New Neal Stephenson novel!

Amazon is listing a new Neal Stephenson novel, ANATHEM, which the site says will be released on Sept. 9, 2008. The list price is $29.95, but Amazon is accepting pre-orders for $19.77.

A bit of hunting around turns up this Sept. 22, 2007, blog entry from Gretta Cook, which reveals the following details about ANATHEM, gleaned from Stephenson's visit to Google's Seattle-area offices: "He's writing a science fiction novel unrelated to Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle. It's set on another planet and has aliens and so on. It's really about Platonic mathematics, but he needed the aliens and space opera-ish elements to spice it up a little bit, just like the pirates kept people engaged in the Baroque books. He's nearly finished writing it, and if he doesn't finish by the end of the calendar year he'll have to give some money back. If everything proceeds according to schedule, it should be available in stores in about a year."

Apparently if you work at Google, cool science fiction authors drop by every once in awhile to keep the employees happy. Miss Cook also has a Charles Stross entry. Her excellent list of favorite SF novels is here; she lists THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS as her favorite Heinlein novel. Nice call.

So....a new science fiction novel this year from Iain M. Banks, and a new SF novel from Neal Stephenson! Looks like a pretty good year.