during the home stretch).  Really, The Baroque Cycle should be seen as one work, so it is fitting that Locus grouped them together (and I’m doing the same).

So, 2600 pages, huh?  The Baroque Cycle is daunting, and at the end, it’s a fairly uneven work.  Fundamentally, it’s about the dispute between Leibniz and Newton over who invented Calculus.  This was a real fight between two genius men who were also crucial political figures in British history – part of the dispute is about science and the politics of science, but it also involves questions of scientific professionalization, struggles over the British crown, the birth of high finance, the prehistory of information technology, and the nature of God and the cosmos. 

If you groaned or gave a weary sigh during any part of that description, run away now.  Run as fast and as far from these novels as you can.  However, if you’re at least mildly intrigued by a 2600 page novel of scientific disputes and political intrigue, there’s a decent chance that you will enjoy yourself here.  Stephenson livens things up with the picaresque hero Jack Shaftoe.  In contrast to the Stephenson’s invented scientist character, Daniel Waterhouse, Jack is an uneducated clown who has wild, swashbuckling adventures across the globe.  He starts out as a mercenary and vagabond in Quicksilver, then spends most of The Confusion as a pirate.  Bridging the two stories is Eliza, a beautiful young woman who goes from harem slave to aristocrat over the decades-long story, and sponsors schemes in the criminal, political, scientific and financial world that the Cycle so masterfully jumps between (and often combines!)

We follow these three characters for most of the novel from their youths in the 1660s to 1714 (the Hannoverian succession for those keeping score at home).  Waterhouse lets Stephenson explore the scientific revolution and England’s burgeoning Royal Society, and especially its superstars, Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton.  He uses Jack Shaftoe to delve into the underworld and to tell a series of comic adventure stories.  Eliza takes us into the worlds of royal courts and early modern trade and finance.

As history, it’s generally accurate and rather ingenuous.  Several historical characters make cameos or play large roles, including several kings, queens, and scientists (a young Ben Franklin even pops in early on).  Stephenson has his facts straight and more than once I would look up a particularly unlikely-seeming event or meeting and find that it really did happen more or less as Stephenson described.   There is some artistic license taken – Stephenson puts a witch execution in New England a few decades after they had stopped, for instance – but that’s really where Stephenson’s genius comes in.  Yes, the main characters are his creations, and yes, there are several improbably (and impossible scenes).  At one point, Stephenson even stages a Disneyesque musical number in a Jack Shaftoe scene.  But all of these moments only serve to bring the history even more vibrantly alive.

What exactly does this all have to do with science fiction then?  Well, there are some moments that are pure fantasy (an immortal sorceror appears, and much of the plot turns on some alchemical gold – both are elements carried over from Cryptonomicon).  But, more fundamentally, these are novels about science.  They explore the implications of science by taking real discoveries and exaggerating them or carrying them to extreme ends.  Leibniz really did consider building a mechanical calculator, and is thus one of the prehistoric pioneers of the computer.  In Stephenson’s world, he gets to build his calculator.  This is science fiction at its most pure.

This is my third Stephenson review, and it should be clear by now that I’m a fan of his work, and especially his irreverent, witty, and discursive writing style.  I’m also a fan of historical settings and richly drawn worlds, so, it’s not a surprise that I loved these novels.  Stephenson’s tics are all still here – especially his tendency to run off on long tangents that can turn into academic lectures.  You either love it or hate it, and if the latter, you’re going to have a hard time with Stephenson and the hardest time of all here.

I did say that this is an uneven work.  Quicksilver takes a while to get going.  The Confusion is probably the best thing that Stephenson has ever written and one of my favorite novels.  System of the World was painful to get through at times.  It’s a nice two or three hundred page epilogue to the first two parts…stretched out to nine hundred pages (for symmetry’s sake?).  In System, for once, Stephenson’s diversions aren’t all that interesting, there’s a great deal of repetition (you will grow sick of the phrase “Trial of the Pyx”), and the characteristic long-winded descriptions just aren’t that interesting.  I’d suggest skimming the final volume if you can bring yourself to do so.  It also wouldn’t hurt to bone up on history before delving in – I gave up on Quicksilver when it first came our, but I found it a much breezier read after reading up on seventeenth-century English history for a class I was teaching. 

In summary, it’s a highly rewarding set of novels that I can’t recommend highly enough…so long as you’re interested in history, can tolerate Stephenson’s quirks, and you can hold your nose and make your way through some slow portions.  The Confusion alone is worth these obstacles though. 

Grade: A

2000 Locus SF – CRYPTONOMICON by Neal Stephenson

After writing what is, for better or worse, the landmark cyberpunk novel of the ‘90s in Snow Crash, Stephenson worked hard not to be pigeonholed in the sub-genre. He’s followed it up with a novel about nanotechnology that’s full of Victoriana, a series of novels about Early Modern Europe, a novel about mathematical monks, and this family saga that moves from World War II to Silicon Valley in the late ‘90s. Still, in all of these novels, he maintains some of the same cyberpunk sensibilities.

Cryptonomicon introduces us to two families with intertwined histories (whom we’ll see again in future Stephenson works): the Waterhouses and the Shaftoes. Before World War II, Daniel Waterhouse is a socially awkward mathematical genius and Bobby Shaftoe is a hardcore marine who’s already seen some of the horrors to come during a tour of duty in a China savaged by the Japanese (who Stephenson insists on calling Nipponese in all of his novels). Waterhouse eventually joins Alan Turing to do crucial cryptography work, and Shaftoe ends up as part of a series of harebrained schemes (which usually result in insane action set-pieces) to aid their efforts. In more contemporary times, Randy Waterhouse is working on a Silicon Valley start-up that hopes to create a “data haven” in the Pacific where information can be freely exchanged without government interference. He hires Douglas and Amy Shaftoe to lay cable for him near the Philippines, but soon becomes involved in a hunt for lost Nipponese gold leftover from the war. The novel jumps back and forth between the two plots with the usual amount of Stephenson’s long digressions about mathematics, philosophy, religion, etc.

It’s epic (I read this for the second time in paperback in an edition that ran to 1140 pages), and it’s incredibly fun. Considering the length, and Stephenson’s tendency to deliver lectures, it does inevitably slow down at many points. Like Robert Sawyer, Stephenson can go off on rants that’d be better suited to a blog than a novel. But, Stephenson can also deliver the action and excitement, and most of the novel is page-turning. Also, unlike Sawyer’s, his prose is a joy to read. There’s a three page description of one character’s preferred method consuming of Fruit Loops at one point. Is it necessary? Certainly not. Is it a funny read that gives some insight into the main character. Yes.

I’m sure Stephenson’s not for everyone. Even people who like the mini-(well, sometimes, maxi-)lectures, might not by as happy with the silliness of some of his action scenes, which can make John McClane’s hijinks look realistic. I wasn’t always on board with his arguments either. He spends a lot of time hammering "Godless," postmodernist straw-men academics (I kind of got the impression that Randy’s problems with his girlfriend had some basis in the author’s life). These scenes really jumped out at my this time, maybe because these things (religion, postmodernism) have become so much more politicized in the last ten years. Or maybe I was just being overly sensitive. Even more problematic for me was the fact that the data haven itself seems destined to become a haven for some really awful criminals. I think Stephenson is right to show that international criminals of various stripes would be the first on board, but he seems to think this a minor setback and well worth freedom from state interference. I think that proposition is worth a little more consideration.

Sure, it could’ve used a bit of trimming, but this is one of the funnest reads out there, and it does a great job of brining a sci-fi/tech geek sensibility to the history of World War II and the rest of the twentieth century.

Grade: A-

1996 Hugo and Locus – THE DIAMOND AGE by Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite authors. His 1992 novel Snow Crash, a hyperbolic, hyperactive cyberpunk novel set in a future where the state has crumbled, is probably his most famous work, but it didn’t win any of the awards I’m covering. This is probably for the best, since I don’t think it’s a great novel. It’s funny, exciting, fun, and interesting, but it’s also silly, ridiculous and swerves erratically between over-the-top action scenes and infodumps about Sumerian religion. Every novel since has won an award though (apparently, Locus readers adore Neal Stephenson), so I get to talk about him a lot.

The Diamond Age is Stephenson’s one Hugo win. The novel is an homage to Charles Dickens’ class-oriented Victorian fiction, but it takes place in a future world dominated by nanotechnology. Matter compilers can create just about anything a person could need or want, but it’s an expensive and potentially deadly technology – sentinels have to protect people from deadly nano-viruses and the majority of the world’s population still have to toil to afford their basic necessities. Meanwhile, a select few live with immense wealth, but to protect that wealth they congregate in “tribes” that enforce social order. The action in this novel takes place in Hong Kong where the Han tribe dominate, though there is also an enclave of Neo-Victorians. The Neo-Victorians have retreated to the strict social mores and class deference of 19^th century Britain to bring order to the modern world.

The leader of the Neo-Victorians, Lord Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw, commissions an amazing educational text that combines nano-technology, sophisticated interactive software, and live remote actors to give his granddaughter a well-rounded understanding of the world, morality, and her own emotions. When its creator is mugged, the book accidentally ends up in the hands of a very young, abused working-class girl named Nell. The rest of the novel follows Nell’s education and mimics the style of enlightenment novels (which obsessed over the idea of education and what we would call “nature or nurture”). As always with Stephenson, there’s a variety of entertaining side stories, including my favorite involving a Neo-Confucian judge. There’s also a secret society of hackers trying to bring down the hierarchical social order that has evolved.

The ending is the one point where the novel seems to fall down a bit (a common problem for Stephenson), but this is a fantastic and original novel, especially the portions involving Nell or Judge Dee. Highly recommended.

Grade: A