A #1 *New York Times* Bestseller, *Anathem* is perhaps the most brilliant literary invention to date from the incomparable Neal Stephenson, who rocked the world with *Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon,* and *The Baroque Cycle*. Now he imagines an alternate universe where scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians live in seclusion behind ancient monastery walls until they are called back into the world to deal with a crisis of astronomical proportions. *Anathem* won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and the reviews for have been dazzling: “Brilliant” ( *South Florida Sun-Sentinel* ), “Daring” ( *Boston Globe* ), “Immensely entertaining” ( *New York Times Book Review* ), “A tour de force” ( *St. Louis Post-Dispatch* ), while *Time* magazine proclaims, “The great novel of ideas…has morphed into science fiction, and Neal Stephenson is its foremost practitioner.”