About 3/4 through a novel called Anathem by Neil Stephenson.'
Pretty interesting. Very long, a total off 950 pages.
Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, is a magnificent creation: a work of great scope, intelligence, and imagination that ushers readers into a recognizableyet strangely invertedworld.
Fraa Erasmas 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 outside saecular world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concents walls. Three times during historys darkest epochs violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no fear of the outsidethe Extramurosfor 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 fraas and suurs prepare to venture beyond the concents gatesat the same time opening them wide to welcome the curious extras in. During his first Apert as a fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting with the landmarks and family he hasnt 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 brink of cataclysmic change.
Powerful unforeseen forces jeopardize the peaceful stability of mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramurosa threat that only an unsteady alliance of saecular and avout can opposeas, one by one, Erasmas and his colleagues, teachers, and friends are summoned forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global disaster. Suddenly burdened with a staggering responsibility, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his worldas he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet . . . and beyond.
) note, I'm about halfway through Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Amazing book; I love McCarthy's style. Very brutal though. The violence comes across so nonchalantly that it's even more disturbing (which is the point). After about fifty pages you begin to become desensitized to the brutality.
