Anathem

Fraa Erasmas is a young devout person who lives in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a haven for mathematicians, physicists, and philosophers shielded by an old stone, revered customs, and intricate rituals from the corrupting influences of the outside "saecular" world. Outside the walls of the concent, towns and governments have come and gone throughout the ages. Three times in the darkest periods of human history, the closed-off mathic society has been attacked and destroyed by violence stemming from ignorance and superstition. However, the devout have always been able to adjust in the aftermath of disaster, becoming even more austere and less reliant on worldly possessions and technology out of need. Furthermore, Erasmas has no fear of the outside world, or the Extramuros, for those dark days were a very long time ago.

The fraas and suurs are getting ready to leave the confines of the concent and open them wide to the inquisitive "extras" as they celebrate the week-long, once-in-a-decade festival of Apert. Erasmas is looking forward to his first Apert as a fraa and seeing his family and the sites he hasn't seen since he was "collected." But both the life he gave up and the one he accepted will be on the verge of catastrophic alteration before the week is up.

One by one, Erasmas and his teachers, friends, and colleagues are called forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of averting global disaster, but powerful forces beyond their control threaten the ennui that has long pervaded the Extramuros and the peaceful stability of mathic life—a threat that can only be neutralized by an unstable coalition of secular and pious people. Erasmas embarks on an amazing journey that will take him to the most hazardous and hostile regions of the earth and beyond, all while bearing the weight of an immense duty that suddenly finds him at the center of a drama that will decide the fate of his world.