Rating: 
Summary: The most boring book ever written
Review: With Snow Crash & Cryptonomicon, Stephenson proved he could be entertaining & instructive at the same time. Both books are full of provocative ideas & impart a good deal of interesting historical information, without ever slowing down the story.In Quicksilver there are no ideas, no story, and above all no entertainment. It is a catalogue of names & dates, and it is as boring as reading the telephone book. In fact it resembles nothing so much as one of those bulleted study guides for a standardized multiple-choice college history exam: "The Peace of Westphalia was in the year....". Except the study guide would be a lot shorter. Stephenson's ego seems to be completely out of control, and his publisher must have a death wish. Can there really be two more volumes of this tedium....what a waste of talent.
Rating:
Summary: First 100 pages are great, but.....
Review: I had finished the first half of Gene Wolfe's Shadow and Claw, which is actually the first book of his series, and while visiting the bookstore I was captivated by a new book from Neal Stephenson, so I picked up a copy and while waiting for a movie to start I got captivated and jumped ship. However I am stopping. I hit 200 pages and my interest and frankly desire to read further have ground to a halt. Strange given that the story grabbed me enough to make me jump books. What started off interesting wore me down eventually with the tedium. Part of what sparked my interest was the fact that Stephenson set's the story is set in 1600's during the birth of Natural Philosophy and the Scientific Revolution, at least initially following the life of Isaac Newton. However from there the store began to mire in detail that while I am sure his historically valid or imaginatively created by Stepphenson, did not hold my interest. The point and plot began to get lost in the verbosity of the story. I don't want to live the life of Isaac Newton day by day. I felt bad, because I really wanted to like it, and in general I never stop a book but will slog through them. And since this is a three part series I wonder what Stephenson's plans are? Has he already finished the other two? Will he even bother? Looking at Amazon 12 of the 14 reviews were negative. :( Too bad, but too true. http://www.niffgurd.com/mark/books/
Rating: 
Summary: Slowly building into a hysterical historical novel...
Review: With a very interesting yet slow beginning, it wasn't until page 300 thatI was fully absorbed by this book as I was by Cryptonomicon. Snow Crash was a disappointment to me and I have always felt it was a young novel though in a genre I enjoy, but with Crypto, Stephenson showed me that he was quite brilliant and endlessly creative as well as adept at witty dialogue. Quicksilver is not meant to be taken literally as history, but is a wonderful trip through European scientific as well as political intrigues. The Shaftoe boys are priceless. I cannot wait for the next installment. I do feel quite strongly that the reviews have been written by the wrong people who seem to have read Snow Crash and skipped Crypto which is a more accurate barometer by which to judge this work.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book, horrible language and anachronisms
Review: Most of the negative reviews of this book, quite frankly, are not by the kinds of people I would trust to recommend books to me. While I love sci-fi, action, and tightly plotted novels, there are qualities to recommend a book other than its being a page-turner. Don't trust lovers of Snow Crash, entertaining book as it was, to be judges of books that are a bit more ambitious. Perhaps to counteract these undeserved criticisms, I give this book 4 stars, rather than the 3 it more likely deserves. Because Stephenson has something of a tin ear. Anachronisms are good if they're funny or make some sort of point- sometimes it seems that S. uses them only because he can't think of any other way to say what he's saying. The narrator, of course, can say whatever he likes, but the characters need to speak and behave like 17th century individuals- they are not simply 21st century Slashdot posters, in funny clothing. There's more to history than names and facts. This is an okay summer novel- it came out in the wrong season. If you really want to get the feeling of the 17th century, read Pynchon's Mason and Dixon instead.
Rating:
Summary: A Huge Disappointment
Review: I agree with the criticisms from the above readers. There is virtually no plotline and the characters are poorly portrayed. Not only are there no characters that a reader would care about, there are no major characters that are believable. Worse yet is the dialogue. Imagine how characters in a Harlequin romance set in the 17th and 18th centuries might speak; Stephenson must have, because thats exactly how the majority of the conversations in this book read. Too often the dialogue is awkward, unnatural, and embarrassing. People do not speak to each other like this, and never have. Stephenson is typically criticized for writing flat female characters (I've never found this to be true). In Quicksilver he seems to answer this criticism by making all of his characters flat. Its obvious by reading any of Neal's books that he's intelligent and well read. He clearly enjoys researching a wide range of topics and has shown with his previous books that he can successfully share some of that knowledge and research with us in the context of a thrilling story. It seems to me that somewhere along the way that Quicksilver morphed from novel to research project and historical minutiae took precedence over plot and characters. I have been waiting for this book for nearly a year, and I am tremendously disappointed. I hope that with the remainder of the cycle that Neal can introduce the elements of his previous books that made them so much fun to read: interesting technical diversions, unique perspectives on technology, believable and entertaining dialogue, and situations that, though unlikely, were still plausible in the world that they are set in. For some perspective, I am a big fan of Cryptonomicon. It is one of my favorite books. Although I enjoyed Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon made me a Neal Stephenson fan. I am more of a fan of Cryptonomicon than the Science Fiction genre.
Rating:
Summary: Very ambitious and great read
Review: This is a great book. Even though it is very slow and with no concrete plot, I feel this is a great book. The historical depictions and events are true with fictional characters. Its a tough read initially. This is really a very ambitious project by Neal. I hope that book 2,3 connects everything together. Suggestion - this book is not meant to be read in one go. U can read other good books and come to this later one. Believe me I have read worst books than this if u call it as a bad book. I think it is a good book with great concept of studying scientific historical events. I am enjoying this very much and I fully appreciate Neal's ambition here. This is a true artist at work. Love it or hate it choice is yours. All I can say its not bad at all. Hope to hear more soon about book 2 and 3. I love the characters Daniel, Leibniz ,Newton and Roger.
Rating:
Summary: Pynchon gone bad
Review: This book has be announced as a "publishing event." And that is exactly what it is: an event. It's neither a good novel nor an interesting one. 900 pages sounds like a lot and it even sounds like a lot more when reading "Quicksilver." There is nothing to keep you going, no storyline that is even just a little engaging, no character you care for. It reads like "Ulysses" or "Gravity's Rainbow" without their respective revolutionary narrative innovations. It drags on and on and on. I would compare it to bad Pynchon: encyclopedic, monumental, and booooring. "Quicksilver" is a postmodern deconstruction of narration gone bad: it offers no plot, flat characters and is more concerned with language than with content. Yet the novel is not some artistic trick to emphasize the artificiality of texts, or some post-structural narrative experiment, but a complete failure on part of the author. I would be surprised if only one third of the readers were actually willing to pick up the upcoming two parts. Why should you, if you could stop anywhere in this text without actually missing anything.
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointment.
Review: What is it with authors who disdain the use of straightforward unambiguous language and story lines in deference to obscure pedantic meanderings which are calculated to display their quirky intelligence? I loved Cryptonomicon and couldn't wait for Stephenson's new tomb, but I have been sorely disappointed. I love history when it is told in an engaging and enlightening style. This author however loves to throw out endless historical references without any explanation or context leaving this reader to scratch his head in confusion and to continually reference the Encyclopedia Britannica. This was difficult heavy going made purposely so by the author. All of the gratuitously meretricious meanderings might have been somewhat more tolerable had Stephenson managed to create characters who one cares about. But he failed in this regard as well. This book is a far cry from Cryptonomicon. Beware.
Rating:
Summary: Agree
Review: What a disapointment! I anxiously awaited Stephenson's new book since finishing Cryptonomicon. No plot line, no characters you care about. This is a rcitation (sic) of history that is all too familiar. DO NOT devote weeks of your life to this book. You have to believ the next two volumes have to be scrapped or rewritten.
Rating:
Summary: Truly dreadful
Review: How could any editor allow this book to leave his desk? 800+ pages--and two move volumes to go! I am usually a great reader of historical fiction, especially the kind packed with tid-bits of interesting information. Early reviews convinced me that "Quicksilver" would be just right for me. Pundits predicted a mega-hit. Wow, were they ever wrong! Words fail to express just how bad this book is. It's all setting, all background, overfull of detail. There is NO, repeat NO, plot, merely incident. And worst of all are the characters, which are as flat as the pages (and pages and pages) they're described on. Rare for me, I got about half way through and quit. I had been forcing myself to get on, hoping the book would somehow improve. It never did. I gave my copy to the public library. I'm sure you'll find several of them, similarly bestowed, in your town. In the meantime, save your money. I predict that the publisher will lose a mint on this unfortunate, three-thousand page, foolish enterprise.
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