
Anathem
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Narrated by:
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Oliver Wyman
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Tavia Gilbert
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William Dufris
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Neal Stephenson
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By:
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Neal Stephenson
About this listen
Fraa Erasmus is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the "Saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals.
Over the centuries, cities, and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs, bloody violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet always the avout have managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. Erasmus, however, has no fear of the outside - the Extramuros - for the last of the terrible times was long, long ago.
Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite of Apert, the fras and suurs prepare to venture outside the concent's gates - opening them wide at the same time to welcome the curious "extras" in.
During his first Apert as a fra, Erasmus eagerly anticipates reconnecting with the landmarks and family he hasn't seen since he was "collected". But before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he embraced will stand poised on the perilous brink of cataclysmic change.
Powerful unforeseen forces threaten the peaceful stability of mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramuros - a threat that only an unsteady alliance of Saecular and avout can oppose - as, one by one, Raz's colleagues, teachers, and friends are all called forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global disaster.
Suddenly burdened with a worlds-shattering responsibility, Erasmus finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of everything - as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of an unfamiliar planet...and far beyond.
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- Unabridged
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In this now-classic thriller, he and fellow author J. Frederick George tell a shocking tale with an all-too plausible premise. There's no way William A. Cozzano can lose the upcoming presidential election. He's a likable midwestern governor with one insidious advantage - an advantage provided by a shadowy group of backers.
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Interface
- By Dianne on 08-14-10
By: Neal Stephenson, and others
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The Cobweb
- By: Neal Stephenson, J. Frederick George
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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When a foreign exchange student is found murdered at an Iowa University, Deputy Sheriff Clyde Banks finds that his investigation extends far beyond the small college townall the way to the Middle East. Shady events at the school reveal that a powerful department is using federal grant money for highly dubious research. And what its producing is a very nasty bug.
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Et tu, Neal?
- By Richard on 06-16-11
By: Neal Stephenson, and others
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The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.
- A Novel
- By: Neal Stephenson, Nicole Galland
- Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard, Shelley Atkinson, Laural Merlington, and others
- Length: 24 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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From best-selling author Neal Stephenson and critically acclaimed historical and contemporary commercial novelist Nicole Galland comes a captivating and complex near-future thriller combining history, science, magic, mystery, intrigue, and adventure that questions the very foundations of the modern world.
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Exceptional voice cast, unconventional format
- By Jesse on 07-03-17
By: Neal Stephenson, and others
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The Big U
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times Book Review called Neal Stephenson's most recent novel "electrifying" and "hilarious". But if you want to know Stephenson was doing 20 years before he wrote the epic Cryptonomicon, it's back-to-school time. Back to The Big U, that is, a hilarious send-up of American college life starring 30-year-old junior Casimir Radon.
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Bad first novel by great writer
- By clint on 01-03-21
By: Neal Stephenson
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A Fire Upon the Deep
- By: Vernor Vinge
- Narrated by: Peter Larkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale. Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function.
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What a wild, wacky, awesome book!
- By Noah Smith on 06-20-10
By: Vernor Vinge
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Blindsight
- By: Peter Watts
- Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
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Set in 2082, Peter Watts' Blindsight is fast-moving, hard SF that pulls readers into a futuristic world where a mind-bending alien encounter is about to unfold. After the Firefall, all eyes are locked heavenward as a team of specialists aboard the self-piloted spaceship Theseus hurtles outbound to intercept an unknown intelligence.
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Gothic Horror Hard Science Fiction
- By Doug D. Eigsti on 06-24-15
By: Peter Watts
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Worlds of Exile and Illusion
- Three Complete Novels of the Hainish Series in One Volume—Rocannon's World; Planet of Exile; City of Illusions
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Three remarkable journeys into the stars: Worlds of Exile and Illusion includes Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusions. These three spacefaring adventures mark the beginning of grand master Ursula K. Le Guin’s remarkable career. Set in the same universe as Le Guin’s groundbreaking classics The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, these first three books of the celebrated Hainish series follow travelers of many worlds and civilizations in the depths of space.
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Well and Beautifully Told
- By K.E.H. on 04-07-25
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Luna
- New Moon
- By: Ian McDonald
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, Soneela Nankani, Thom Rivera
- Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins
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As the leader of the moon's newest "dragon", Adriana has wrested control of the moon's helium-3 industry from the Mackenzie Metal Corporation and fought to earn her family's new status. Now, at the twilight of her life, Adriana finds her corporation, Corta Helio, surrounded by the many enemies she made during her meteoric rise. If the Corta family is to survive, Adriana's five children must defend their mother's empire from her many enemies - and each other.
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Disappointed.
- By Eugene R. White on 10-28-15
By: Ian McDonald
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Anathem [German Edition]
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Detlef Bierstedt
- Length: 38 hrs and 16 mins
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Der Planet Arbre im Jahr 3689. Seit seinem achten Lebensjahr lebt Erasmas, genannt Raz, im Konzent Saunt Edhar, einer klosterähnlichen Gemeinschaft von Wissenschaftlern, Philosophen und Mathematikern. Die Aufgabe dieser Gemeinschaft ist es, hinter den jahrtausendealten Mauern Wissen zu bewahren und es vor den schädlichen Einflüssen der säkularen Welt zu beschützen.
By: Neal Stephenson
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Sinner
- A Prequel to the Mongoliad
- By: Mark Teppo
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 1 hr and 38 mins
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A severed head and a cry of “Witchcraft!” start a frenzied witch hunt in a sleepy German village. When her dead husband’s severed head appears on her doorstep, a local woman is charged with practicing heretical rituals. It is up to the knights to discover the truth behind the brutal murder before the torches are lit and the woman is burned at the stake. Their task proves daunting, though, as the townspeople have their own long-buried secrets and sins that they want to keep hidden - even if it means allowing the sacrifice of an innocent woman.
By: Mark Teppo
-Good like writing a sequel Neal!!
Hard Audiobook to read
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A little lengthy but really gets moving at the end
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Would you consider the audio edition of Anathem to be better than the print version?
Even with a great reader, this would be a challenging book to do well in audio format, because it heavily relies on a glossary at the back and a timeline in the front.Instead, we are given a terrible reading performance. I gave up after 100 pages, and the book became so much better when I switched to reading it myself.
What didn’t you like about the narrators’s performance?
The primary narrator's natural voice is very nasally - think "The Sicilian" from The Princess Bride. Imagine hearing that voice for 900+ pages. Even worse is when he does cartoonish affected voices - "Dave's not here, man!"There are other narrators for various dictionary entries, delivered in a painful monotone. I get it, dictionaries are dry - but using zero inflection completely confounds any hope of the listener understanding what you're talking about.
One of these voices is probably Neal Stephenson himself. I'm enjoying his book thoroughly, but wish more care had been taken in his audio adaptation.
Good book - avoid the audio version
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Way too much detail
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Life-Changing
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This book blew me away, both with its heady ideas, and its rip-roaring story. This may be one of the books best suited to my personality, in that it required extraordinary concentration to keep up with the philosophy, but every time it seemed likely to lose me, Stephenson would throw in a fight, a flight, a disaster, or an emotional scene to keep me invested in the characters. Even the philosophical discussions have their intrigues, their personalities, and their excitements. This books is not for those who have little patience for long digressions into philosophy and the more abstract cul-de-sacs of science, but it is for those who love their ideas and their action in equal measure. This is heady stuff, make no mistake, but the rewards are great.
As a side note, and at the risk of misleading some who don't read carefully, this book reminded me in some places of Dickens, in the writer's obvious love of detail, and of Tolkien, in the way that the author created his world, imagining it as fully and as deeply as any I've ever read. In contrast to Tolkien, however, Stephenson has populated his world with real people, struggling with real emotions and human foibles. In that, this book might be closer than either of these to Herbert's Dune, with a better sense of humor, but no less a love of ideas and politics.
A Triumph
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A masterpiece
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If you start this book and struggle with boredom for a while... HANG IN THERE! You soon hit a point where the plot opens up and does an about face, blowing you away!
I've listened to three of this author's works in the last three weeks (100+ hrs) and have been stunned by his world creation, so similar to Tolkien - high praise indeed!
A philologist of the first degree.
I'm posting the same review on all three... Be patient - it's worth the wait.
I must add a word for the Narrator, who truly can make or break an authors work... OUTSTANDING!
A vast array of voices that never confuse or tire one - without the Narrators talent, all of NEAL STEPHENSON's stories could become a labyrinth of characters, fast leaving you behind in a quagmire of confusion.
KUDOS to you all!
Very Tolkien - like world creation... Stunning
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Captivated
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After listening to the amazing SNOWCRASH I felt that Neal Stephenson deserved a second listen. SNOWCRASH is fast-paced, energetic, fanciful, farcical and fun. ANATHEM is extremely slow-paced, ponderous, mundane and tedious. I am now going on to tackle Stephenson’s CRYPTONOMICON just because SNOWCRASH is so good that I want to give him every opportunity to display the brilliance that he is capable of achieving.
William Dufris is a fine narrator. He has a limited range of character voices, which he recycles on occasion, but these work well for most any conversations. He is easy to understand and always energetic, making a good effort to make this a rewarding listening experience.
.....Attention Surplus Disorder.....
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