Anathem

An extremely impressive thought experiment, but this book is at least 200 pages longer than it needs to be, and the majority of that is in the first quarter of the book. This book was written after Neal Stephenson became *The* Neal Stephenson, and my theory is that the power balance between editor and writer got skewed in a way that does not benefit the readers. Because it's excessive. Which is too bad, since otherwise this would probably be a four-star book.

The world he created is so very cool I almost want to live there. I loved the philosophy and the academia and the give-and-take between the different parts of society. I also loved that the main character wasn't the smartest one, or the bravest, or the deep thinker, or the strategist. He's simply the character that provides the connection between all of those things, and the one who remains passionate about them even though he will never achieve the accolades his heart truly desires. It's a great character to follow through this world.

Unfortunately, none of those 200 extra pages are spent developing any of the female characters quite as well as the handful of male characters who got full personalities. There are some male characters who could have used further developing as well, but the total absence of a fully-developed female is contributing to my decision not to pursue any more of this author's works.

That and the fact that what those extra 200 pages are spent on is mostly building descriptions, and more specifically describing one particular building over and over and over again. I kid you not. Neal, I get it. The clock tower is huge, it's intricate, it's complex, it took lifetimes to build and contains the kind of forward-thinking and planning that is beyond our current society's abilities. I have grasped the (not so) subtleties of the world you're building. I do not need you to spend three extremely dense paragraphs describing it to me every time the MC walks past or through it, especially since that happens EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. For almost a year.