Comment How Philosphy, Math, Physics, & Politics Inter (Score 1) 356
First, if you expect a retread of Snow Crash, go read something else.
I had a lot of "WTF!?" moments in reading Anathem. However, the book paid off. This is the next logical step in the progression from Cryptonomicon to the Baroque Cycle. In each book, he has tried to build a book around one or more important concepts. Baroque Cycle examined how the financial system (and the modern world) came to be out of the stew of European power struggles, the invention of advanced math, and the Reformation.
Anathem takes philosophy, physics and politics and blends them. If you have read some philosphy (esp. Plato), as well as quantum physics, it makes a lot more sense.