The other day I finished Anathem, the latest weighty tome written by Neal Stephenson, who hasn't written a novel shorter than 800 pages in a decade.

This is going to be as spoiler-free as possible. However, there. . . really isn't that much to spoil. More on that later. First, a story!

Many moons ago, when grunge was popular, before the Golden Age, I attended kolledge. I majored in philosophy - a widely misunderstood discipline that many people (including my parents) consider to be useless.

In my school, philosophy majors had to choose a focus: Ancient Track (which meant studying mostly Plato, Aristotle, Heraclitus, and other old dead Greeks) or Modern Track (which is mostly about post-Rennaissance philosophers, like Descartes, Kant, or even such modern marvels as Wittgenstein). I chose to read about Dead Greeks.

(You still had to take a ton of classes about the other track, mind you; this choice really only defined how the bulk of your 400-level classes were going to go.)

This was a fun time for me! For several hours a day I and my fellow students would sit around a table in a forgotten, musty room in one of the older buildings on campus and systematically destroy each other's brains. We were surrounded by books, most of which had suffered water damage. Someone had scratched into the surface of the table the following:

I think, therefore I am. I think not. . . and POOF! I vanish!

That joke has made me laugh for over ten years now. Remember it as you read the book. It carries extra weight.

Anyways. I read a lot of Plato.

Now, you may be asking yourself something right about now. "Self," you might be saying, "why does a book review begin with a bunch of crap about about majoring in philosophy?"

That's a very good question! The answer is because it supplies to you, the reader, a small but important context about me and my mindset as a I read a book that is, essentially, a dialog about metaphysics.

In many, many ways, Anathem is the bloated child of A Canticle for Liebowitz and Plato's Theaetetus.

I very specifically chose the Theaetetus (a somewhat obscure dialog) rather than something like, say, The Republic (which everyone has read some of) because of a couple reasons which will become clear.

Anathem is an alternate-world story told from the perspective of Fraa Erasmas. Erasmas is a theor, and theors are ascetic mathemetician philosophers. They live in these huge, stone monestaries and are divided into three groups: tenners, hundreders, and thousanders. The groups do not co-mingle (and are forbidden to do so) except for specific times.

Every ten years, the tenners can leave the monestary for ten days. Every hundred years, the hundreders can do so (and at that time their maths [the crap they work on] are published). Likewise, every thousand years the maths of the thousanders are published (note that thousanders do not live for thousands of years; they just get published, mostly).

Fully the first hundred or so pages is without meaningful plot. It serves to set the tone for the story, to introduce and immerse the reader into the history of this alternate world, and to allow Stephenson to circle-jerk about how much he has been reading Plato.

And I mean that, because, seriously, nearly every philosophic discussion is pretty much cribbed from Plato, and many of them are taken from the Theaetetus (which concerns itself with the nature of knowledge, fundamental truth, and the nature of perception). The theors even use the Socratic method to educate one another (though they don't call it that).

Like all of Stephenson's books in the past decade, Anathem feels like he (Stephenson) got excited about something and then spent a ridiculous amount of time researching it and was further compelled to splatter it out onto pages just to show us how much research he did do. Unlike the previous books in the decade (Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle), we are spared a lot of tedium.

(Well, that may not strictly be true. Again: I majored in philosophy, so it wasn't tedious to me; it may be for others.)

Even though the novel is a "sci-fi" book, it is remarkably thin on the "sci" part. There is some, but the primary plot point is almost lifted directly from an earlier work by a different author. However, where Heinlein's story was a fanciful whiz-bang actioner, Anathem is devotes itself more to the intellectual discussion of "alternate dimensions".

This brings us back to Platonic dialogs again.

For thousands of years, much philosophy was told through stories. That is, explained through the use of story and metaphor to enable the student to better grasp what was being discussed by relating it to something they already understood. Plato did it (obviously), but my library is filled with other examples (such as Candide or Reveries of a Solitary Walker). In more modern times, Ayn Rand used the method to explain Objectivism. Zen koans are often small anecdotes and analogies.

Anathem is a dialog that contains many smaller dialogs. It has a lot of lessons which are delivered in a story format and serves as a modern parable about the schism between science and religion. It is deliberately constructed that way. I do not know if Stephenson actually believes some of the ideas that are espoused or not but that is irrelevant to the lesson being discussed: it is more about teaching people to think in new ways.

Anathem is a very typical Stephenson novel. If you've read his other stuff, you know what you're in for. If you haven't, I would not suggest Anathem as your introduction: pick up The Diamond Age instead, and from there move to Cryptonomicon.

I think it could have been trimmed by a couple hundred pages - especially in the middle, where Erasmas goes on a little adventure that doesn't really advance the plot (I'm thinking of his time on the ice).

( Some Minor Spoiler Discussion )

I was extremely pleased to discover that he had acknowledged Plato in the afterword. I would have been irritated had he not.

ITEM!

I am avoiding discussion with people about my mother and her impending heart surgery. It's kind of weird, but it seems that if I talk about it becomes more real.

However, everyone seems (at this point) to be optimistic. So there's that.

ITEM!

I, however, am less optimistic about the country's current case of economic botulism. So much so that I found myself awake at four a.m. worried about it, and couldn't get back to sleep until about seven.

I have no desire to repeat the Great Job Scare of 2001. I rather like my current lifestyle.

ITEM!

I am now 300 pages into Anathem and, lo and behold, there has been plot movement. Like, there have been actual things happening in the story rather than pages upon pages of mood-setting.

The book has started to catch hold of me, however, despite it's long-windedness. One thing that I think he did well is that he put all his little stories where the main character teaches geometry proofs to someone in an appendix. The main text says, "So I taught him about foo.*" and at the bottom it says "See XXXX". And if you go to XXXX, it's text that could be inserted right there (and probably was, in Draft 1). This is good: Stephenson has a habit of going into super spatter nerd mode and go into excruciating depth about esoterica such as the banking laws of Holland in the 1600s. For twenty pages.

A large part of the monk-life as described involves them engaging in philosophic dialog (though they call it "Theoric Dialog" and at one point there is a big deal about describing the difference between Theorics and Philosophers. This I find humorous, because many of the "dialogs" are pretty much lifted directly out of second and third year Plato (only attributed to fictional people from his universe).

ITEM!

This is really cool, and makes me want to build crap out of Lego again.

ITEM!

On Friday my venerable rear-projection teevee finally croaked over. It had been dying for a while - projectors going out of sync, whatever, audio glitches, etc. So on Saturday afternoon I went out and blew a chunk of change on a new LCD television.

This of course included an HD TiVo (see below), a mounting bracket, and a couple HDMI cables.

Maynard and I mounted it on Saturday night and got the most important thing hooked up to it: the 360. This was done via HDMI-1; the other things were set up component. Worked perfectly.

Until I hooked the HD TiVo into HDMI-2. At this point, neither the TiVo nor the XBox were producing audio. Since the TiVo had support for optical audio in addition to HDMI, and HDMI-1 allows for optical audio, I switched TiVo to HDMI-1 and pulled the XBox onto the HD Component cable system (not an HDMI cable).

So, wtf? Why would the HDMI inputs (all four of them - I checked) suddenly stop taking audio?

ITEM!

Man, TiVo HD and CableCARDs can eat a can of Spaghetti-os and then be sent to work in Hell's Scab Factory.

In theory, this is a cool idea: ditch the cable box; just slot a special kind of PCMCIA card into the TiVo. BAM! The TiVo becomes your cable box. Which is a neat idea, assuming it fucking works. Which, apparently, it only does about half the time. The other half of the time the cards don't sync up, or they're fried, or the TiVo software has bugs and needs an upgrade, or whatever. The intertron is filled with horror stories about this.

It seems to be a good idea but poorly tested and executed.

ITEM!

I started a new game of Grand Theft Auto IV in a hope that the game is "better" when it doesn't look like shit on a decade-old, dying television. I played it for about an hour and a half and so far it is more fun - though I'm not sure if that's because I'm at the early points, because I know the control scheme already, or because it looks so damned fine.

(Geometry Wars 2 looks utterly phenomenal in 1080p.)

ITEM!

With the removal of the Monolith TV, the furniture layout in my apartment has also changed. The new TV is above the fireplace, which pushed the couch into one of the bay windows. This has provided the downstairs with about 30 square feet of empty space.

I'm unsure what to put there. The place feels empty now.

Maybe a big table for building Lego crap.

So far, I'm about a hundred pages into Anathem and nothing has happened. There has been no plot movement whatsoever. The most interesting thing that has happened was a couple of monks deciding whether or not to get into a fist fight.

So really, I feel that I'm looking at a version of A Canticle for Liebowitz in which, instead of rediscovering blue prints, devising the principles of electricity, and building the first lightbulb seen in over a thousand years, all the while dealing with a couple of philosophical problems as well as cannibalism, they. . . eat stew.

Worse: I, as a reader, am constantly having new, made up words thrown at me. Seriously? You couldn't call the monk "Brother" Numbnuts? We have to use "Fraa" Numbnuts?

Excellent.

Okay Mr. Smarty-pants. Make with the funny and the interesting or I start thinking of you as "The Confusion II: Electric Boogaloo."

Smell that? That smells like douche.

ITEM!

My copy of Anathem arrived yesterday and was promptly placed in The Stack atop Matter, which is also a multi-thousand page sci-fi novel. I'm currently in the midst of re-reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for like, the fiftieth time, but when I'm done I'll start on the new Stephenson book. Matter scares the fucking bejesus out of me: it's got a fucking built in concordance. WTF?

Say what you will about Heinlein (and I'll fight you if you, probably, if it's bad enough), you can mostly follow his books without having to resort to external references.

ITEM!

Some political crap, just to give you the runs:

It's like a really bad Disney movie. Matt Damon on the terrifying prospect of "President Palin". I need to know if she really thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago. . . because she's gonna have the nuclear codes.

Roger Ebert is in agreement. I want a vice president who is better than me, wiser, well-traveled, has met world leaders, who three months ago had an opinion on Iraq. Someone who doesn't repeat bald-faced lies about earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere. Someone who doesn't appoint Alaskan politicians to "study" global warming, because, hello! It has been studied. Even better: The most damning indictment against her is that she considered herself a good choice to be a heartbeat away. That shows bad judgment.

ITEM!

I am in the process of absorbing the Spring Framework for use in the rockstar game. This is good and bad.

Good because I'm learning a new (and popular) technology. Bad in that it's irritating to have to learn yet another java framework. Why am I doing this, you ask? Because dealing with Hibernate sessions is a pain in the ass without it.

ITEM!

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay is good, but would have probably been funnier if they were high more throughout the film. R.I.P. NPH.

ITEM!

After the awesome construction job on Portola at Woodside on Saturday, the guys totally screwed up the lane markers. This has been entertaining for me, watching people almost k-rash into each other from my porch. This is better than TiVo.

ITEM!

Speaking of TiVo. Two years ago I bought a TiVo for my dad. I put the thing in my name, so that they billed me 12.50 a month for the service. He's my dad! He loves it. It's changed his life.

Anyways, apparently a year or so ago it died for some reason and they sent him a new one for free, provided that he pay a three year contract for three hundred bones or so. So he did that, not being aware that I was paying for his service. And today we discovered, lo and behold, that they've been double-dipping: I've paid for his service for the past 18 months even though he's also paid for it.

So I look forward to an afternoon of sitting on hold while I try to get my money back.

ITEM!

Jimisan is excellent sushi. You should go.

That's two of the people who significantly impacted my development dead in as many weeks.

I don't even remember how I got introduced to Arthur C. Clarke's writing, but I must have read everything he wrote by 1980. He inspired a deep love of science fiction in me.

So I wonder who is next. John Byrne? Chris Claremont?

(I have a big review of all of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files stewing, but it seems to be taking some time percolating.)

As I had previously said, I never read the Elric stories growing up - mostly because they were oddly difficult to find. I have a battered copy of Stormbringer that I got maybe 10 pages into and gave up on because it was confusing without the previous stories.

I'm in the middle of the third hardcover collection. The first two collections are the "core" Elric books; the rest were written long after (and oddly, volumes 3 and 4 were produced by a different publisher).

One of the "problems" with the Elric mythology is that Michael Moorcock didn't write them in order. In fact, the first novel written, Stormbringer, is the last book from a chronological standpoint (since it deals with the end of the universe, it kind of has to).

However, I read them in the "chronological" order, not the publishing order, so they make a lot more sense (in fact, given the bizarre structure of Stormbringer, I can't imagine doing it otherwise).

Elric is (or should be) the patron saint of wanna-be goth boys everywhere. He's albino: pale, white-haired, weak. He dresses in black all the time (mostly armor, but it's not fashionable to wear plate to a club). He is educated. He speaks and acts with a languid, ghostful grace. He sold his soul to the Arioch, the Duke of Hell, and drinks the souls of men with his cursed sword, Stormbringer.

Pretty much everything most young goth males wish they were.

Elric is the template for all anti-heroes that follow. I remember reading the original Deities & Demigods, which had Elric in it, and he was listed as being "Chaotic Evil." I remember thinking, "how can a hero be chaotic evil?" Well. Elric can be. He is absolutely evil - he plays purely to his own desires. He's amoral, but not in an apathetic way; he has a sociopathic, self-centered amorality. Further, while he appears to have a "personal code" of sorts, he cheerfully breaks it whenever and however he wants.

Plus, he destroys the nation he is emperor of because he's pissed at his cousin.

Oh. And he kills the woman he loves while doing so.

In fact, Elric kills pretty much everyone he ever cares about. Ever.

Obviously, there is a tie between the sword and the One Ring from Tolkein's mythology: both cursed artifacts of unimaginable power that develop a symbiotic relationship with their bearers. But, as written, the One Ring is kind of a non-entity and a deus ex machina: it's a plot device. Stormbringer, however, is an essential character in the saga. Stormbringer has a personality and its own desires (mostly to kill people, preferably Elric's pals), and the conflict between the two characters is well-handled.

The major complaint I have, honestly, is the weaving of Moorcock's "Eternal Champion" mythology in with the rest of the epic. It feels out of place: Elric may be an important figure, but he is in no way, shape or form a "champion" (quite the opposite, actually: he destroys the universe). The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (book two) is the weakest of the saga because of this, actually.

Reading the first book, I was struck with how cinematic the entire story is, and I wonder why there hasn't been an attempt to make it into a movie. In fact, thinking about it, I feel bad about how poor the marketing of the saga actually is. It's hard to find the books for sale, actually. There's a roleplaying game - but it's put out by Chaosium, who are notoriously bad marketers (c.f., Cthulhu, which is another under-exposed series of works).

Also, the sheer darkness of the Elric saga probably turns off most movie producers. I mean, your main character butchers everyone else. How is that gonna sell?

Anyways. I wish I'd read these so much earlier.

Okay. So, I'll start with the non-spoilery stuff:

1) This is a brutal book. It's more violent and dark than all of the others put together. Like, the "evil knob goes up to eleven" type brutal. So I don't know that I'd recommend it for anyone younger than, say, fourteen or fifteen.

2) It does wrap up, and it does answer all the questions. With a little red bow.

( Here There Be Spoilers )

In other news, I made a big-ass post on all the forums I am Lord and Master on with a decree: Do Not Post Harry Potter Spoilers Or I Will Ban You.. This was not to save me, but rather because I hate asshats. People spoil things like this just to be jerks, to ruin the things that other people enjoy. Few things irritate me more.

Three guesses what happened.

Received: 11:00 AM

Started: 11:45 AM

(2 hour break)

Finished: 6:20 PM


More thoughts later, with cut/spoilers. Gonna go to a movie.

I've been reading World War Z for the past week or so before I fall asleep every night. It's a quick read, and written like a series of interviews, which is kind of a novel approach to the idea of a zombie apocalypse. Overall, it's very good.

However, about 2/3rds of the way through, it sort of dropped off for me with one of those, "Okay, I get it, let's move on" moments. Since it's not a novel, there isn't a sense of concern for anyone I "interact" with. In fact, I know they all survive, since it's being written 10 years after the war is over.

Now, this definitely isn't as bad as the *last* book I had on the stack - I Will Fear No Evil by Robert Heinlein. That was an exercise in tedium after page 50 or so: Yeah, I get it, you've been transferred to a woman's body. Yeah, it's all novel. Yeah, you are sexually promiscuous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was the same shit on every page, repeated for another hundred pages. I could only read about 3 pages a night before getting bored, so it took forever.

I usually like Heinlein. Oh well.

I really need to start reading more. My "stack" is maybe 20 books high at this point. I used to burn through a book every 2 or 3 days; now it's taking me weeks. I've got a copy of Papillon I'm itching to read. And Hannibal Rising. And and and.