Neal Stephenson really likes European history (but thinks it could do with some rewrites), really likes the advent of modern science and the people that brought it about, and thought it would be a great idea to write wittily about those people through the perspective of a fictional character, while using several other fictional characters to muse merrily about every single thing that happened in western Europe over a 60-plus year period in the 17th and 18th centuries. As a result, in the reading I learned a lot about European history (had to do some research to make sure I kept the lines of fiction/history at least somewhat straight), hugely enjoyed the imaginative, witty banter of some of our famous scientists and fictional protagonists, but also spent entire chapters wondering when, oh when, a plot was going to show up. 800-plus pages in, I started to wonder if this entire book was a manic, sprawling, disorganized set-up for a plot that would show up in the second book; but by the end I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case. Don’t get me wrong. I liked the main characters. A bit caricaturish, sure, but the reason that everyone loves Captain Jack (Harkness and Sparrow) is the same reason I love Jack Shaftoe and Eliza. The somewhat (im)moral, rebellious, life-loving pirate/adventurer is always going to be a draw, particularly when drawn (always reluctantly, of course) into a world of intrigue and wars and lifesaving. And I liked Daniel Waterhouse. Though a bit of a wet blanket, he had the intelligence and durability to survive more coups (in science and politics) than anyone in power is usually able to weather, and did so while essentially being the designated driver of the first half of Isaac Newton’s life. And he was affable in his on-the-outskirts relationship with the big mental hard-hitters of the day; he was the kind of person who probably did exist, who always exists to be the glue of our world's brilliant but manic minds.
But in the end, I could not get around the lack of a plot. It was incredibly frustrating to wait, and wait, and wait, and wonder when it was going to show up, and start to think that maybe this was a Dickensian thing that would all make sense in the end, only to realize that the plot just isn’t there. Maybe I would have felt differently about the book had I known what I was getting into.
Similarly, my enjoyment of the book suffered because I went into it thinking I was going to get a good science fiction/fantasy novel, and kept waiting for that to show up too, and it really never did. Some of the science never existed and so that is, technically, science fiction. But they were asides to a book that is primarily about the changing landscape of politics, court intrigue, the intrigue of any society, high or secret, and the fascinating, witty characters who were pushing and pulling the puppet strings (while sometimes being pushed and pulled themselves, of course). And it seems that Enoch Root is a bit science fiction—I think he appears in another book by the same author, along with the descendants of some of the characters in Quicksilver, in a very different time period; but that would be like saying that the Century Cycle is science fiction because of Aunt Ester.
The bottom line is that there is some enjoyable dialogue, and it’s a fairly fun romp through a highly fictionalized and stylized version of 17th Century Western Europe, and Newton makes for a truly engaging fictional character. But it is nearly 1,000 pages long, and still only 1/3 of a 3-part series. For that kind of commitment, it really should have found itself a plot.

I was a few books up on my yearly goal and I wanted to read something long and something that would also make me feel smart while reading it. This came recommended to me by the awesome Sud666, sorry I don't know how to tag people, and it met those two criteria perfectly. I was weary because Stephenson has been hit (Reamde and Seveneves) AND miss (Cryptonomicon) with me and it is totally weird because this is written almost exactly like Cryptonomicon, which I DNF'd, and I loved it. It's one of the most immersive books I've ever read without having any focused storyline but everything works and it's entertaining AF. Looking forward to getting into book two in the near future.

This is the first book of the series The Baroque Cycle.

By telling the story of Daniel and Eliza, the author uses as historical background by describing the England of Civil War as well as the Wars of Religions in Europe and the Scientific Revolution.

By doing so, some very famous historical personnages are added to the main characters, such as Newton, Leibniz, Christopher Wren, Charles II, Cromwell and the young Benjamin Franklin.

Even if it is a very long book, the reading is quite pleasant and we do regret when this book come to its end.

5* Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, #1)
TR The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle, #2)
TR The System of the World (The Baroque Cycle, #3)
TR Cryptonomicon

I just finished reading this for the second time; I was loathe to dive into the Baroque Cycle again, because of the commitment involved: three volumes of nearly a thousand pages each, and you know how I feel about commitment.

But man is it great. So funny and clever and I learn SO MUCH (though since I'm learning nearly all of it all over again, clearly I didn't retain much the first time around.)

Uh, okay, quick synopsis? It takes place in the late seventeenth century, mostly in England, a bit in Versailles, a bit more wandering around the rest of Europe. Isaac Newton is in it (he's kind of a religious asshole who is too concerned with alchemy) and so is Liebniz (whom I love oh so very much.) And Hooke is pretty boss too. And there are the made-up folks, like Daniel Waterhouse, who appears in one form or another in nearly every Stephenson book. Jack Shaftoe could be an irritating guy if he weren't clever, but he is, so he's not. And Eliza -- it's a shame Stephenson can't find room for more than one decent female character in any of his books, but if they're going to be Eliza, it's almost forgivable.

Not necessarily recommended as your first Stephenson, but if you've already got your feet wet, by all means, jump in.

And on to Volume 2!

There's a lovely bit in Great Expectations, where Pip and Herbert go backstage to congratulate an acquaintance after his performance as Hamlet.

`Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front?'

Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking me), `capitally.' So I said `capitally.'

`How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen?' said Mr Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage.

Herbert said from behind (again poking me), `massive and concrete.' So I said boldly, as if I had originated it, and must beg to insist upon it, `massive and concrete.'

This book - well, this book is quite capitally Massive and Concrete. It's huge (but you don't notice that once you get into it). It's got a cast of thousands (but they are handled with dexterity, and an unusually humorous Dramatis Personæ). It ranges over many lands and seventy odd years (sometimes within the same chapter). It's also very funny, highly erudite and contains some unrepeatable suggestions of what to do with 10 inches of sausage skin. Above all, it's fascinated with knowledge and - more percipiently - with how knowledge is transmitted. So, much of it is about the straightforward (if jaw-dropping) discoveries of the polymaths who made up the Royal Society in London in the late C17th, but running counter to that is the less dramatic story of how men of learning exchanged information to their mutual benefit. The central section - about the folk-hero, Jack Shaftoe - explores this from a different angle: how do "ordinary" people find out so quickly about Jack's exploits?

Other reviews suggest Neal Stephenson is trying to unpick the roots of the Information Age. That's a perfectly plausible approach. Reading the book, though, what comes across most strongly is his sense of admiration for the energy of the late C17th period - and a well-paced engaging story with scientific highs explained lucidly. If I had a quibble (and it's a minor one), there is a touch of "Then Isaac Newton came into the room, with Chris Wren and old Bobby Hooke". Stephenson isn't nearly as crass as that, but he does manage to catch Anyone who Is Anyone in his net.

In short, a terrific read - and two more volumes of the series to go.

This was the book that knocked Neal Stephenson off of my "buy on sight" list. Too long, nothing happening, the first of three dauntingly large volumes. That about sums it up.

Книга безжалостно хороша.

Она хороша хотя бы тем, что волшебно близка к моему личному идеалу романа - тут и мои любимые авантюристы, и интриги, по сравнению с которыми козни героев Дюма выглядят детскими играми в песочнице, и историчность (олитературенная, конечно), и (само)ироничный постмодернизм (ввернутые к месту цитаты из миллиарда источников - это ещё ладно, отдельная радость - выцепливать в тексте анахронистичные мировоззренческие, финансовые, информационные концепции), и несомненный авторский интеллект (для Стивенсона это не комплимент, но множеству прочих - стимул к нему подтягиваться, если есть чем). А какие характеры!

Я вполне представляю, что чтение "Ртути" (собственно, всего цикла) для кого-то может быть нелегкой работой. Кто-то не переносит натурализма, предпочитая фэнтезийную возвышенность, кого-то напряжёт плотная философская полемика, которая принимает на себя огромный вес текста, - а ведь современному человеку, который ньютоновские законы механики привычно принимает как данность, надо очень напрячься, чтобы представить себе несомненного интеллектуала, который до таких "простых" идей пока не дорос... Но меня эти (и другие) "препятствия" не заставили споткнуться ни разу. Не то, чтобы я так сразу во всё въезжал, вовсе нет, я регулярно ощущал, что не успеваю за логикой спора, ситуации, интриги, но это совершенно не раздражало - мир романа, как и мир реальный, чертовски сложен, и далеко не всё в нем запросто раскладывается по полочкам. В таких случаях я принимаю к сведению собственную ограниченность - или, как отдаленный потомок Дэниеля Уотрехауза, делаю в сознании закладочку ("Надо бы вернутья и её трахнуть" - (с) "Криптономикон") . И всё это тоже оказывается частью общей картины - грандиозной, увлекательной, многоплановой почти до совершенства. И всё это не мешает получать удовольствие от упомянутой общей картины.

Рекомендую книгу всем, кого мой отзыв не отпугнул. Остальные могут принять мои искренние сожаления.

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson is in some ways the strangest book I’ve read this year.

The most surprising aspect of the book is the fact that there is no plot. I’ve read books that have started really slowly, and even books where the author largely ignores plot to focus on building the setting. This book, however, has no plot.

For all intents and purposes, Quicksilver is The 17th Century: The Novel. In many ways it feels like the literary equivalent of an open world video game. You just go around exploring with the characters, with no context or coherence whatsoever. Historical value is incredible. Certain individuals, like Isaac Newton, John Churchill and William of Orange, figure heavily. Tons of others make shorter appearances. As for location, the book takes you everywhere from the port of colonial Boston to the 1683 siege of Vienna.

And almost surprisingly, it’s charming. Almost a thousand pages of exploring a historical setting occasionally becomes an arduous task, but occasionally also becomes an exciting adventure filled with interesting details.

The book is divided into three parts. Considering the ridiculous size of the whole volume, you might define the three as books in themselves. I definitely had to take a break and read other things between each of them.

The first book focuses on Daniel Waterhouse, Puritan thinker and scientist and one-time member of the Royal Society. His part is split in two between a “present day” (1713) account of his leaving Massachusetts on a ship bound for England. This acts as a frame story for the second, which is a tale about his life and exploits with the Royal Society decades earlier. I strangely enjoyed the former more than the latter, even though it is moving so slowly that although the book starts out in Boston, the ship ends the part by sailing out of Massachusetts Bay.

The second book focuses on Jack Shaftoe, vagabond turned mercenary, and Eliza, slave in the harem of the Ottoman sultan. From their meeting during the siege of Vienna, the book follows them on a journey together through the various principalities and kingdoms of Europe, filled with strange details and interesting histories.

The third book pulls the first two together in something of a conclusion, leading up to the year 1688. The (historical) ending of the book was rather obvious if you are familiar with these times.

Overall, it’s a much more interesting book to read in than a book to read. While there is little sign of a story, and the fictional protagonists are not particularly outstanding, the setting is uniquely interesting and very well described. Despite being a work of historical fiction, the reader will inevitably learn a lot about 17th century history, in very enjoyable ways.

I don't really know what to think of this book. At the same time, it was hilarious, ingenious, tedious, terrible, and intriguing. But it was always "alive"--I could have sworn the author time-travelled to the 1600s to write this--I mean, how can you known THAT much about the time period without going there?
(I'm new to the whole gif thing, so I hope that worked).
And there were way too many graphic and explicit scenes, so that I almost didn't finish the book. But I stuck with it, and I'm overall glad I did, though I'm not sure if I'm going to read the next book in the series yet. They're all SO long that it's a big commitment to read another! This was really 3 books smushed into one.
And too often, the book read like a history book, and most of the characters were way too eager to share their knowledge of their history and the political history of their country. After a certain point, I just gave up trying to follow the politics, because that's not what I was reading it for. And in the section with Jack the Vagabond and Eliza, there were detailed descriptions of all the towns they passed through on their adventures, which was quite a lot, and it just got to be WAY too much, even for me, who is a fan of details to bring the story to life.
So that's why the book only got 3 stars. BUT it was also awesome: Daniel Waterhouse was such a likeable character, and everyone was fleshed out so much that they really came alive. There were so many hilarious and witty scenes, and I even photocopied a few pages because I liked them so much. I also found the science things fascinating, and from what I know about it already, it's all accurate. The detail was amazing and often shocking, and the natural philosophers were very intriguing characters to say the least!
The original reason why I read this book was actually because the novels I write also take place in the seventeenth century, so I wanted to see how other authors did it. Let's just say that Neil Stephenson knows a thousand times more things about this time period than I do!
The book was split into three sections, the first and last from Daniel's POV and the middle from Jack and Eliza's. I think Jack and Eliza should have gone into a different book entirely, because until much later on, their adventures are separate from the other events, and that would have shortened the book considerably, so that it would only be like 2 books in one instead of 3.
So I have mixed feelings about this book. It is a real tome, and a force to be reckoned with!

DNF just not the book for me!

Some stories have faults we can't overlook because they tickle at our central understanding of good writing. Others bear faults that, while weakening the whole, uphold - often with courage and daring - the things we love about books. For me, Quicksilver sits in that second category.

As is my preference, I began the book with little foreknowledge. This was my first experience with Neal Stephenson's work. The story, as it unfolds, attempts to encapsulate in the loosest of plots a central understanding of the British Baroque period from the perspective of the elites - those movers and shakers in the world of science, culture, politics, and commerce. Stephenson sews the entire story together through dialogue, and inserts into the world of Daniel Waterhouse, our affable main character, a bevy of scientists, conspirators, sailors, and political players from whom we learn about the changing world they inhabit. Everything is touched upon and little developed, loose ends are often left at loose ends, and there is little-to-no central story or fictional dilemma. It's a book that will frustrate or, worse yet, bore a large number of readers. That being said, I loved it and look forward to reading more and perhaps going back through it again sometime. Why? The author has a couple of things going for him that tend to override a hell of a lot of my issues. First, he knows how to put words together. Gorgeous and graceful prose is uncommon in popular fiction. More often than not, what we get with such things is a writer who dutifully places words together in service of a tense and pulpy plot. Which is fine - it's what we're used to, and it often results in exciting fiction. But with Quicksilver, what we have is something else. It's art. And it's more than the words- it's an artist choosing where to look, where to aim his literary camera to capture those certain angles he wishes to share in order to delight the reader (and perhaps centrally himself). Stephenson takes obvious joy in his subject matter, lending the story the feel of a playful romp. Daniel's underlying optimism pervades even the story's moments of tension and in this, seems to mirror the Zeitgeist of the era. Finally, in reading this novel, my curiosity was provoked, and I ended up doing a lot of side-research on various events I'd never given thought to. Surely this is one of the best reactions a book can inspire.

This is how Neal Stephenson begins Quicksilver, the first published volume of his sweeping multi-volume series, The Baroque Cycle:

Boston Common
October 12, 1713, 10:33:52 A.M.
—p.3

That time—down to the second, in a year when watches didn't even have minute hands!

Stephenson dispenses with such impossible precision for the rest of Quicksilver—the rest of its chapter headings consist of dates alone. Even so, what a wealth of information remains! Frankly, the Baroque Cycle is incredible, not just for its length but also for its unique combination of broad scope and minutely-observed detail. We are immediately taken there, taken in, immersed in the action, yet viewing it all with godlike clarity, cognizant of subtleties that no contemporaneous participant could have known.

That beginning definitely makes a statement, though—speaking to a documentary eye, a sort of journalistic conceit, that Stephenson uses to excellent effect throughout these quasi-historical novels about... well, they're about everything, really, but mainly the Baroque Cycle chronicles the dawn of a worldview never seen before... a practical, analytical, scientific view of reality, that some have called the Enlightenment.


This reading begins my second sojourn through Neal Stephenson's masterwork. I won't be analyzing every page of Quicksilver (or its successors) in depth throughout—that'd make my reactions even longer than the books, despite the fact that their three published volumes encompass more than 2,600 pages all told! But... the kind of introspection Stephenson inspires has informed my thoughts as well... so this review has, inevitably, become a long one.

Now, you could go into this series cold, knowing none of the history it portrays so vividly, but be warned—Quicksilver both displays and presupposes an encyclopaedic grasp of human knowledge. Stephenson takes for granted your own familiarity with many matters that will be important—and Gottfried Leibniz' public rivalry with Isaac Newton, and its significance to mathematics, are the least of them.


Although Quicksilver is historical fiction, it begins with a character outside history, an individual you may already remember from having read Cryptonomicon (which, by the way, I strongly recommend doing first—although the events in Cryptonomicon take place much more recently, Stephenson's standalone novel was written earlier, and contains much that resonates with the Baroque Cycle). Enoch Root is a redheaded stepchild—long-lived, perhaps even immortal, and accustomed to being a fly on the wall of scientific history, one whose sharp eye is focused on the moment when natural philosophy transmuted from alchemy into systematic inquiry. Enoch the Red is more than an observer, though—Stephenson portrays Enoch as an agent of history, nudging and tweaking events in a way that sometimes seems unnecessary, akin to the demeaning role of so-called "Ancient Astronauts" in some versions of pseudohistory.

But Enoch's appearances in Quicksilver are relatively few. Most of this volume is concerned with characters who are real (or at least unquestionably realistic) historical figures—like Daniel Waterhouse, a likeable fellow for an ex-Puritan, who early in the book muses (and with good reason) that

One cannot board a ship without imagining ship-wreck.
—p.77

This put me in mind of the time—once, long ago—when I myself was sitting on an airplane preparing for takeoff, and experienced a vivid, detailed premonition of just how the plane was going to crash... heeling over at the end of the runway, pinwheeling on its left wing and bursting into flame, killing all aboard. Strapped into my seat, I considered leaving the plane, but... they'd already closed the door, and I suppressed my worries.

Of course, the plane took off without incident, and brought me to my destination as expected—but I remember that premonition to this day, and for those few moments I believe I knew exactly what Daniel Waterhouse was feeling.

The same is true of this next quote as well:

Crying loudly is childish, in that it reflects a belief, on the cryer's part, that someone is around to hear the noise, and come a-running to make it all better. Crying in absolute silence, as Daniel does this morning, is the mark of the mature sufferer who no longer nurses, nor is nursed by, any such comfortable delusions.
—p.162

Unavoidably, Quicksilver is informed by Stephenson's vantage point in modernity—tho' it uses archaic constructions like "phant'sy" to give a period flavor, it's clear throughout that his perspective is thoroughly modern. This sometimes leads to anachronisms—see whether you can spot the one in this passage, for example:

"Chapter 10 is where Wilkins explains steganography, or how to embed a subliminal message in an innocuous-seeming letter—"
—Daniel Waterhouse, p.206

I was surprised to learn that the word steganography was not anachronistic—the term was actually first used in 1499 A.D. (!)—whereas "subliminal" turns out to be a 19th-Century coinage.

Stephenson does address these moments out of time directly later on, by the way, in an interview appended to the trade-paperback edition of the next book in the Cycle, The Confusion (which I am, somewhat anachronistically, including here):

I never tried to entertain the illusion that I was going to write something that had no trace of the twentieth century or the twenty-first century in it. It's a given that a book is going to reflect the time in which it is written. I didn't feel a strong compulsion to avoid such anachronisms, and if something came up that I thought might be funny, or that might work, I would just go ahead and slap it in there.
—from "A Discussion with Neal Stephenson," p.3 of the end matter from The Confusion

Stephenson also mentions several times that the word "CABAL" was supposed to stand for the initials of specific Lords. This is incorrect, but it's not an error on his part—this conspiracy theory about the CABAL was a common belief at the time.


I may be focusing a little too much on the historicity of Stephenson's series anyway, though—when in fact it's the swashbuckling adventure that makes this Cycle so entertaining. The proceedings of the Royal Society may be of more significance to history, but it's the romance between Half-Cocked Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds, and the sharp-witted and thoroughly mesmerizing Eliza that really makes Quicksilver come alive. After all,

No man was more comprehensively doomed than him whose chief source of gratification was making favorable impressions on some particular woman.
—Jack Shaftoe, p.389

And, from later on,

"Because, Jack, you volunteered to be taken down into eternal torment in place of her. This is the absolute minimum (unless I'm mistaken) that any female requires from her man."
—Enoch Root, p.464

In short, Jack and Eliza's wanderings are fun, in a much more straightforward way than the intricate clockwork machinations of Daniel Waterhouse and the Royal Society.

Those machinations do convey their own sort of enjoyment, though...

In essence the mint was a brute with a great big hammer and a punch. He was supplied with blank disks of silver—these were not money—put the punch on each one and bashed it with the hammer, mashing the portrait of some important hag, and some incantations in Latin, into it—at which point it was money. Officials, supervisors, assayers, clerks, guards, and, in general, the usual crowd of parasitical gentlefolk clustered around the brute with the hammer, but like lice on an ox they could not conceal the simple nature of the beast.
—p.415

We may have gotten rid of the brute with the hammer (for the most part), but economics still seems to be a discipline devoted to obscuring the simple, rather than to simplifying the obscure.

Speaking of obscurity... Neal Stephenson is also a devotee of obscure vocabulary—I have now become especially enamored of the word "obnubilated" (as used on p.480 et seq.). Its meaning may be obvious from context, but "obnubilated" is a word that I had never encountered before seeing it in Quicksilver.

Stephenson's also familiar with, and willing to cite, much of the so-called Western canon. Passages from Paradise Lost appear as epigrams atop many chapters, for example. Other recurring literary touchstones include John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. This quote from Hobbes, for example, is as apposite today as it was in the 17th Century:

Therefore it happeneth commonly, that such as value themselves by the greatness of their wealth, adventure on crimes, upon hope of escaping punishment, by corrupting public justice, or obtaining pardon by money or other rewards.
—p.793.

Which is not to say that Stephenson can't manage his own prose, and very well indeed. Waxing poetical after an interval of jolly rogering (heh), for example, we encounter this bit of scene-setting:

The Duke of Monmouth sighed and slammed back into the mattress, driving out an evoluting cloud of dust, straw-ends, bedbugs and mite foeces. All of it hung beautifully in the lambent air, as if daubed on canvas by one of those Brueghels.
—p.546

Or consider this observation:

"But I have observed that the best people are frequently odd in one way or another. I have got in the habit of seeking them out, and declining to trust anyone who has no oddities."
—William of Orange, to Eliza, p.746

At the end, Quicksilver contains some ten pages of Dramatis Personae—which in this case is where such information belongs, because knowing the players in advance reveals too much about the progress of Quicksilver, information that one might not want to know in detail before embarking on the journey.

I have myself tried to avoid spoilers in this review, and if I have revealed too much herein, let it be understood that there is, even so, much more to be discovered in the Baroque Cycle. I have but scratched the surface...