Master of the long view

SEATTLE -- For all of Neal Stephenson's achievements, his most impressive may be his ability to attract a following equal parts hacker and literati. His popularity is all the more anomalous because his books are always long and often difficult. His last project, "The Baroque Cycle," was a fictional trilogy about the birth of capitalism and the history of science, set partly in 17th century London, stretching almost 2,700 pages and written with a fountain pen.

His ambitious new novel, "Anathem," imagines a world dominated by casinos, shopping malls and tire shops -- except for the walled monasteries where the devout gather to contemplate big issues in the shadow of a clock that runs for thousands of years.

They give up, needless to say, almost all contact with the secular world as well as most of its worldly pleasures.

"I had the idea that there would be people who voluntarily stay inside those walls," said Stephenson, a fit 48-year-old who looks like he should carry a broadsword, "as a way of getting away from the distractions of everyday life, of doing something in a serious way that took a long time. And one of their jobs would be to care for the clock."

Stephenson -- who with a shaved pate, mountain-man beard and pen tucked into shirt pocket seems part engineer, part aging skinhead -- clearly relishes that kind of isolation: He's not unfriendly, but over dinner on a drizzly night in Seattle, he pauses for thought in a way that makes even enthusiastic answers seem grudging, disdains small talk and peers out of obsidian-dark eyes that could bore through steel. The dreary weather in this city, where he lives with his doctor wife and two kids, allows him to think, he said.

"That idea kept coming back to me, because it still seemed fresh," he continued, "the idea that book-reading people were more and more diverging from the mainstream, that they're a separate culture invisible to media culture."

Though his books have predicted various developments -- his breakthrough, "Snow Crash," envisions Second Life as well as a balkanized, gang-torn Los Angeles that seems closer every day. But he takes no pride in this: To him, "SF," no matter where or when it's set, is really about the present.

"I bet there are wealthy, busy people who would pay money to live in a monastic setting," Stephenson said, suggesting that the process of writing -- and reading -- his extravagant books is a bit like donning habits inside high walls. "People," he added, "get their luxury in different ways. Some people like a full-body massage. But there's a number of people who really want to get into a story."