Well so Friday night after a week of reading I finished Anathem.  I felt like I needed a little time to digest and really think about what it was that made this book, for me, so hard to put down.  The answer I came up with was technical content, and the fact that the story was so compelling.  Neal Stephenson is really putting the Science in Science Fiction.

Normally I have to say that technical aspects can bog down a story but I can safely say that Mr. Stephenson has a much talked about talent of taking a very complex topic and has the ability to explain it in terms and vocabulary that are quickly grasped.  That skill has served him well in this story, as he built on these various ideas and theory until reaching his final goal, it was very satisfying to follow this progression.  There is already a large part of this book that appeals to me on a geeky personal level.  Now the story was also very good and complete. But the ending and more correctly the falling action was great.  And in the effort to not spoil anything WOW, very satisfying, in that you do get to see that most of your questions are answered.  It makes all the theory in the beginning very worthwhile.

Overall for an 890-page book, it really does not feel like a ton of reading the groundwork laid in the first few parts was interesting in a very Stephenson way.  And once the action starts it is really hard to stop as you are continually asking where the next turn is. I found that even with the large amounts of philosophy, physics and mathematics it felt to me to have a much easier read than the Baroque Cycle (that one was tough for me I have to admit).