Well today is the day, I am sure by now everyone is hanging out in front of your favorite bookstore or feverishly tracking packages from Amazon (Anathem on Amazon).

Slothrop has informed us that anathembook.com went live, as well as nealstephenson.com, with content.  The video’s section is cool.  But being greeted by that trailer still weirds me out.  The rest of the site is pretty blah actually with just coming soon! placed on most pages.

Here is what Wired thinks you need to do to get ready for Anathem.

And Rudy Rucker’s take on Anathem.

Over at Press the Action Button, is an interesting story about what could have been!  It seems that there was initial work done on a script for a live action Batman based in the Batman Beyond setting.  And it seems that Mr. Stephenson was part of some of that work, which unfortunately ended up without being completed.  I suppose there is always hope as the Batman franchise seems to have new life with the Nolan directed Batman movies.

Neil Gaiman and Neal Stephenson, having breakfast together. WOW it took just a second to fully realize just how cool it would have been to hear those guys talking about ANYTHING let alone fountain pens…kind of a pen junkie myself.  But still I bet these guys could talk about the current weather pattern and I would be glassy-eyed and nodding my abject approval.

While awaiting Tombstone’s own coverage of the Gresham engagement (with pics!), MSSV.net has a good detailed account of what Neil discussed, all in all sounds like it as a VERY good talk given by Mr. Stephenson.  Torque Control also covered the noted event as well. 

For those of you a bit closer to Gresham College than I am, Neal will be speaking there on May 8th as part of a symposium on science fiction as a literary genre. More info on the event is here.

Recently in the Geekdad Blog on Wired Blogs, part of Neal’s parenting philosophy is discussed.

He pointed to an unfinished kayak under a tarp. He said he was slowly working on it, in part to mentor his kids, even though they did no work on the boat, nor express the least bit of interest in this project. None-the-less he continued puttering on the undertaking while they were home. Stephenson said when he was a kid, his dad was constantly tinkering on some garage project or another, and despite Neal’s complete indifference for any of his dad’s enthusiasms at the time, he was influenced by this embedded tinkering. It was part of the family scene, part of his household, like mealtime style, or the pattern of interactions between siblings. [More]