I am beginning the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. Check this link for further explanation regarding this eight book series. This is a review of the first book, Quicksilver (not the three book volume of the same title).

This is a historical novel with two parallel story lines, one following the fictional Daniel Waterhouse as a young man in the late 17th Century and the other framing narrative following him as an old man in 1713 as he remembers his earlier life. Daniel as a young man was a close acquaintance of both Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz. Forty years later in 1713, Waterhouse who is now living in colonial Massachusetts has been asked to return to England to attempt to resolved the bitter dispute between Newton and Leibniz regarding credit for the creation of calculus mathematics.

In the 1713 narrative Waterhouse boards a ship leaving Boston harbor which runs into an extended encounter with pirates, including Edward Teach (a.k.a. Blackbeard). During the midst of these adventures he remembers his earlier years, thus the earlier 17th Century narrative.

In the earlier story line we learn that Waterhouse was a member of The Royal Society and rubbed shoulders with what seems like every conceivable historical personage in politics and natural philosophy at the time. He was mentored by John Wilkins, founder of the Royal Society. He was a roommate of Isaac Newton's at Cambridge. He had extended conversations with the young Leibniz. He worked as an assistant to Robert Hooke in his scientific experiments. In other words, he was at the core of the beginning of advances in scientific and mathematical thinking during the Enlightenment era.

I thoroughly enjoyed Stephenson's description of time, place and historical characters. He does plant some fictional items in the story that correlate with his novel, Cryptonomicon, which is set in the 20th Century.  This is a link to my review of Cryptonomicon. Stephenson has characterized the Baroque Cycle as science fiction due to the presence of some anomalous occurrences and the emphasis on themes relating to science and technology. That may be true, but I experienced to book primarily as historical fiction.

An interesting quotation:
“... are you suggesting that those who study natural philosophy can acquire some kind of occult knowledge--special insight into God’s Creation, not available to the common Bible-reading man?”
“Er...I suppose that’s quite clearly what I’m suggesting.”
Drake nodded. “That is what I thought. Well, God gave us brains for a reason--not to use those brains would be a sin.”

Some links that may be of interest:
LINK TO Wikipedia article about the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson.
LINK TO my review of King of the Vagabonds (Bk. 2) by Neal Stephenson.
LINK TO my review of Odalisque (Bk. 3) by Neal Stephenson.
LINK TO my review of The Confusion (Bks. 4 & 5) by Neal Stephenson.
LINK TO my review of Solomon's Gold (Bk. 6) by Neal Stephenson.
LINK TO my review of Currency (Bk. 7) by Neal Stephenson.
LINK TO my review of System of the World (Bk. 8) by Neal Stephenson.

I went on a long Neal Stephenson kick a while back:

QUICKSILVER
I finished reading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson about a month ago. This book took me almost two months to finish reading because it is so freaking long and epic. I really love Neal Stephenson. I've also read Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash. I highly recommend reading Cryptonomicon before Quicksilver, because you get to have the pleasure of seeing the family names of characters that lived in the 20th century popping up in 17th century Europe.

The book provides an intimate look into the life and times of England and the European continent during the 17th century, and of famous men such as Louis XIV and Isaac Newton. However, it is not a history book. It was an exciting read, giving the reader the feeling of being swept back in time and allowed to observe the details of life often left out of history, such as medical procedures (cutting for "the stone" performed by barbers, for instance), privies, whorehouses, etc. But it was Neal Stephenson's characters, as always, that made the book truly worth reading.

Daniel Waterhouse, the main character, lives through some very exciting times in English history. Most famously, the Black Plague and the Great Fire. He also is acquainted with many famous men, such as Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and even multiple British kings in succession. Through him we learn of how many aspects of science and the scientific process that we take for granted in modern times were discovered and/or invented. (gravity, for example, and calculus.) He is also raised as a Puritan, with a famously dissenting father who had his nose cut off as an example and believed the apocalypse would come in 1666 (as did most Puritans at the time). We also get to experience Trinity College at it's most decadent and depraved, with drunken noble sons stumbling about the campus, etc.

One third of the way into the book, Stephenson introduces us to Jack Shaftoe (AKA "Half-Cocked Jack" due to a phallic injury, also AKA "L'Emmerdeur" hero of French vagabond tales), an English vagabond wandering around the European continent getting involved in wars, adventures, and business fiascos all over the place. He may be slightly insane (from the "french pox"), but he is wildly entertaining. As is the amazingly resourceful Eliza, whom Jack "rescues" from a Turkish harem during the siege of Vienna. Their story is one of travel, business exploits, attainment, and loss. I think this might have been my favorite part of the novel.

The final third of the book goes back to Daniel in London during the overthrow of the monarchy. And, of course, the ending leaves you hanging and wanting to read the second book. But I think I'll have to muster my energy for another long read before I tackle it.

I feel almost bad saying so, but I don't think Quicksilver is Stephenson's best work. I loved Cryptonomicon for it's smart, fresh approach to "historical" fiction, just as I enjoyed Snow Crash for it's witty, imaginitive picture of the urban future. But I really felt like the energy had drained out of his writing in this novel. It was still innovative, and smart, and witty...but it felt a little bogged down. Perhaps it was the language, being set in the 17th century, or perhaps it was all the ponderous (but necessary) back stories needed to explain historical events and wars, I'm not sure. But it did seem a little slow at times.

Overall, however, this book was an entertaining read, though while I was reading it, I thought it would have been helpful to have some sort of resource that could tell me which characters and events were historical. The wikipedia article was pretty helpful. I didn't notice the "cast" list at the back until I was finished reading the book. This list tells which characters were real and which were fictional, and also their multiple names and titles.

For those of you just joining me, I sort of blogged this, and the actual review is down at the bottom.

*****

Ok, approximately 50 words into the book, discussing an executioner with a noose about to hang a woman, and I'm already completely smitten by these two sentences: "The rope clutches a disk of blue New England sky. The Puritans gaze at it and, to all appearances, think."

******

Apparently I'm blogging as I read this book now. Here's another bit I loved (page 175): "Daniel for his part was aware, now, that he was surrounded by the Quality, and that they were all peering at him. He had gotten himself into a Complicated Situation, and he did not like those." The use of capitals in those sentences is not only awesome, but seems to capture Daniel's way of thinking marvelously too.

(Loving the book in general so far too)

****

Here's another awesome quote (page 501):

"[Paris:] was built, so far as Jack could tell, on the principle that there was nothing you couldn't accomplish if you crowded a few tens of millions of peasants together on the best land in the world and then never stopped raping their brains out for a thousand years."


***********

Quicksilver is aptly named. Quicksilver, or Mercury, is a peculiar material, a sort of indefinable liqui-solid. In some ways that is what this book is. I was kind of surprised to re-discover that it lives in the "science fiction" section of Barnes and Noble, as it certainly isn't what one thinks of when one thinks of sci fi. While there is some idle chat about space and exploring it, there are no space ships, no aliens, and in fact, the action takes place entirely in the past (17th-18th century, mostly in Europe). I suppose the classification makes a certain kind of sense, considering that some of the most prominent characters in the book are natural philosophers (what we would now call scientists), and the book focuses a bit on the discovery of calculus, and also touches on various other scientific fields, including biology, astronomy, and climatology.

While his scientist characters are exploring the physical world, Stephenson explores the literary one. He pulls some crazy tricks out of his sleeves, and I loved every one of them. Some favorites: One of his characters reflects on how his life is like something from a theatre, and then the next several pages are written as a play, rather than the novel we were reading seconds ago. There is a scene from the perspective of a character who is going mad that breaks out into a musical, complete with reanimated corpses singing in chorus, and a priest directly addressing the mad man, listing all his faults in song. There are a couple chapters written entirely as volley of letters written by a character. She knows that one of her targets is having all of his mail intercepted and read, and the other one she has encrypted everything in a way that she is confident won't be broken, and the difference in content between the two sets of letters is the story.

There are a couple caveats to what would be a generally unbridled recommendation here. Caveat the first: I am a huge history, science, and philosophy nerd, and the myriad of cross pollination between the three with the fiction was a cause of joy for me, where others might find it distracting (or even painful). On the other hand, every time a new character, no matter how minor was introduced, with a name I recognized from history, it made me quite happy. Caveat the second: This book is not really complete. The baroque cycle, is really one long story, and the ending to this book is not satisfying at all, as it isn't really an ending. Caveat the third: Sometimes, some of the characters can be really huge jerks. I didn't particularly mind this, but some might.

Stephenson serves up a real doorstop here, and it is the first of three in The Baroque Cycle trilogy to boot! Quicksliver is divided into three discrete but related parts (Quicksilver, King of the Vagabonds and Odalisque) each having its own main protagonist and main characters, but of course lots of overlap. Trying to review a book of this magnitude is difficult, however, especially as Stephenson likes to meander around rather than give the reader a straight forward plot. That stated, here goes.

Set in the 17th and early 18th century in Europe (largely England, but significant parts are in France and Holland), Quicksilver has multiple, related themes. Perhaps the key, or major, one concerns the scientific revolution occurring at the time, and many of the key figures of that are major characters (Issac Newton, John Locke, Leibniz). Our main protagonist, Daniel Waterhouse, is associated with many of these figures and a member of the 'Natural Philosophy' club; a group of 'free thinkers' in England who ride the crest of the scientific revolution.

Another theme concerns the various political and religious revolutions embroiling Europe in the 17th century, where 'Papist' kings trying to root out the various strains of Protestants, who have congregated largely in Holland and England. England, however, is still in the throes of religious tension, with 'kingly' pressure to reinstate a 'uniform' church (Papist or Anglican) versus the 'puritans' and other protestants who have no desire to return to such. Basically, Quicksliver as a whole features the political landscape of England in the 30 or so years leading up to the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Another theme, although not as pronounced as the political, scientific and religious revolutions concerns the 'commercial' revolution spearheaded by Holland and the V.O.C., which led to very sophisticated financial practices such as futures and 'joint-stock' corporations like the V.O.C. itself, but also insurance and such. Holland, via the V.O.C., went from being largely a backwater to carving out a huge global trading empire in the 16th and 17th century, pioneering many trading and financial practices that other nations (notably England) would emulate in the 17th and 18th century to conquer the world. Note-- not all of these practices were 'nice' as Holland lead the slave trade and the V.O.C. was basically an armed corporation, sometimes carving out 'deals' via cannon and war.

The first book, Quicksilver, features Daniel on the one hand growing up and going to college (where he rooms with Newton) and then forward in time to his later years (after founding MIT in Cambridge, MA) heading back to Europe as a relatively old man in 1713 (where his ship is attacked by pirates, Blackbeard no less!). This section focuses primarily upon the scientific revolution in England and the somewhat bizarre characters that lead it.

The second book, King of the Vagabonds, turns more toward politics, with its two main characters of Jack the Vagabond and Eliza. This starts off with the siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1682 or so. Jack, a notorious Vagabond (something of an international brotherhood of rogues) manages to find himself at the battle looking for some loot. What he finds instead is Eliza, a former Harem girl in the Sultan's entourage, who he manages to free and flee with. Eliza is a young virgin that the Sultan planned on 'taking' after winning the battle in celebration. She and her mother had been kidnapped from Europe years ago by pirates and sold/taken to the Barbary Coast as slaves; eventually, Eliza was sold to the sultan of Turkey.

The final book, Odalisque, brings several of the main treads together. Daniel, whose father was something of a firebrand in England (Daniel was raised to believe the 'END OF TIMES' would happen in 1666) is now a bit on the outs with the King of England (James II, a papist, but also a bit crazy). Eliza, having found her groove in Holland, is working the markets and befriending people (Jack the Vagabond is in a bad way; I am sure Stephenson will return to him later in the series). Working with the William of Orange in Holland, and some help via Leibniz, Eliza heads to France to be something of a spy in King Looie's court. Things get complicated, but Stephenson goes a fine job exploring the political intrigues of the day.

Whew! This is a hard book to rate. At time enthralling, other times pondering and meandering. I loved the eccentric band of 'proto' scientists and their various explorations (calculus, physics, etc.) and the political intrigues were first rate (although at times rather slow going). It is pretty amazing to think of what Europe was like a few hundred years ago, but I think Stephenson did a fantastic job bringing this era to light. This will tax your European history to some degree and make you stretch your mind on some serious scientific concepts. Stephenson's dry wit also comes through in the oddest places as well, along with his fine prose. Yet, as far as plotting, meandering is perhaps the best way to describe it. Reading Stephenson is an experience you may or not like. If you liked Cryptonomicon, you will like this; if not stay far away. More than 4 stars, but not 5, so I will go with 4. Viva la revolution!!

I should also mention that this is not straightforward historical fiction as Stephenson introduces some fantasy elements as well. First we have Enoch the Red, as 'timeless' alchemist of some sort who occasionally appears (always very timely) and everyone seems to know something about. Secondly, we have Eliza's abductor, who we never meet, but seems to live on severely rotted food, like fish left to rot for a week or so. Obviously, these two characters will have some role in the upcoming sequels...

This book is sort of like Woody Allen's “Zelig”, if the movie had been a gigantic doorstop of a book, if it had been set mostly in Europe in the years 1650 – 1713 instead of Great Depression-era America, and if it had had three Zeligs instead of one. OK, so, maybe they're not so similar, but still, like Zelig, the main characters flit from one great historical event to another, influential but unrecognized in life's rich pageant. The three Zelig-like characters are Daniel Waterhouse, Eliza, and Jack. An unscientific study of nearby reviews shows that Daniel Waterhouse is the favorite of the Goodreads demographic. I understand and agree. Daniel has the same appeal for the bookish as the title character in “I, Claudius”: a survivor, decent but not unbelievably so, smart but not overwhelming ambitious, well-meaning but occasionally clueless. He befriends Isaac Newton at school, gives New York its name, becomes an influential figure in Restoration England almost by accident. The other characters may seem less compelling by comparison because, sadly, fewer of us are exotic, seductive, impossibly beautiful, adventurous social climbers and successful derivatives traders (Eliza) or free-spirited, cowardly, romantic hobos, always up for a big caper (Jack). Anyway, it's a historical novel with an attitude, and if you like it, there are still 2,000 more pages to go to complete the trilogy!

#17 QUICKSILVER by Neal Stephenson: Durfee's top 50 novels countdown. Volume One in Stephenson's trilogy THE BAROQUE CYCLE. A monumental literary feat that combines history, adventure, science, truth, invention, sex, absurdity, piracy, madness, death, and alchemy. Combined with ANATHEM and CRYPTONOMICON, these books combine to give us every thought to ever cross one author's mind.

Oh wow, this is indeed ambitious. And big. So big that after a few days fulltime reading and 900 pages I really think I can not judge it quite yet. It´s part of a whole.

The snark:
- Neal Stephenson remakes The Lord of the Rings! And the House of Niccolo.
- I would like to see an editor do an omnibus edition of the whole series! Wait a readable omnibus and see somebody able to read it and comfortably enough to read the whole thing. I got the lovely gorgeous american hardcover and had to pick up a pillow to hold it on my lap.

The bad:
- It needed an editor. Badly. I am not talking about length, i am talking about things like an occasional reference "Mademoiselle de Maintenon" and entries on the character list followed by "David Kahn, The Codebreakers, which buy and read" ( a verb missing surely?). Since Dunnett was on my mind a lot, I thought ahah, maybe a clue, but sadly I think these and others are bugs, not features. Neal Stephenson is not Dorothy Dunnett. Fine for a few details, I think he *gets* how exciting and world changing science is much much better, but for historical accuracy and subtle plotting, she seems far ahead so far. we will see, by the end of this series.
- I am uncertain about how much internal consistency this is supposed to have. There are some peculiarities to Enoch Root, obvious from the start. But I am not sure when the author just departs from reality for the sake of rollicking picaresque plot, or some interesting connection to Cryptonomicon.
- the cyphers while hand-waved around were fine ( though, who on earth would write such long meandering letters using a code?!). When the author gives an example, it is so bad it makes me want to bash my head against the wall. Surely it could not be historical accurate? Not that he explains the important bit, of what makes a letter 0 or 1, but it does look lame a simple subtraction, makes it a dead easy caesar cypher and breakable by frequency analysis. Now if they subtracted it on binary, particularly 5-4 bits strings it would be much harder to break. I can not help thinking anything I can think of, Leibniz would surely have understood far deeper immediately. oops, sorry rant over.

The good :
- I love this sort of thing. The ambition, the scope, the characters.
- I am a geek, and Stephenson gets hard science.
- Stephenson can also be very very funny ( to the sensitivity of my own peculiar sense of humor).
- While being huge and long winded, it is interesting, funny and fast moving enough that it is a long read. Even if I need a pillow over my sternum to hold the damn brick.

I read Anathem a few years ago and remembered liking it and thinking it was worthwhile. Quicksilver came up a few months ago during a discussion with my husband about novels set in the late 1600s and I added it to my to-read list.

I have mixed feelings on this book. Ultimately, it got the 2 star rating because it was just too rambling. Stephenson was in need of a good editor. This book is essentially an incomplete novel of 600 pages with an almost completely different 300 page story in the middle (yes, the whole thing is around 900 pages).

The first 300 pages is interesting and filled with compelling historical detail about England (Cromwell and Restoration and Revolution w/William and Mary) as well as the history of Science (Newton and Hooke and Leibniz) and other important historical minds (Ben Franklin and John Locke). If it is all accurate I feel like I learned a lot, but if I don’t know enough to know where Stephenson took liberties. These first 300 pages flash between a pirate/travel story set in 1715 and England 1677-1685. I was unsure why we needed the pirate story (just ‘cuz Stephenson wanted it) and since we NEVER ACTUALLY GO BACK to 1715 at the end, it really was just an excuse for several hundreds of pages of ship descriptions.

The middle third was interesting, in an action-movie kind of way. It was full of anachronistic phrases (“bro-in-law”, “on the rag”, “the one who never got laid?” “rogered”, “Johnson” “shit for brains”, “Canal Rage”) and read like a cross between Pirates of the Caribbean (who is Jack “L’Emmerdeur” if not Jack Sparrow?) and Indiana Jones. It was full of implausible escapes and just random violence. While mildly amusing and definitely ridiculous (especially Jack’s immodest willingness to describe his deformity to Eliza AT THEIR FIRST MEETING), there was almost nothing about this section that related to the first part of the book. Yes, Eliza meets Leibniz and yes, she is interested in the Natural Philosophers, but otherwise the whole second section is really a separate novel. Again, Stephenson would have profited nicely from an editor.

The final third sort of related the middle section to the first. The reader was brought back to England and Daniel and he (in turn) met Eliza and Jack’s brother Bob. I was still unconvinced that the middle section was necessary. I was also waiting to catch back up with the beginning, but alas that was not going to happen. I know that this is a trilogy and fear that the next novel will only run further afield before poor Daniel ends up back on the pirate ship in 1715. I also fear that the wife and child that Daniel leaves in Massachusetts are Eliza and her son, but alas, I will never know as I will not be reading the next (or any other) installment).

Overall, I have middling feelings. The history (if accurate) is worth the time, but only because I am a fast reader. If the history is inaccurate than I wish I could have my week back.

Hmm. Viena vertus dar viena knyga į top 100 ever skaitytų knygų. Kita vertus po Kryptonomikono, autoriaus žingsnis atgal. Kodėl? Todėl, kad nepaisant nerealaus stiliaus, milijardo dolerių vertos kalbos ir vandenyno gylio autoriaus išprusimo skaičiau tą knygą... kaip naujos kartos istorijos vadovėlį. Norit žinot kaip atrodė ir ką rengėsi Isaac Newton (taip pat apie viską apie vyriškus perukus)? Kodėl Robert Hooke smerkė alchemiją (Ir kaip vivisekcija pasitarnavo mokslo raidai)? Ar Su kuo draugavo Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz kai pagaliau perplaukė Lamanšą per Anglijos ir Nyderlandų karą (ir kaip tai paveikė matematikos, filosofijos ir politikos raidą)? Taip pat sužinojau daug apie religijos ir mokslo santykius. Londono atstatymo darbus po gaisro (1666 metais :) ), kuriuo buvo stabdomas maras. Įvairias krikščionybės atskalas ir sektas. Tikslių mechaninių laikrodžių atsiradimą. Karališkąją draugiją ir politines intrigas. Dvaro paskalų mechanizmus ir meilužių įtaką to meto etiketui. Žodžiu keli šimtai puslapių suteikė daugiau info nei 12 metų istorijos pamokų mokykloje. Ir nuostabiai patrauklia forma. Todėl didelis #Recom nuo #LEBooks

Too long.

I admit it. I have absolutely no desire to finish this book. I'm so very close to the end, but I stopped caring somewhere along the way. I really don't know what it is that keeps me from finishing it. Maybe it's because I only have about 120 pages left and I know that nothing's going to be resolved. Maybe it's because I've read 781 pages and have no idea what the heck is going on. Is there even a plot? Is this book about anything other than history? I can see why people do like it. In fact, I like it myself. I just can't bring myself to pick it up again.

(The following is an excerpt from the journal of Neal Stephenson.)

After the success of Cryptonomicon, I’m having some problems narrowing down my next project. The issue is that I have far too many ideas, and I can’t decide which plot to use for my next book.

I know that I want do something set during the late 17th century in Europe. It was an amazing time with huge changes in politics, culture, commerce and science, but there was just so much going on that I can’t seem to make up my mind and pick one or two concepts for the book.

Here are some of the top ideas I’m mulling over:

• The soldier and scientist dynamic between Waterhouse and Shaftoe worked so well in Cryptonomicon that I’d like to do something similar here. Perhaps have characters who are the ancestors of Lawrence Waterhouse and Bobby Shaftoe?

• This would be during the early period of the Royal Society when men like Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke, Gottfried Leibniz, and many others were essentially creating modern science and battling among themselves. Putting an ancestor of Waterhouse in among them seems like a natural fit.

• I’m also fascinated by all the religious upheaval in England following Cromwell’s death through The Glorious Revolution. Having a character with a Puritan upbringing caught up in these events would be interesting. Maybe that’s the place to bring a Waterhouse into it?

• But I’m equally interested by all that was happening in commerce during this time. Our modern economic systems were being developed, and even the very nature of money itself was being redefined. I’d very much like to do a plot that involved that.

• However, I’m also intrigued by all the political machinations and palace intrigue that took place across all of Europe.

• If I do something with the political side, then I’ll almost certainly need to set something among all the wars and conflicts that took place. That might be a natural place to use a Shaftoe character.

• I’d really like to dig into the details of how dirty, smelly, nasty and short life was to most people back then.

• It might be more original to get away from the known events and famous people of the time and show a viewpoint from someone common like a vagabond. (Maybe this should be a Shaftoe character.)

• Thinking about vagabonds, it’d be interesting to do a modern take of a picaresque novel with a rogue-ish hero getting into adventures and insulting the people of quality. This would definitely be a great Shaftoe character.

• I’d also like to explore the role of women in this society. Maybe have some kind of very smart female character who has to use her charm and brains to navigate a variety of social and political challenges? Could I tie that in with the money thing?

• Doing some kind of story about spies would be really cool. If I write about spies, I could use some of the cryptography stuff I brought into the last book again.

• Pirates. I definitely need to do something with pirates.

• Slavery. I should also work in some stuff about slavery.

• I’d also like to use the Enoch Root character again. That’d really establish him as an ageless stranger who is kind of pushing events in certain directions, just like he did in Cryptonomicon. Plus, that gives it a bit of a sci-fi element so I’ll be eligible for all the Locus and Hugo-type awards.

• On top of everything else, I’m dying to play with the format a little. Maybe do some chapters like a stage play from the era? Or tell a section via a series of letters? If I use letters to tell the story, it’d be another chance to work in the code stuff.

There are too many possibilities. I don’t know how I’ll ever …. Wait. I just had a crazy thought. I shouldn’t be trying to NARROW the focus. I should EXPAND the focus. Throw all of these ideas and even more into one giant stew pot.

No, that’s insane. It’d be too complex and convoluted. How could readers keep everything straight? Just trying to keep track of the various royal families alone would drive most people mad.

I guess if I used just two or three main characters, but then had them shift into a variety of roles??? Waterhouse as a Puritan, a scientist, and a political player in England? Shaftoe as a soldier, a vagabond and a syphilis sufferer? (Maybe add another Shaftoe if one is going to have syphilis.) Make the woman a spy, an anti-slavery advocate, and a natural genius with money?

Could it work? Have them all bounce against all the people and events of the time? How could I make that coherent? And it’d have to be huge. Probably at least three books with 800 to 900 pages a book.

Yes. Yes! I can make it work! I am just that damn good. Those who go along with it will marvel at my genius. Those who can’t follow along will be too exhausted to complain. It’s brilliant. Those fools won’t know what hit them!

And I will call it…. The Baroque Cycle.

BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!! (Yes, I, Neal Stephenson, like to write evil laughter into my journal while I’m plotting my books.)


Kemper’s Random Comments on Quicksilver

•tWikipedia is your friend while reading this book.

•tJack Shaftoe is not called ‘Half-Cocked Jack’ just due to his tendency to act without thinking. *shudder*

•tIsaac Newton should not have been allowed to handle needles.

•tConsidering the way that various dogs, cats, horses, rats, frogs and ostriches are treated, this story is obviously set long before the ASPCA or PETA existed.

•tStephenson has a lot of fun allowing his characters to make history. Daniel Waterhouse casually comes up with the name New York when others are debating what to call New Amsterdam after it changes hands. Eliza invents the word ‘sabotage’. Young Jack and his brother Bob create modern advertising and an early form of infomercial while making up small plays to advertise for their service helping condemned men hang faster and suffer less by dangling from their legs.

•Venice gondoliers suffered from ‘canal rage’ caused by the hectic fast paced modern lifestyle they lived in.

• After reading of the various ‘medical treatments’ used in here, you will hug your doctor the next time you go in for a check-up, and you will also feel the urge to call your dentist for a cleaning.

• Jack considers it quite an accomplishment to have lived to the ripe old age of 20, and tells 19 year-old Eliza that she’s got a good ten or twenty years left to her.

• European royal families were kind of gross.

• I loved that Stephenson brings back his fictional country of Qwghlm, a godforsaken island under British rule where ice storms in June are common, and the English cut down all the trees.

• Who knew that you could outwit pirates with math?

• The scenes of trying to buy something are always hilarious because of all the haggling, not over the prices, but over what type of coins will be accepted because most are worthless due to the lack of reliable currency.

• Why did I find it so funny that the English characters call syphilis the ‘French Pox’ and the French characters call it the ‘English Pox’?