Neal Stephenson

Oh man my boner for this guys is like the size of alaska and I've only read two of his books.

Robin you should lend me Anathem.

Yeah it's like sitting on my desk. It's also his best book btw. The end is like a little rushed but not that bad. And that's kind of a universal problem with Neal Stephenson books. He's an awesome writer but he's not as great at endings for whatever reason.

You know who is awesome at endings? Dianna Wynne Jones. She wraps up subplots I forgot about. And all so smoothly and deliciously.

I can to this category to make a Stephenson thread only to find that you had beaten me to it. Anyway, yes, Anathem is absurdly awesome. It is seriously like the perfect book for me.

Absurdly awesome is the perfect epithet for that book.

I'd say there's four distinct sections and each would make a pretty decent story by itself.

Spoiler:

Yeah, and also I just absolutely love the idea of the Mathic world.

Yes.

I would move there in a second.

One. Fucking. Second.

Seriously. It's hard to think of a setting that's more appealing.

"Live on a self-sustaining intellectual commune with no concept of marriage! Isolate yourself from the ignorant! It's nothing but philosophical debates, astronomy, brewing your own beer, and free love from here on out, boys!"

They have a concept of marriage. One of the encounters or whatever they're called was essentially marriage.

I'd argue that it's still different from marriage as it can be ended at any time and has no legal meaning (marriage mostly exists to facilitate property ownership, after all, and only exists as a romantic thing second). And anyway I seem to remember somebody saying it was extremely uncommon.

I don't know, I would certainly consider the legal aspect of marriage to be of secondary importance to the romantic commitment, but maybe that's just me.