I'm glad this one is over, it really became a drag on the last 400 pages or so. I'd had Anathem on my list for a long time, picked it up after reading @rixx' recommendation, and because I had enjoyed Cryptonomicon very much, but this one wasn't for me. For all of the endless time the book spends on world-building, it isn't interesting enough, for the time it spends discussing quantum physics, I didn't find it clear or insightful enough (I don't know who quipped 'quantum mechanics are weird, and so is the brain, therefore they are equal', but it seems apt), and I didn't find the characters compelling. Plots feel wrought and weird, gadgets that are super-important for a couple of chapters suddently drop from the narrative, and (above all) the narrator is an angsty late teenager who cannot help but judge every female character he encounters by his degree of attraction to her. Maybe I ended up skimming too much (I switched to the audio edition toward the end), didn't pay sufficient attention, or just didn't pick up on whatever the notions the author was trying to get across — I can't help but come away from the book feeling that the time wasn't well spent.
I'm glad this one is over, it really became a drag on the last 400 pages or so. I'd had Anathem on my list for a long time, picked it up after reading @rixx' recommendation, and because I had enjoyed Cryptonomicon very much, but this one wasn't for me. For all of the endless time the book spends on world-building, it isn't interesting enough, for the time it spends discussing quantum physics, I didn't find it clear or insightful enough (I don't know who quipped 'quantum mechanics are weird, and so is the brain, therefore they are equal', but it seems apt), and I didn't find the characters compelling. Plots feel wrought and weird, gadgets that are super-important for a couple of chapters suddently drop from the narrative, and (above all) the narrator is an angsty late teenager who cannot help but judge every female character he encounters by his degree of attraction to her. Maybe I ended up skimming too much (I switched to the audio edition toward the end), didn't pay sufficient attention, or just didn't pick up on whatever the notions the author was trying to get across — I can't help but come away from the book feeling that the time wasn't well spent.