I got an arc several months ago of
Anathem and for me it's been a once in a decade novel since it tickled everything I like about sf , natural philosophy and science. I read it 3 times in a week and reread it twice since - I wrote a review for Robert at Fantasy Book Critic.
To get a flavor there is a video with actors that look exactly like I imagined the characters to be and showing several scenes from the novel, with the first being from page 282, but going back and forth in the novel after.
Stephenson to the power Stephenson as someone put it. Content wise after a steep learning curve about what's what, it's a very entertaining and easy read.
Other sound bites I heard and agree with to an extent or another - Gene Wolfe meets Roger Penrose or Plato meets JK Rowling -
If
Cryptonomicon was a reinvention of the second part of the 20th century from the 40's to the 90's, and the
Baroque Cycle a reinvention of beginning of science/Enlightenment from 1650's to 1710's,
Anathem is a reinvention of the whole Western Civilization from Plato to Star Trek to the Multiverse...
Link for the video:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...deoid=41718483