Original post on tweesecake.social

Anathem by Neil Stephenson, a Sci-Fi masterpiece is on sale on Audible for 6$ until the end of March.

It was recently rereviewed for the SFBRP Must-Read List.

https://www.sfbrp.com/archives/2412

(Note that since the book was published in 2008, this is a spoiler rich episode).

For a spoiler […]

image stolen from r/anathem

We stayed in Orithena later than expected. Partly because it had been fascinating. But—and this probably didn’t say much for my character—mainly because this was the one thing I could do on this journey that would seem almost as cool as Jesry’s space adventure.
#Anathem

The bad guys in Superman '78 being carried away in the flatness of the Phantom Zone. It sort of resembles the mirror that the Anathem astronauts are clinging to. It also kind of looks like a metaphor for smartphone addiction.

Space travel had any number of interesting features, but quiet contemplation was not among them. During Apert the worst part was the jeejahs. But this was like living inside of a jeejah: whose screen wrapped my field of vision, speakers in my ears, mic transmitted every word, breath & sigh
#Anathem

Me watching other people reading Anathem.

Please give me a momentary reprieve from the horrors of our current geopolitical hellscape. Talk about my favorite book with me #nealstephenson #anathem

a man wearing glasses and a blue shirt is sitting in a car and says you got something with a sweet drizzle ALT: a man wearing glasses and a blue shirt is sitting in a car and says you got something with a sweet drizzle

I couldn’t help seeing the restaurant as the Hundreders did:
Ambiguous conversation w/unseen serving-wench
Bags of hot-grease-scented food hurtling in thru the window
Attempting to eat while lurching down a highway
Volumes of messy litter
A smell that outstayed its welcome
#Anathem #DriveThru

a man in a military uniform is sitting in a classroom with other men and says `` it 's classified . '' ALT: a man in a military uniform is sitting in a classroom with other men and says `` it 's classified . ''

FRAA OROLO: Your point is well reasoned. But don’t be too dismissive of the poles. Many things converge there.
RAZ: Like what? Lines of longitude?
ARSIBALT: Migratory birds?
JESRY: Compass needles?
BARB: Polar orbits! A telescope aimed north would have a high probability of detecting—
#Anathem

Russia Moscow GIF ALT: Russia Moscow GIF

Six weeks after I joined the Edharian order, I became hopelessly stuck on a problem that one of Orolo’s knee-huggers had set for me as a way of letting me know that I didn’t really understand what it meant for two hypersurfaces to be tangent.
#Anathem

a man says sorry about the mess in front of a group ALT: a man says sorry about the mess in front of a group

It had been 10 years & a couple of months since I had watched a moving picture, but I could still remember a kind of scene where a spaceman walks into a starport bar, or a steppe rider into a dusty saloon & all goes silent for a few moments. That was how it was when I entered the Refectory.
#Anathem

Naturally, Arbre has its own plants and animals. The names of those species’ rough Earth equivalents have been swapped in here to obviate digressions in which, e.g., the phenotype of the Arbre-equivalent-of-a-carrot must be explained in detail.
#Anathem

a man in a tuxedo says hello in front of a group of men ALT: a man in a tuxedo says hello in front of a group of men

> There was something about the Edharian contingent that impressed people. Orolo had made us into stars. Lodoghir had seen the Plenary as an opportunity to take one of us down a peg.
#Anathem

Novelist Neal Stephenson discussing Anathem at MIT.

FRAA JAD: It is not the cosmos we see through our eyes and our telescopes ― that is but a single Narrative, a thread winding through a Hemn space shared by many other Narratives besides ours.
FRAA LODOGHIR: What on earth is he going on about? It sounded like literary criticism!
#Anathem

A small number of samples can poison LLMs of any size Anthropic research on data-poisoning attacks in large language models

Neal #Stephenson's novel #Anathem is set in a world where the introduction of AI (Artificial #Inanity) to a global information network caused the breakdown of society! Here's how it might have happened...
@jongerhardson.bsky.social
www.anthropic.com/research/sma...

a man in a red robe is sitting in a room with other men and the words " there it is " written on the bottom ALT: a man in a red robe is sitting in a room with other men and the words " there it is " written on the bottom

FRAA JAD: Those who think through possible outcomes with discipline, forge connections, in so doing, to other cosmi in which those outcomes are more than mere possibilities. >
#Anathem, Part 11, Advent

Neal Stephenson’s Anathem. A monk-like figure stands shadowed in an archway.

Okay. I’m going in. Wish me well. #books #anathem

RAZ: I guess people like to think theyre not only living but propagating their way of life.
OROLO: People have a need to be part of some sustainable project…that will go on w/out them. The need for that kind of stability is as basic & desperate as some of the other, more obvious needs.
#Anathem

Stained class that details monks conducting scientific and botanical experiments.

FRAA OROLO: Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.
#Anathem

Artificial Inanity: the phrase comes from #Anathem, where author Neal Stephenson imagined a world wary of hollow discourse.

This new piece explores how that warning feels eerily relevant in the age of LLM-generated filler—and why human intent still matters most. lambdaland.org/posts/2025-0...

#Anathem

three nuns are sitting at a table playing a game with red cups . ALT: three nuns are sitting at a table playing a game with red cups .

A few years ago I began thinking that bookish people of the world were becoming a little bit like medieval monks, living austere but intellectually complex lives in voluntary seclusion from a gaudy & action-packed secular world. I’ve written a novel, #Anathem, based on that premise.
―Neal Stephenson

a painting of a boat with the word ark on it ALT: a painting of a boat with the word ark on it

GNEL: That’s what you avout do: try to understand God’s creation w/out using the revelations given by God 6000 years ago. So you’ve put out your own eyes & developed senses/faculties we lack.
RAZ: I’m just going to hold my tongue & not even get into all that is wrong in what you just said.
#Anathem

Original post on unstraight.club

I also started reading "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson, having really enjoyed both “Snow Crash" and “Seveneves”.

The story starts first about 20% into the book, and the world building is heavy in the first fifth. It's not a book I'd recommend to someone who's just starting with sci-fi, but I […]

The Monastery of St. Rousanou, an Eastern Orthodox monastery that is part of the Meteora monastery complex in Thessaly, central Greece. It is situated at the top of a rocky precipice.

Always glad to see the Edharian Thousanders' crag popping up as the wallpaper on my Windows syntactic device.
#Anathem

RAZ: “Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs,” I said. “We have a protractor.”

(My favorite #Anathem quote)

a group of people dancing on a stage with the words on the spectrum ALT: a group of people dancing on a stage with the words on the spectrum

RAZ: Ylma is having you work it out in that gruesome way so that when she teaches you how it's really done, it'll seem that much easier. Like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer—it feels so good when you stop.
[This joke was old, but Barb hadn't heard it before & he became so amused>
#Anathem

Book: Anathem (2008)
-standalone-
Author: Neal Stephenson

#BookSky #Books 💙📚👀 🪐📚 #bookskyES #Anathem #NealStephenson

#Grok#AI hallucinating in real time! AI, as Neal Stephenson wrote in his semi-philosophical sci-fi novel, #Anathem, will end up being Artificial Inanity in the near future. Time for some Thousander Chant.
@jowolff.bsky.social

“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor.” -Erasmas

Part 6: Peregrin. #Anathem

Arche_RP - Twitch [JdR] Anathem : le Haut-prêtre | One shot #11 | Saison 1 | Les aventuriers parviendront-ils à débusquer le maître du culte ?

🎲Premier stream de 2025 et quoi de mieux pour se remettre dans le bain que partir sur un peu de jeu de rôle ? Ce soir, c'est la 11ème séance de notre campagne d'Anathem.

➡️ #jdr #jeuderole #actualplay #Anathem #twitchfr #twitchjdr
www.twitch.tv/arche_rp