Rating: 
Summary: one of the better books this year
Review: it's always a pleasure to jump into a book that decides to take on so much. In this case, the laying of the transatlantic cable, the Civil War, the sewage plight of London, the spiritualist fad, and then more personally, grief over the death of a child, failed marriages, falls from a height, and more. There is a wealth of plot and an even greater wealth of character and Griesemer succeeds in handling it all with ease and aplomb. The history and technological details are interesting in their own right, but they never overshadow the characters and their own stories. Griesemer takes his time in this work and therefore everything that happens to these characters, everything that serves to make us laugh or moves us or surprises us is earned. In such a large, sprawling work it would have been easy to have entire sections weaker than others, but that is not the case. The book holds at a high level from beginning to end. One of the best reads I've had this year.
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of noise, no signal.
Review: Leonard is dead on - this book is a failure. The author spends WAY too much time on the bells and whistles of 19th century sexual goings on, as well as various soap opera stuff but never seems to get around to telling the story of the cable laying. I stopped wasting my time on p. 75 and sold my copy...
Rating: 
Summary: But wait, it gets better!
Review: Note to Terence: Sure you can drop a book after 75 pages...but can you really condemn it? I wrote my review when not quite halfway through the book and now that I'm three quarters of the way through all I can say is that I really am not looking forward to its ending and to my then having to locate a book to replace it. This author is keeping the plates spinning with grace and style and wit...and verve. They will only fall when he wants them to fall. A great read
Rating:
Summary: A book that grows on you
Review: Signal and Noise is a sprawling novel that follows the lives of a handful of characters for roughly a decade during the mid-19th century. All of the figures on whom Griesemer focuses are somehow involved, whether directly or indirectly, in the various attempts made during that period to lay the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. The book's principal character, to the extent that it has one, is Chester Ludlow, the chief engineer of the Atlantic Cable Company and the genius behind the paying-out mechanism that will, it is hoped, prevent the cable from breaking while it is unspooling. Chester's wife Franny, still grieving from the accidental death of their young daughter, and his fragile brother Otis are also central to the story.Griesemer's book, nearly 600 pages long, covers a lot of ground--not only the cable and the wave of progress of which it was a part, but also the Civil War and Lincoln's assassination, spiritualism, the stinking sewers of London, and the building of the world's largest ship (at the time), the Great Eastern. The book is a historical narrative, but it is not at all clear from the text how historically accurate it is, or which of the characters if any were historical figures. An author's note ought to be added to clarify matters. Griesemer's novel is not enthralling, or at least not obviously so. Indeed, it is downright slow at times. Yet perhaps two-thirds of the way through it becomes clear that the author has created a world, or described a world, that will have staying power in your imagination. The book does not demand your attention in the way that a thriller does, but it does, by the end, have a claim on you.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: There is so much packed in this gripping novel: the laying of the transatlanitc cable, the failed launch of the Great Eastern (the world's largest ship at the time); The Civil War, Karl Marx!, the story of a crumbling family in the wake of a child's sudden death, the dawn of the Technological Age, and great, powerful (Dickensian even) writing. I bought this for Memorial Day weekend and finished this morning. Couldn't put it down. Best book I've read since The Corrections.
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