Anathem

Neal Stephenson next book, Seveneves, is going to be over 1,000 pages, which makes it his seventh book in a row with the potential to break your toe if you dropped it on your foot. Recently, I noticed just how fat the Stephenson section of my bookshelf has grown since the release of his first doorstopper, 1999’s Cryptonomicon. In the interests of science, I […]

It’s fun to imagine the Darkest Timeline version of yourself—with an evil goatee, perhaps, and a snazzy black suit, plotting to take over a world somehow intriguingly different from our own. It’s an easy explanation for the persistent popularity of the “alternate universe” concept in science fiction of all kinds. The trope allows creators to explore ideas that […]

Large books just don’t get enough love. It’s true, economy of language is a thing to be celebrated, but there’s just something about a book so big you can sprawl out with its pages, get lost in it, roll around in it like a luxurious king-sized bed at a fancy hotel. A book with a story […]