After reading his three-thousand-page Baroque Cycle in its entirety — twice — I’ve been eagerly anticipating Neal Stephenson’s new novel, Anathem.

It was a very, very fun read… I was initially concerned at how simple Stephenson’s prose was, but everything looks simple after spelunking through Ulysses. The novel is very much in the vein of Snow Crash in its simplicity; like Ender’s Game, Anathem is a bildungsroman where the protagonist is learning about himself while getting into adventures and overcoming challenges seemingly every five minutes.

Most interestingly, Stephenson sets the novel in a world called Arbor — think of it as Earth with a few simplifications and with a different social structure. Monasteries are populated by fraas and suurs who train in the scientific, not religious, arts… slines talk incessantly into their jeejahs and sport baggy clothes with their favorite athletic logos. Despite xkcd’s useful rule of thumb, Stephenson uses these differences and parallels to make astute observations about society and about the modern world — the book often hits close to home before the reader has a chance to put up his defenses.

I genuinely miss the characters now that I’ve finished the novel — that’s always a good sign. Well worth your time to read this one if you’re looking for something fun with a little bit of science fiction.