The Sword and Laser discussion

I really like neal Stephenson, and bought the Anathem series of books, but I have yet to finish them.

Is it just me or are they really hard to get into ?

Anathem is just one book, but yes, I have heard a lot of people say that the beginning is very slow. I'm a fast reader, so I didn't have an issue (read it all in 3 days), but all the people I know who only give a book x many pages to grab their attention ended up giving up on it. The plot does definitely pick up if you keep going.

Oops I was confusing Anathem and The Baroque Cycle. :)
They really are different from the rest of his work.

And the Baroque Cycle is really hard to get into -- I did finish all three of them, but it took probably close to three months.

Oh, yes, the Baroque Cycle is definitely different, especially since it came right after his more action-packed stuff. I tend to read Stephenson's books over and over, and if you look at them in order, you can see him building on pet themes and ideas that all sort of culminate in Anathem.* The Baroque Cycle is awesome if you like the Englightenment period anyway, but it is both slow-moving and chock full of characters to keep track of over the course of many years. The very beginning is a little confusing, too, because as I recall there's some flashback stuff going on to get things started. In the end, though, I really enjoyed them.

*Confession: I haven't read Reamde yet, so I'm not sure if it fits with this pattern, or if he really did get most of those ideas all thought through in Anathem.

The Baroque Cycle is referred to among my circle of friends as "the doorstop trilogy."

I still haven't gotten around to reading the last one - I read and enjoyed the first two, but I didn't feel any urgency about finding out what happened next.

Christopher Priest told me Neal Stephenson is an internet kittie.

I adored The Baroque cycle. I read them when they first came out in just three volumes. Then I got the audible version. They are separated into 8 books. I have to admit they were a lot easier to take in that way.

I read Anathem all summer only on breaks at work and I absolutely loved it. I plan on reading it again.

I too adored The Baroque Cycle books. I am really into history, though, as well as history of science, and I like historical fiction. And I majored in physics so it spoke to a lot of things I'm into.

I grok that it's not for everybody, though. It's another love it/hate it series, it seems. Very little middle ground.

Anathem, on the other hand, I'm of 2 minds about. It felt like two separate books. The first was the stuff at the monastery, which I loved. The second was the other stuff including the space mission which seems disjointed, out of place, rushed, and frankly just irritated me.

But that's another love it/hate it book.

I listened to the audio version of Anathem while on the move, and switched to the hardback at home. Got through it pretty quickly that way, and I liked it quite a lot. If you hunt around online, you can even find the "soundtrack" album of original chant music (Iolet by David Stutz) that was meant to be included with the hardbound book as an extra. Since you seem to have actually meant the Baroque Cycle, I respect the achievement more than enjoyed it ... and still haven't gotten to the third volume yet.

The Baroque Cycle is a hard slog but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also enjoyed Anathem.

I had a realization while writing this. Anathem is the only Stephenson novel (at least since Snow Crash) that has had a single view point throughout the entire novel.

I've been working on the Baroque Cycle for about two years now. I really enjoy Stephenson's other works, so I haven't given up completely, but you kind of have to be in the right mood for it. I'm in the home stretch (about halfway through book 3), but I started on 1Q84 so who knows when I'll actually finish it.