Initially, I also thought the spiders were a bit too "human"... however, in thinking about the way Vinge portrays them, it was important for me to realize there's a point later in the story where he reveals that the focused translators are heavily anthropomorphizing everything they relate to the rest of the crew. I think this is a really strong suggestion that everything told from the point-of-view of the spiders is passing through the same narrator. There's a point where he specifically mentions that the translators seem to know about events and conversations they shouldn't, and we can infer this is because they've been covertly communicating with the Underhill for a long time and he's given them the back-story.

Also important, I think, is that a huge contributing factor to events and technologies developing similarly to those of human civilization, is that the humans were actively manipulating information and events on the planet from the moment they arrived.

I agree with you about Stephenson being fantastic; his books make you think. While I've enjoyed what I've read from Vinge, in some sense it feels much closer to the fantasy genre.

I'm curious as to what folks here thought of The Baroque Cycle. I loved Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Anathem... but Quicksilver seemed to drag, and I didn't have the heart to pick up the next one in the series.

> I think this is a really strong suggestion that everything told from the point-of-view of the spiders is passing through the same narrator.

This is explicitly hinted at when, uh, Vinh finds papers in Trixia's room that are identical to the first chapter from the point of view of the spiders. The point is that everything written about the spiders/from their perspective is actually her "novelization" of what happened.

There are at least three more different hints about the translators than you've mentioned -- Vinge is so great at embedding little insight-bombs in the narrative, like Godel, Escher, Bach. In fact the whole translation subtheme strongly reminded me of another Hofstadter book, Le Ton beau de Marot.

The Baroque Cycle was among my favorite books of its years, FWIW.

I couldn't even finish Quicksilver when reading it as a book. However, the unabridged audio-book version that Audible has of the Baroque Cycle is extremely good - I love listening to these books!

> Every time I read Anathem

shudder

I've liked some Neal Stephenson, and I wanted to like Anathem, but just could not get "into" it. Maybe I'll have to try it again.

kb

It may start slow (though personally I loved the start), but it sure picks up towards the last third. It blew my mind into many, many pieces.

I'd give a strong recommendation to stick with it - at first all of the strange invented terms are a bit jarring but after a while they become natural and you get to enjoy what I would regard as one of the finest work of fiction of recent years.