Anathem

I finished Neal Stephenson's Anathem over the weekend. I liked it, though the best review of it I've read is a negative one, from Michael Dirda of the Washington Post. The story captures the imagination. The philosophy that litters hundreds of its pages is a comforting layer of intellectualism if you just want a story that sounds smart, and yet lets you dig in and think if you'd rather.

One thing that occurs to me, though - the avout are so smart (and, I guess, Stephenson wants everyone to realize that he is so smart) that their brains verge on acting on the story as a deus ex machina. Maybe not quite, but it is rather like the complaint that some have about the Eagles in Tolkien.