Excerpts from Anathem (nonfiction)

Front cover of the hardcover first edition, featuring an analemma behind the author's name.

This page comprises short excerpts from the novel Anathem by Neal Stephenson.

Excerpts

Anathem

Concerning the military spaceship built on the planet Urnud, intended as a time machine:

"I see," said Paphlagon, "so Laterre constructed such a ship and—"

"No! We never did!"

"Just as Arbre never did—even though we had the same ideas!" Lio put in.

"But on Urnud it was different," said Jules Verne Durand. "They had geometrodynamics. They had the rotating-universe solution. They had cosmographic evidence that their cosmos did in fact rotate. And they had the idea for the atomic ship. But they actually built several of them. They were driven to such measures because of a terrible war between two blocs of nations. The combat infected space; the whole solar system became a theatre of war. The last and largest of these ships was called Daban Urnud, which means 'Second Urnud.' It was designed to send a colony to a neighboring star system, only a quarter of a light-year away. But there was a mutiny and a change of command. It fell under the control of ones who understood the theorics that I spoke of. They chose to steer a different course: one that was intended to take them into the past of Urnud, where they hoped that they could undo the decisions that had led to the outbreak of the war. But when they reached the end of that journey, they found themselves, not in the past of Urnud, but in an altogether different cosmos, orbiting an Urnud-like planet—"

"Tro," said Arsibalt.

"Yes. This is how the universe protects herself—prevents violations of causality. If you attempt to do anything that would give you the power of violating the laws of cause-and-effect—to go back in time and kill your grandfather—"

"You simply find yourself in a different and separate causal domain? How extraordinary!" said Lodoghir.

The Laterran nodded. "One is shunted into an altogether different Narrative," he said, with a glance at Fraa Jad, "and thus causality is preserved."

— Anathem, pages 745-746

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Anathem (nonfiction)
• Neal Stephenson (nonfiction)

External links:

• Anathem @ Wikipedia