Rating: 
Summary: Quicksilver, a true piece of Literature
Review: I was introduced to Neal Stephenson about two years ago with Snow Crash. I was immediately hooked on his style. Beginning with Cryptonomicon, Stephenson began a new genre of writing. WIth the Baroque Cycle, he has created a genius piece of literature. I was surprised page after page at the depth of research, the complexity of story, and the nuanced alternative universe he has created, which includes Cryptonomicon. I have read Quicksilver twice, own the Limited Edition volume, and have read The Confusion once so far. I am eagerly anticipating the completion of the Cycle, and will mourn it as well. I don't want to leave the world he has created.
Rating: 
Summary: dull, dull, dull
Review: I won't take much of your time. Stephenson has become a falling star. I believe he is regurgitating each and every fact he read at the library, thinking that to personalize them will make them interesting. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This book could have been half its size and the little he actually said would still have come across. Frankly, I'd rather read a treatise on economics than another one of these. And Mr. Stephenson, I used to look forward to your books with the thirst of an addict; now I don't think I will be paying any more attention.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: If you're a fan of Stephenson's previous works (most notably Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash), you'll notice improvements in Stephenson's writing style - and I don't mean the [by today's standards] intentional spelling mistakes or capitalizations within sentences. The way this book is delivered creates an authentic sense of the 17th century and this sense is not lost even when Stephenson includes his traditional way of bluntly describing some events. Most of the main character names are recycled from Cryptonomicon ala King's "Desperation" and "The Regulators", but unlike King the roles for these characters remain the same. The changes in literary medium - from third person to letters to play - throughout the book make for an interesting read and change of pace. The action in this book is, however, slow, so if you're looking for the 17th century recreation of Cryptonomicon, this is not it. I enjoyed this book, and look forward to the remaining two books in the series. I am not a history buff, so any little annoying changes Stephenson may have made to actual character names like he has in previous books (i.e. "Finux" for "Linux" and "L. Bob Rife" for "L. Ron Hubbard") were lost on me which I think made the book that much more enjoyable.
Rating: 
Summary: Adventures and Economics During the English Renaissance
Review: In Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson tells the true story of King John Sobieski, the "Unvanquished Northern Lion," King of Poland and Ukraine, who in 1683 liberated Vienna from Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa, aka "The Turk."
Quicksilver also tells the stories of of "Half-Cocked" Jack Shaftoe; soldier, miserable slave trader, intrepid adventurer, and swashbuckling King of the Vagabonds. While a soldier deserting Sobieski's army, Shaftoe stole a horse from Sobieski himself, and then, a year or two later stole a horse from King Louis IV, the Sun King, in Paris. Shaftoe, who earned his fame as Vagabond King, got away with the horse and his life on both occasions. Hunted by the royal army in France and on the run from witches in Germany, Shaftoe, the intrepid adventurer, sets sail for Africa and the Caribean.
Quicksilver also tells the stories of some of Shaftoe's friends: his brother Bob, various English Noblemen, philosophers, scientists, Puritans and Enlightened men, French Refugees like the Doomed Hugenot Monsieur Arlanc and St. George, The Exterminator, "Le Mort Aux Rats." And Eliza, the woman Shaftoe couldn't love.
Eliza: Duchess, Spy, madly in love with Shaftoe, stock trader in Amsterdam, confidante of Liebnitz, Slave-Girl in the Harem of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa and Nanny, Teacher, and Courtier of the Sun King, which, at least according to Stephenson, is not unlike being a slave-girl in the Harem of the Grand Vizier.
Throwing in politics, Quicksilver discusses the religious persecutions of the 17th Century. In England of the persecutions of "Papists" and the Puritans, in France against the Huguenots, in Germany and America of the Witches, and in passing of the Jews, shuffled like playing cards from one country to the next. These are persecutions of men and women who would be different, who would think, who were born without power, or without the blessings of the so-called "Nobles."
Like the alchemists he writes about, Stephenson mixes in the history of science, the evolution from alchemy to chemistry and classical physics in an attempt to create gold. Quicksilver tells the story of Isaac Newton and Leibnitz and how they both invented the Calculus independently of each other but at about the same time - Newton first then Liebnitz, but with Liebnitz publishing first after waiting a reasonable time for Newton. And Hooke, Locke and others who with Newton and Liebnitz built the foundation of modern mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and medicine out of Plato, Aristotle, Galileo, and the pre-modern alchemists.
Quicksilver is historical fiction, but like Stephenson's earlier work, Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver, and the other books in "The Baroque Trilogy" are also "economic fiction." In Quicksilver Stephenson tells the story of the development of money - from "cockle shells" in Africa to coins to cheques, or what my economics professor called "Demand Deposits," of the first stock market in Amsterdam, and of International Trade of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Quicksilver is a vault full of information; from the Plague in London to the invention of the Calculus. But the pages are a melted amalgam of gold, silver and base metals. It is full of details not often mentioned in high school or undergrad college. While the details are facinating, even exciting in places, in 900 pages, Quicksilver tells to many stories. The book doesn't flow like quicksilver, rather, it sits like lead. Stephenson's a good writer, and probably a meticulous researcher, but he needs an editor who can say "This is good but not necessary." I don't have time to read 900 pages of the first book in a 2700 page trilogy. This is a great book to take if you're going to be marooned on an island, or perhaps if you're flying back and forth between coasts or continents. Writers should challenge the readers, but the challenge should be to think, not to finish the book. This could have been a great book. But in 900 pages, it's simply too long to be that good.
Rating: 
Summary: In Search of a Plot
Review: Incredibly disappointing. After the first hundred pages I was getting nervous; after the second hundred I was frantic; after the third hundred I said, "To hell with it", and tossed it in my donation pile.
This is what you get when you have a talented author ( see previous works mentioned in previous reviews ) who knows a whole lot of interesting things involving some of history's greatest people and wants to make a novel out of all that great material...but can't find a story. Perhaps a story does appear deeper in the novel than I managed to penetrate, but I'm only willing to drill so far before I declare a "dry hole" and move on to more productive ground.
Mr. Stephenson should have written a non-fiction tome dedicated to his scientific mentors, since this novel has all the riveting story telling of a how-to book on plumbing.
Rating:
Summary: Stephenson rediscovers ambition - with mixed results
Review: It's interesting to see how Stephenson continues to parallel Thomas Pynchon's career, at least on the surface. His first major novel "Snow Crash" was hailed as the cyberpunk equivilent to Pynchon's "Vineland" while "Cryptonomicon" was a giant novel set in WWII, not unlike "Gravity's Rainbow". And now here we are with a historical type drama crammed into three giant books. And what was Pynchon's last novel? Why, "Mason & Dixon" of course. I'm not saying that Stephenson is consciously trying to ape Pynchon and I think the similarities are mostly coincidence, hyped up by publishers who know that Pynchon's name carries literary weight and used by Stephenson's detractors to show the man as an inferior copy. Both of those are largely inaccurate and it's best to look at Stephenson's work on its own, without dragging other works and authors into it. That said, I'll give the man credit for ambition. "Cryptonomicon", for all its numerous faults, was a big, smart novel written at a time when people barely read, let alone read gigantic complex novels. Now the author is using this novel to kick off a three book series set in pre-Revolutionary War times that I have a feeling will somehow function as a thematic prequel to "Cryptonomicon". It's a slight departure for Stephenson in that the SF/cyberpunk elements are almost totally absent, the closest the novel comes to SF is that one of the characters appears to be more than he actually is (his appearance in this novel explains a lot in "Crytonomicon", it always annoyed me how he apparently died and then showed up again without any kind of explanation, it's good to see that there's some kind of plan at work) but even that isn't highlighted too much. So we basically have a pure historical drama, once again featuring a huge cast of characters running around in any multitude of meandering plots. Most of the characters are precursors of characters we've recently seen . . . the names Waterhouse and Shaftoe pop up quite often. The plot of the book is rather hard to describe because it's not clear that there is one at this point, the main thrust of the novel seems to be how the characters affect current events and vice versa, and how everyone keeps tries to adjust and/or take advantage of the rapidly changing political climate. To that end, the author bounces us all over the world, to the exploits of Daniel Waterhouse and his brilliant collegues (including the rather eccentric Isaac Newton) and to Jack Shaftoe and his more visceral adventures, including those with ex-slave Eliza. Even though the novel is structured as three parts, the first featuring Waterhouse, the second Jack and Eliza, and the third just about everyone, he does manage to keep things moving by constantly shifting scenes and characters. Also, his "kitchen sink" approach to writing, throwing in letters, diagrams, and whatever else he can think of does a lot toward bringing us into the past, and while it's not a slavish reproduction of olden times, it's researched enough that it feels authentic. Yet meander the plot does, for all the jumping around it never feels like it's going anywhere important and often dovetails into digressions that never quite feel like they're ever going to connect to whatever main plot exists. It's a little too talky at times as well, with arch and too-clever dialogue substituting for momentum and often acting as exposition. And the half a million characters all bumping around, the important ones tend to get lost in the shuffle and we don't really get to feel like we know them (and there's really no scene or moment that made me go "wow!"), the most memorable is Jack (who is also the star of the novel's best and all too rare action scenes) and he vanishes for the last third of the novel anyway. Stephenson does get bonus points for Eliza, however, probably the best female character he's ever created and someone who makes up for his lousy track record thus far on that account. His prose has lost some of its "hipper than thou" cadences, finally, but he does tend to err on the side of being too wordy and it tends to not reflect any personality at all, just existing to move the story along. So with all that said, it's really too difficult to fully judge this novel yet, since it's only one small part (technically one third) of a major supra-novel and as readers we should probably hold off final judgement until it's finished and we can see the full scope of Stephenson's intentions. That doesn't mean you have to rush out and read it right now, wait until it's finished and then read it all the way through. It's not a gripping, life-changing work, but it's entertaining enough in small doses and future novels may make it all worthwhile. We just have to wait and see.
Rating:
Summary: The major characters are introduced and the adventure begins
Review: The book being reviewed here is one of three books which are from the Baroque Cycle Trilogy by Neal Stephenson. Since there does not yet appear to be one title under which I can post my review, I have triplicated this review and placed the same review under all three titles. The sequence is Quicksilver, The Confusion, and the System of the World.
I read voraciously of both fiction, non-fiction and that in-between category of historic fiction in which one can learn considerably about the age but still enjoy the plot of an ideal narrative, or, in the case of the Baroque Cycle, an intertwining of several narratives. In the last say, three years, I have read literally hundreds of books and I can unequivocally name the three most influential works (apart from "Postcards of Nursing," the one I wrote myself, of course,) during that period. They are the 20 Aubrey/Maturin historic novels of Patrick O'Brian, "Shantaram," by Gregory David Roberts, and the three books in the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson.
I find it hard to critique Stephenson's work. His writing and research genius is so far beyond my poor abilities that if I come across an aspect of his writing which gives me pause, I have to look to my own deficiencies rather than his. But nowhere did I find the book to be condescending. And the subtle (and not so subtle) humor was superb.
And the characters: Ah the characters. When I had finished the books, I felt I *knew* Isaac Newton, Leibniz, Hooke, and Wren. Half-Cocked Jack and Dappa were real to me. Eliza lived and breathed.
Also, I began to discover that I was beginning to understand the international monetary system and the trappings of power surrounding it. I began to appreciate the conventions of letter-writing, the mind set when years might go by between a correspondence and its reply. I felt I understood something of the tangled tapestries of royal affairs in the 18th century. I was transported. Utterly. Words fail me.
Each book in the trilogy was better written than its predecessor, and the first one was superb. When I was reading O'Brian's novels, and was on say, novel #5 in the series, I was in heaven, knowing that I had 15 and a half (so to speak) more novels to go. When I was finally finished with 20, I started grasping at straws. I went to see the movie which, to my delight, showed me something of the ship HMS Surprise, but to my extreme disappointment, miscast Maturin so badly that it robbed the film of its portrayal of one of the most complex characters in literature. I read the unfinished #21. Not enough. It was only when I came across Quicksilver that I began to let go of the O'Brian characters and came to "invest" in Stephenson's.
And yet, by the time I was halfway through the "System of the World," the final of the three books, I began anticipatory grieving. I knew I might not see these folks again in such a personal light. They had become my friends. The fact that I had already read Cryptonomicon, a work by Stephenson based in part on one of the descendants of Dr. Waterhouse, was not a consolation. I miss those folks. I will probably read the books again in a year or two, but until then, since O'Brian is dead, and since probably Roberts will not top his first novel, I will have to wait for another of Stephenson's books. By the way, and this is not a spoiler, the resolution of the Baroque Cycle is thoroughly complete and intensely satisfying. It's just too bad it's over.
Rating:
Summary: why I was royally disappointed with _Quicksilver_
Review: The ironically named _Quicksilver_ is the most disappointingly leaden
book it has been my displeasure to read in recent years. After _Cryptonomicon_ my expectations were high. Early on in
_Quicksilver_ I realized that there was no way this book could be as
good as the earlier one, so I adjusted my hopes downward
accordingly...and even then, I was disappointed. The flaws are numerous. The one thing that everyone knows about the book is that it contains a
frantic pile of trivia. I was actually looking forward to this aspect
of the book, given that I enjoy random learning opportunities as much
as the next geek, and given that this is one part of _Cryptonomicon_
that I was enthused about. _QS_ disappoints in this regard. To my
mind there are two main bins that trivia are sorted in to: (1) those
random items that are capable of clicking in an interesting way into
the knowledge structure I already have; and (2) utterly random
tidbits. NS delivered a few of the former, and a few truck-loads of
the latter. In so far as the trivia was interesting, I already knew
it (Germanic witch trials, etymology of the word "dollar", the broad
outlines and purposes of the various 16th century political
structures), and in so far as the trivia was not something I already
knew, I found it dreadfully boring (hail-storms of random names of
royalty, many of them playing minimal roles in the plot, etc.). Ah. I used the word "plot", so I've segued onto the next region of
disappointment. _QS_ does not have a plot, in the conventional sense.
Sure, in a 900 page novel (or a 2,700 page novel, really), one
wouldn't expect the broad sweep of the action to be clear by page 50,
or 100...but by page 500 or so, one would hope to have an idea of
where things might be going. The book has Theme aplenty. The Theme, however ("Things Really Changed a Whole Lot, Religiously,
Economically, Politically, and Scientifically"), is big, but too insubstantial and too vague to construct a huge novel like this on.
_A Winter's Tale_ managed to work very well with out a real plot - it
could hang off of the Theme that "New York changes a lot, and is
magical through the ages". Then again, _A Winter's Tale_ was about
1/9th the length of Stephenson's Inflated Series. Speaking of inflation, this book needed an editor, badly. Dialogue
and exposition are clunky in many many places. For that matter,
dialogue and exposition are poorly differentiated. There's a joke about
1950's science fiction that 3/4 of the plot and background information
are revealed in "As you know, Bob" asides. The same is true of _QS_.
There's some minor variation on a theme: there's "As you know", there
is "I need not mention the fact that X ...<1,000 words
elided>...because you already know that", and there is "as everyone in
the town knew...". There's a persistent and pernicious meme in the art world that to
truly convey some situations you need to recreate those situations for
the audience. Thus, the only way to convey tedium is through a four
hour movie, etc. NS seemed to be held by this meme: to convey the
intellectual ferment and vast scope of the 17th century he felt the
need write a book that was adrift in a ferment and vast in scope.
Certainly he could not have conveyed these things in a novella, but
that does not mean that he could not have pruned perhaps a third of
what he wrote. The book is large enough that there's a Dramatis Personae at the end,
which was somewhat useful...but it didn't work wonderfully well for
me, because the entries were fairly short and defined the characters
(well, historical figures) mostly in terms of descriptors and events
that did not take place inside the book. If I come across a character
who I know was present 500 pages earlier, but I'm trying to remember
whether that character was a alchemist or a merchant, it helps little
to learn that the character was a friend of the Duke of Wessex (or
what have you). This is not a huge departure from how Dramatis
Personae are usually implemented, so this is not a failing unique to
NS, but in a long, meandering, and yawn-inducing book the author
should be at particular pains to provide aids to the reader. Finally, I found it difficult to read the book at points because of
several incidents of barbarous cruelty to animals. I understand that
the moral code of the time was different, and that these actions are
historically accurate, and even that some reference should be made in
the book, so as not to commit the sin of omission, and thus render the
book less of its time...but NS went further than that and introduced
the cruelty repeatedly. If it was required to advance the plot, he'd
have an out. I would wince (and more) at a book that had explicit
scenes of child rape or brutality, but would accept it if the book was
about the pursuit and capture of a child abuser...but I would find it
hard to read a novel that threw in a random scene of a child being
scalded as punishment just, because, you know...these things happen. Yeah. Yay verisimilitude. The book was not with out wondrous scenes. Jack Shaftoe steps onto
center stage in an audacious scene at the siege of Vienna, which
matched the very best action scenes of _Cryptonomicon_. Daniel
Waterhouse meets up with danger at sea, and the intellectual faint and
bluff of the ensuing engagement is wonderful, as is the nonchalance of
the captain of the ship that Daniel is on. However, the scenes are
all too rare and far between, and concentrated disproportionately in
the first half of the novel. I suppose I'll end up reading the remaining two volumes to see if NS
manages to pull a rabbit out of a very battered and pathetic looking
hat...but I've got to say, I'm not particularly looking forward to
another 1,800 pages of lying back and thinking of Enlightenment
England.
Rating:
Summary: Neal Just Gets Better & Better
Review: The name may be Quicksilver but the read is hardly that. And I'm happy about it. This is a book that I simply could not put down. History, politics, science, philosophy and quite a bit of humour all find their way into Neal's current opus. He has chosen a time and place (actually several times & places) that today can be looked back on as watershed years for all the subjects he has chosen to cover. Does he ramble on? Yes. Does he provide too much detail on some aspects and not enough on others? Yes. But at no point are you not entertained and enlightened. And that to me is the key. Not only did I learn more about Newton, Hooke, Leibniz, Huygens and Pepys from Mr. Stephenson, I actually spent many hours researching these and other historical figures and historical events during and after my read. This book is not for everyone but there is something in it for NEARLY everyone. Neal's previous works such as Snow Crash, Zodiac and most obviously Cryptonomicon were mere lead off hitters for this grand slam. I truly cannot wait for the 2 follow ups that Neal has promised in 2004. I may just book a few days off immediately after their release so I can devote my full time to losing myself in their pages as I did with Quicksilver.
Rating:
Summary: 5 stars for the book, 2 stars for the CD version
Review: This is a great book. I read it, and then I wanted it on CD, so I could listen to it while wandering around.
Don't believe them when they say it's "unabridged" - it's not! When you get it, it says "Selections by the Author". What they did is summarize large chunks of the book and just eliminated other parts.
It ruins it. In particular, when you have already read it and you really liked the scenes they summarized.
Also, be wary of Customer Service at Harper Audio. Before I opened the CD, I contacted them and asked them what it meant by "Selections by the Author" - they SAID it was unabridged.
I won't be buying any more in this series on CD, and I probably won't buy any Books on CD from Harper Audio.
/Also, Harper Audio doesn't quite have it figured out yet. Tracks should be only about 3 or 4 minutes long, not 20 minutes long. If you missed something you have to spend time reversing. It's just crap.
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