Looks like the last thread got Thrown Back concerning Stephenson's Anathem, and, now that I've read it, I've got some things to say.

There's going to be some spoilers, so if you haven't read it, and plan to, STOP NOW.

First, I started this book over a year ago.  Got through the first 40 or 50 pages, and was all WTF Neal?!?  Where o where are you headed?  I had resigned myself to never going back to it, unless I got stuck in an airport or stranded on a desert island somewhere.  Then you guys said "just bull your way through it, you'll see and it will be worth it".    And it was!

I felt like I'd been thrown into a post-apocalyptic future where life centered around monastic orders of...avants?  Oh, smart people.  Or at least people that can figure things out, even if they have to laboriously set up chains of human calculators to do the math(s).  So what's the point?

Things started getting clearer when Orolo got Thrown Back, though even that seemed to be very dramatic for not much plot movement.  Then, we discovered the alien spaceship.  And not just any alien spaceship, but one trying to hide from us.  That seems interesting!

Then, almost 75% of the way through the book, we realize they're not aliens. Or at least not aliens in the sense of Project Bluebook aliens.  We ultimately find that they're from closely related alternate universes, from the multiverse concept almost certainly dictated by our current understanding of quantum mechanics and effects.  And that the four groups of "aliens" probably represent 4 alternate universe versions of ourselves.  Oh, and that one of those versions appears to actually be Earth, strangely dominated by French-speaking culture.

As I'm finishing it up, I'm thinking "this multiverse thing sure seems familiar".  Neal partnered in writing a whole novel on just this concept, in "The Rise and Fall of DODO", which I found immensely entertaining, along with it's Neal-free sequel.  And lo and behold, what do I find in the post0-script?  An introductory selection from DODO!

Anathem is one of my favorite books. I re-read it often.

The conversations between Erasmas and Orolo at the beginning of the book are very important. They set up much of what's to follow but you don't really notice until second reading.

I look forward to my next reading, I always find new things in his books

I met Neal at a book reading in Denver.  Skipped a session of the Great American Beer Fest to do it.  He was promoting Reamde at the time.  Good book as well.  I asked him about this video.  Said it was a fan trailer.  He liked it!