[NCLUG] offtopic- Neal Stephenson at Boulder Bookstore

[Chad Perrin]

On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 07:51:58PM -0600, Jamie Leben wrote:
> Some of us are going to Neal Stephenson's (Snowcrash, Cryptonomicon) book
> signing  for his new book Anathem at the Boulder Bookstore. E-mail me if
> you're interested in car pooling, from Loveland.
> 
> Wednesday, October 01, 2008
> 7:30 PM
> BOULDER BOOKSTORE
> 1107 Pearl ST *Boulder, CO* 80302

Well, I saw a few of you there, got my book signed, and apparently asked
the one question Stephenson gets asked at *every* signing.

I'm about halfway through Anathem now (having read another book or two
before I started it).  That thing is a massive tome, with 70+ page
chapters.  At first, I was a little skeptical of the book, because it's
so far outside any kind of "norm" for science fictiony writing, but by
now it's thoroughly absorbing.

Out of the four Stephenson books I've read, it's my third favorite (Snow
Crash is fourth).  Considering my first and second favorite Stephenson
books (Cryptonomicon and In the Beginning was the Command Line) are among
my all-time favorite books, the fact Anathem comes in third out of four
is not a criticism.  I'll probably add Diamond Age to the Stephenson
books I've read very soon.

Any of you reading Anathem -- I recommend reading the calcas at the back
of the book as you come across reference to them in the narrative.
They're very easy to follow, and offer some insight into what's going on
in the story.  There are only three calcas, and they've all been
referenced by about halfway through the story.

It's also worth noting, if you find it difficult to keep track of what
some of the terms used in the tale mean, that there's a glossary just
before the calcas.  As for the xkcd reference to the relationship between
the number of new words and the quality of a novel, I think Munroe is
off-base this time.  It was a funny comic, but not really accurate,
judging by what I've read so far.

Of course, I still have half the book to go, so it could still take a
dramatic turn for the worse (I suppose).

-- 
Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ]
Bjarne Stroustrup: "An ugly operation should have an ugly syntactic
form."
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