A new masterpiece of intellectual prose from the author of “Cryptonomicon” and “The Baroque Cycle” The novel, which The Times called a magnificent, large-scale work that gives food to both the mind and the imagination A world in which something happened - and the world called Arb, survived the disaster Now scientists who once brought terrible evil to humanity become monks, and science itself is completely separated from everyday life. Fraa Erasmus is a young monk-inak from the monastery (now they are calledconcentrates) of the luminary Edhar - a refuge of mathematicians, philosophers and scientists, protected from the temptations and evils of the external, secular world of Extramuros - thick monastic walls. But once in ten years there comes an apert - the day when monks-scientists are allowed to go outside the gates of the monastery, and curious laymen - to enter inside .. And one day the apert comes trouble. The Trouble That Puts the World on the Verge of Disaster . The trouble that can be prevented only by the joint efforts of the Incas and Exts ...