Anathem is a novel, published in 2008, by Neal Stephenson. It contains the account of Fraa Erasmas of the Concent of Saunt Edhar, who begins the tale as an unassuming avout trying to keep up with his studies, and by the end has traversed continents and seas, faced extraordinary dangers, met unexpected persons, and perhaps even saved the world as he knows it. The novel was inspired by the real-life Clock of the Long Now, an attempt to build a clock that will function with minimal intervention for 10,000 years. Stephenson has said that when asked to submit ideas for the Clock of the Long Now,