New York Times best-selling fiction author Neal Stephenson's new book
Anathem is being released at a singular event in San Francisco on
Tuesday September 9, 02008.  Presented by The Long Now Foundation,
whose 10,000 Year Clock project inspired Stephenson's new work, this
evening with the author will include live performances of music
created for the book, readings by Neal Stephenson, conversations with
Stewart Brand and Danny Hillis (founders of The Long Now Foundation),
a demonstration of shovel-fu and a chance to celebrate this new work
in the Gothic splendor of The Regency.

This long anticipated book release is of great interest to the tech
and computer crowd in the Bay Area as many of them are long time fans
of Neal Stephenson's work.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday August 26, 02008*

MEDIA CONTACT
Contact: Danielle Engelman
danie...@longnow.org
415.561.6582 ext.1

WEBSITE:
http://www.longnow.org/anathem/

What:
Anathem: an evening with author Neal Stephenson
Book launch presented by The Long Now Foundation

WHO:
New York Times best-selling fiction author Neal Stephenson will be
presenting his new book Anathem, which is thematically based on The
Long Now Foundation's 10,000 Year Clock project.  Stephenson's
previous works include seminal science fiction titles such as Snow
Crash and Cryptonomicon.

WHEN:
Tuesday September 9, 02008*      6:30pm to 11pm

WHERE:
The Regency     1320 Van Ness @ Sutter,  San Francisco, CA 94109

We will also be doing a live stream of this event through FORA.tv at
7pm PST on 9/9/08.

TICKET INFORMATION:
Tickets are $10 for the event only, or $42.50 for the event and a
SIGNED copy of Anathem ($10 ticket and $32.50 book, includes tax --
only pre-ordered books are guaranteed to be signed). Books for this
special event will be provided by The Booksmith bookstore in san
Francisco (www.booksmith.com)

Members of The Long Now Foundation receive a complimentary ticket with
RSVP, and can choose to pre-order a SIGNED copy of Anathem for $32.50
when they RSVP (only pre-ordered books are guaranteed to be signed).
Tickets and Member RSVP are available through Brown Paper Tickets.

For interview requests and Press passes, contact Danielle at
415.561.6582 ext.1, or email danie...@longnow.org.

Images:
Contact us directly for more images at servi...@longnow.org.

BRIEF SUMMARY:
Neal Stephenson's long-awaited book Anathem will be released to the
public on Tuesday September 9, 02008.  Join us on this evening to hear
the author read from his new work and converse with Stewart Brand and
Danny Hillis of The Long Now Foundation.  We'll also have a special
musical performance of math-based chanting created for Anathem by
composer David Stutz .  A book signing, reception and all-around
celebration will follow (we'll have a cash bar too).  Additional
copies of the book will also be for sale at the event, but we can only
guarantee that pre-ordered books will be signed.

The concept behind Anathem germinated in 01999* when Danny Hillis
asked Stephenson and several other contributors to sketch out their
ideas of what Long Now's 10,000 Year Clock might look like. Stephenson
tossed off a quick sketch and promptly forgot about it. Five years
later, however, when he was between projects, the idea came back to
him and he began to explore the possibility of building a novel around
it - Anathem is the result.

"It is a great story, set in an alternative reality where people take
long-term thinking seriously." -Danny Hillis

"Long Now's 10,000-year clock inspired Neal Stephenson's new story,
Anathem, and now Anathem is inspiring the Long Now.  In ten centuries,
no one will be sure which came first." -Kevin Kelly

Additional information on The Long Now Foundation, Neal Stephenson and
Anathem can be found here:

http://kk.org/ct2/2008/08/neal-stephenson-and-the-10000y.php

http://blog.longnow.org/2008/07/21/anathem-and-long-now/

http://blog.longnow.org/2008/08/19/neal-stephenson-king-of-the-worlds/

About the Long Now Foundation:
The Long Now Foundation is a non-profit organization established in
01996* to creatively foster long-term thinking and responsibility in
the framework of the next 10,000 years.

*The Long Now Foundation uses five digit dates, the extra zero is to
solve the deca-millennium bug which will come into effect in about
8,000 years.