Anathem

Anyone else excited about Neal Stephenson's new novel Anathem that is coming out in a few weeks? The description on Amazon,

scientists, philosophers and mathematicians—a religious order unto themselves—have been cloistered behind concent (convent) walls. Their role is to nurture all knowledge while safeguarding it from the vagaries of the irrational saecular outside world

sounds similar to Herman Hesse's old masterpiece The Glass Bead Game. While Stephenson is the master of the "more is more" philosophy of writing, Herman Hesse was, at least in my opinion, much more of the "less is more" school with carefully structured and polished sentences. Now i'm looking forward to (re-)reading both.