OT: Anathem

Lane Haygood · 16 Sep 2008, 04:07 · from 2008-September.txt.gz

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From: lhaygood at gmail.com (Lane Haygood)
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:07:53 -0500
Subject: (urth) OT: Anathem
In-Reply-To: <9769.72.171.0.141.1221537830.squirrel at brunians.org>
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Message-ID: <CBCFDA04-ED4F-4F1C-934D-55BE2B4FE7D7 at gmail.com>

I haven't read the Baroque cycle be Stephenson, but "Snow Crash"  
continues to top my list of favorites.  It's like Thomas Pynchon and  
William Gibson had a baby.

Terry Brooks writes terribly juvenile fiction, which is when I read  
the entire Shannara series (or at least, the series as it existed in  
the 1990s).  I picked up "Running with the Demon" and its sequels, and  
actually enjoyed them.  Brooks plays with more mature subject matter  
and breaks out of the Standard Epic Fantasy story mold, which is  
nice.  Though I hear with his latest books he is attempting to tie  
these books to the Shannara series, which has kind of ruined it for me.

Lane

On Sep 15, 2008, at 11:03 PM, brunians at brunians.org wrote:

> I hope not: 'Snow Crash' wasn't that bad.
>
> I have no idea if Brooks is good or bad apart from Shannara: the one
> Shannara book I read traumatized me so badly that I am unlikely to  
> risk
> exposure to another of his books.
>
>
>
> .
>
>
>> Let's be fair... is Stephenson really capable of something along the
>> lines of the Shannara series?
>>
>> (In Terry Brooks' defense, his "Running with the Demon" series was
>> pretty good.  Once he stepped away from epic fantasy he's not a
>> terrible writer.)
>>
>> Lane
>>
>> On Sep 15, 2008, at 8:56 PM, brunians at brunians.org wrote:
>>
>>> It looks like Stephenson has done a 'Sword Of Shannara' on TBOTNS.
>>>
>>> What a maroon!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> .
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> is it really totally OK to write a fantasy book about a future
>>>> version of
>>>> our planet and call it "Orth"?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 2:40 PM, Matthew Groves
>>>> <matthewalangroves at gmail.com
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Mostly I agree with Dirda; however I think I like it considerably
>>>>> better
>>>>> than he does.  I admire and approve of Stephenson's project.  I
>>>>> suspect
>>>>> Stephenson really was thinking about the Harry Potter crowd when  
>>>>> he
>>>>> wrote
>>>>> this -- some of whom would be approaching the age of the
>>>>> protagonist,
>>>>> Fraa
>>>>> Erasmus, and his friends.  I may be reading too much into the
>>>>> novel, but
>>>>> I
>>>>> am convinced that Stephenson was presenting his science-and-math
>>>>> monastery
>>>>> (the Mynster) is a counterpoint to the Hogwarts "school for
>>>>> wizards,"
>>>>> replacing the realm of wish-fulfillment fantasy with the realm of
>>>>> abstract
>>>>> theories and ideas.  (The novel seems to be geared toward a just-
>>>>> post-YA
>>>>> age
>>>>> group who were thrilled by the steadily increasing page counts of
>>>>> the
>>>>> Harry
>>>>> Potter sequels and thus won't be scared off by this 900+ page
>>>>> monster.)
>>>>> Stephenson is trying to uplift the Harry Potter crowd with a taste
>>>>> of
>>>>> philosophy and science, and offering some positive alternatives
>>>>> to the consumer-driven, intellectually barren,
>>>>> fundamentalism-spawning culture they've grown up in.
>>>>>
>>>>> Unfortunately, he's going to lose many of those Harry Potter
>>>>> readers (as
>>>>> he
>>>>> nearly lost me), most likely between pp. 12 and 23, in a long
>>>>> description of
>>>>> the Mynster that far outlasts any curiosity you may have developed
>>>>> about
>>>>> the
>>>>> place by this point.  It was while slogging through these pages
>>>>> that I
>>>>> kept
>>>>> thinking about how Wolfe introduces us to Severian's world and
>>>>> implies
>>>>> all
>>>>> sorts of fantastic things about it without interrupting the  
>>>>> story to
>>>>> take us
>>>>> on a walking tour of the citadel and the Matachin Tower, pointing
>>>>> out
>>>>> details left and right.  But that's just the kind of thing
>>>>> Stephenson
>>>>> does
>>>>> at several points in *Anathem*, and whereas Wolfe's details are
>>>>> integral
>>>>> to the story, Stephenson's are mostly just flavor.
>>>>>
>>>>> But once I forgave Stephenson for not transcending popular fiction
>>>>> with
>>>>> a
>>>>> new *Book of the New Sun*, I started to enjoy *Anathem*.  I have
>>>>> more to
>>>>> say about the book, but I'm curious about others' reactions to
>>>>> Anathem.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 10:41 AM, Matthew Keeley <
>>>>> matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Anyone read Michael Dirda's review of Anathem in The Washington
>>>>>> Post?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/04/AR2008090402460.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dirda compares Anathem with The Book of the New Sun, which he
>>>>>> says is
>>>>>> much
>>>>>> superior.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -Matt
>>>>>>
>>>>>
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