The scope of this book is really astounding. It covers the scientific revolution in the 1600s, interacting with Newton, Leibnitz, Hooke, Boyle, and a host of others as they make their mathematical and physical discoveries. It also covers the political situation and intrigue in Spain, England, France, Scotland, Ireland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, etc. and all the vast upheavals taking place during that period. And THEN it also covers a lot of the religious controversies and questions which also took place.

I have a particular interest in science and the early discoveries in mathematics. Score.
I have a particular interest in the Puritans. Score.
I have a particular interest in the religious and political controversies in France and England. Score.

So why didn't I rate it higher? Because like always, I feel like Stephenson does too much world-building. He spends so much time info-dumping and can't seem to cut anything, so everything he researches and learns goes in there. Interesting, but not riveting. The book was probably at least twice as long as it needed to be, in my mind. We'll see how the next two go.

Reading this book was kind of like... spending an afternoon on a long walk through the countryside, with a kindly but eccentric uncle, who happens to be a brilliant historian. I could listen to his rambling anecdotes for hours... except at some point I realised that we'd been walking for so long... hypnotised by his voice... that I had grown several inches of beard...

It's a big book, but it's utterly fascinating and I loved it.

I have 40+ books sitting on my 'review-soon' shelf that I just don't have time to write proper reviews for, so I'm going to bash out as many of these mini-reviews as I can before Christmas :-)

After this I read: Boneshaker

The first third of the book was generally plodding and lacking in any interesting protagonists (and no, I don't care that the oh-so-clever-writer added in as many famous characters as he could think of, they were still generally annoying). The second third showed much more promise, and was actually really fun, until the very end when everything got awful. Not like The-Empire-Strikes-Back-second-act-as-many-bad-things-happen-as-possible awful, though I think that's what the author was aiming for. Just unneccesary and silly and revolting. Based on that, a quick thumbing of the final third, and the pervasively self-conscious and occasionally completely-annoying prose, I'm done with this one. It had high points. The descriptions of some of the experiments in the first section. The soon-to-be insane Vagabond King. There was even an infrequent well-written paragraph. It appears there is actually quite a lot of story material for a really good book here, but this redition of the plot has abused my trust for far too long.

One last thing. The only "real" female character in the novel is badly written. I mean, it's not like his male characters beyond Jack are well-thought out and consistently imagined. But Eliza is a particularly poorly developed character- confusing and often contradictery, with shifting morals and no real reason behind many of her actions. I don't know if this is one of those "well aren't women just like that, guffaw" things or simply another literary over-extension on the author's part. I do know it was aggrivating, though.

This book is historical fiction at its best. It is jam packed with background on Europe in the 17th century: the wars, political machinations of the royalty, as well as the academic rivalries of continental and British natural philosophers and alchemists. Furthermore, the background of the characters is very well explained.

The book is structured in an interesting way, it consists of three books. "Quicksilver", "King of the Vagabonds", and "Odelisque."

The first book is almost entirely about the Puritan Daniel Waterhouse (apparently some ancestor of the Waterhouse family from Cryptonomicon.) He was Sir Isaac Newton's dorm mate at Cambridge, another student of "natural philosophy" as science was called back then. The book follows Daniel through the reformation, the plague years, the fire of London. It also details his involvement in The Royal Society, the British scientific academic establishment. It shows what it really must have been like to be an academic in 17th century England. It also shows how modern science came out of alchemy and the religious establishment. This book lays the foundations for the dispute between Newton and Leibniz.

The Second book follows Jack Shaftoe, the "King of the Vagabonds" and apparently the Ancestor of the Shaftoe family from Cryptonomicon. It follows him as he joins an army as a mercenary to fight the Ottomans at Vienna. There he rescues Eliza from the Turks, and they continue from there across Europe. Getting into commodities trading in Amsterdam, and making the acquaintance of Leibniz.

The Third book follows a now forty some year old Daniel Waterhouse, who is now an Adviser to King Charles II, and also Eliza who is essentially a stock broker for the nobles of France. This book is much more about the political posturing of the French and British royalties.

Also, Enoch Root from Cryptonomicon (who is an Alchemist in the 17th century) makes appearances in each of the three books, hinting and helping everyone along.

Each of the three books contain stories about Mathematical and Scientific advances of the times, as well as a continual theme of finance and economics.

This book was well written, and very entertaining. However, it was so detailed as to be slow reading in some parts (especially in the third book, Odelisque.) Despite this, the book was fun through out. Although in the slow parts, I enjoyed it more for its factual content than the story (at many points, the density of information reminded me of Jared Diamond's Collapse.) Also,

I read this book because I liked Cryptonomicon ALOT, and this book starts the Baroque cycle which occurs in the same world as that book. Also, people in the know, like John Banes and Henry Cohn, told me that it is good stuff.

It pains me to say it but this was not as enjoyable as I hoped it would be.

This is the very definition of a mixed bag. Grab a whole bunch of stuff, shove it in a bag and jostle it around and then take out every last thing in almost random order. In fact, that's not enough, let's use 10 bags!

Neal Stephenson’s books are brimming with ideas and information. It can sometimes take a bit of time to get up to speed when reading them. In the case of Quicksilver, it’s the total immersion in the era in which it’s set, ie mid 1600s and 1700s. The characters will talk about what’s happening in that era using the words and concepts from that time. For example, Europe was not known as Christendom. Sometimes these things are explained as part of the prose or dialogue but sometimes not. So reading the book I was doing a lot of googling and reading Wikipedia pages. Of course you don’t have to do this but it’s the kind of thing I enjoy. I enjoy exploring and learning about a world and in this case it’s a bonus that all of the learning is about real history and facts.

There *are* some great scenes, lots of historical detail and it’s quite funny in parts. But it’s also a bit tedious, a bit crass at times and the worst thing, direction-less. And that's what made this feel like a chore at times. I got to the end and I'm still unsure what the point of it all was. Hopefully books 2 and 3 will improve on things - I see their goodreads ratings are higher.

I gave Anathem and Cryptonomicon 5 stars but I can only give this one 3.

Quicksilver is an interesting book-especially since you can be discussing two different books. Quicksilver is the first installment of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque cycle. It is a political and scientific monster delving into the 17th and 18th century. The first thing you need to know is that Quicksilver:Volume One is a combination of Quicksilver:Book 1, King of the Vagabonds: Book 2, and Odalesque: Book 3. If you purchase Quicksilver Volume 1 do not purchase the Books that are available in a solitary format. You are not getting anything new. It is a marketing package to make the series look less intimidating. You can purchase the books in whatever format is more appealing to your reading style. My one comment is that if you choose to read Quicksilver: Book 1 rather than Volume 1 you may not be as impressed. It explores of the story of Daniel Waterhouse the friend and colleague of Isaac Newton. He is a Royal Society member in the English scientific community but ends up playing a much more political role. The scientific details are rich. Many have found them excessive. I enjoyed them but the first time I read this it was as the volume and not the book and including the stories of Half-cocked Jack and Eliza helps to make Volume holistic. I think if I had read book one initially I am not sure I would have continued. My personal recommendation, if you enjoy large dense books, read the books in the three volumes rather than the 8 book format.

Daniel Waterhouse is a friend and colleague of Isaac Newton. He comes from a deeply religious and puritan background. His father was the infamous Drake and both paves a way for his career in Natural Philosophy as well as is a challenge. Daniel and Isaac meet in Oxford and room together. Daniel soon learns he can learn more from Isaac’s genius than what he can learn in class. The price for this is keeping Newton fed, making sure he sleeps, and taking the brunt of his moods and temper. Daniel is perhaps the only person that Isaac trusts and puts Daniel in the position of caretaker and social diplomat for Newton so the world can see his genius. Nothing would be published of Newton’s if it weren’t for Daniel because Newton. He does not produce his work for acclaim and most of his work isn’t seen by anyone else. As a result, Waterhouse does not get to pursue his own scientific queries. Instead he becomes steeped in politics and an integral important figure in the Royal Society. This is what you learn in Quicksilver: Book 1. Quicksilver: Volume 1 goes on to explore the story of Jack Shaftoe, or Half-cocked Jack. This man is not a political giant but rather an intelligent street urchin grown into a man. He’s not the best of men, but he is smart, crafty, and always seeking opportunity. Jack brings the action to this tale as his story becomes entwined with Daniel’s as well as Eliza’s. Eliza is rescued from a harem by Jack – not on purpose but their relationship is important. She is spy, financial market genius, and rescued white sex slave. If you stop at Book 1 you will miss so much. Carry on because as with all Stephenson’s books it will all tie together in the end.

Stephenson, prior to this series, was known for his science fiction, specifically, Snow Crash and Diamond Age. These are books I love. The Baroque Cycle is purely historical and while it discusses scientific material and how it shaped 17th and 18th century society this is a historical novel. The book provides a very different view of the scientific giants of this time frame compared to the version taught to you in school. Personal issues and mental illness are evident. Stephenson is known for his level of detail and research. In this series Stephenson is even more diligent than his previous works. Later in his career Stephenson will write Mongoloid and Anathem. I am not a fan of these particular books. I have learned several things in being a fan of his work. It is not all the same and if you like one of his books it is no guarantee you will like another. You need to pick the books of his that fit in the genres you like. I enjoy his science fiction and historical fiction. I have no love for his joint works with other authors. Many of his fans have learned to pay attention to these factors. Some say this series is where his work changed for them and they lost interest. I disagree think The Baroque Cycle is intelligent and I am currently on my second read of it. You must judge for yourself, but use some of the information I presented. Approach the work in the format that agrees best with your reading style and don’t fall into the trap of purchasing a book you have already read if you purchased one of the volumes previously. I have layed out the process to reading this series below.

THE BAROQUE CYCLE

Volumes

1. Quicksilver: Volume 1

2. The Confusion: Volume 2

3. The System of The World: Volume 3

OR

Books

1. Quicksilver: Book 1

2. King of the Vagabonds

3. Odalisque

4. Bonanza

5. The Juncto

6. Soloman’s Gold

7. Currency

8. The System of The World: Book

I never thought I'd find a book with almost no discernable throughline so mind-blowingly compelling. Much like Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver serves to provide the author a vehicle for excitedly sharing his passions, among them cryptology and, in this case, 18th century European history. That I learned more about history from this book than my AP classes in high school is probably more damning of my past study habits than anything else, but Stephenson has a knack for making the canon of the past memorable through nuanced detail and humor. His depiction of the dawn of modern scientific inquiry, wild and messy, is as illuminating as it is fascinating.

Quicksilver's characters are, as we'd expect from Stephenson, intellectuals and nerds (or proto-nerds of the early Enlightenment) who serve mostly as behind-the-scenes facilitators of major historical figures (e.g. Newton, William of Orange). Keeping the fictional characters on the sidelines was presumably a necessity, as Stephenson was obviously constrained by history itself. He nonetheless creates an engrossing tale within the nooks and crannies of the past's canon.

Special praise should be given to the various misadventures of the character Jack Shaftoe, which constitute some of the most hysterically fun stories I've ever encountered. It's nice to find that mega-intellectual uber-polymath Stephenson also has a sense of fun.

And there are still two more books to go!

I could not put it any better than my friend Johnsergeant who wrote in his review,

I have to say I found this audiobook tough going. I generally like Neal Stephenson's writing, but I am not sure I got the point of this book. It was hard to keep track of the characters, location and time period, and there was very little action. My mind kept wandering.

This was my first Neal Stephenson book and I have several others that I would like to read but I'm going to have to pause after this one. I will give him another shot but while I enjoyed (what I'm referring to) the "mini-stories", characters, and history, I could not understand the big picture of the book.

Dissapointing.

Well. Where to start with this... Ok. Let us first pretend that there are only two criteria to use when analysing works of fiction, (1) number of characters and (2) richness of plot. Now let us say we are drawing a chart, with quality 1 on the horizontal axis, and quality 2 on the vertical axis. Now we have a space into which we can slot a few books lying around the house. A Dickens novel goes into the upper right quadrant of the grid - many characters and rich plot to bind them together. A Samuel Beckett play would be located upper left - just a few characters, but richly textured interactions between them. Dan Brown? Bottom left I am afraid (ok there are other views but this is me talking now...). And what's in the bottom right quadrant? The London telephone book takes pride of place, situated on the far right and exactly on the axis. And just to the north-west of it we find... Quicksilver.

Why? Well let's see. Let me talk about size first. Quicksilver forms part of a sequence of three volumes, each weighing in at some 900 pages. Each volume consists of 3 reasonably stand-alone novels, so essentially we have a series of 9 texts, running to a combined 3000 pages. Indeed, the scope is even more expansive than this and we can think of these 9 novels as a prequel-series to Cryptonomicon, another 900-page tome in which Neal deals with events happening in WWII. So in terms of scope, Neal's work is biblical.

So. What happens in the three novels bound up in Quicksilver? The first novel is about a 17th Century natural philosopher, who is recalled to England to mitigate in the quarrel between Leibniz and Newton. The second novel is about the rise and fall of an Oriental slave girl as a merchant in Amsterdam. And the third novel is about the Leibniz/Newton quarrel again. You think that by distilling near 40,000 lines of text down to five I have done the plot injustice?

Well I haven't. And this is precisely what bothers me about Neal's first three books. I don't know what they are. I do not think they are novels. But neither do I think they are narrative history, as, for example, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. So what are they?

I think Neal's work is best described as a tableau of 17th Century life. Let me explain what I mean by this. Let us imagine a detailed, comprehensive historical monograph entitled 17th Century Europe in Politics, Science, Philosophy, and Religion. Our imagined work is a huge achievement in scholarship, its scope dwarving that of Gibbon's Rise and Fall. Now imagine this monograph as a pop-up book, delivering a three-dimensional model of intricate detail, showing all the facets of social life, all the complex interactions of historical persons, all the painful breakthroughs in nascent scientific thought.

For the moment, this model is static and not animated. Now we create several figurines that we set into our pop-up model of 17th Century life. We breathe life into these figurines, and they start walking around, interacting now with this person, now with that one, creating an event here, and another one there. We observe what's going on and write it all up, bind it into one book and call it "Quicksilver".

Excellent. We have successfully created a tour d'horizon through the world of the 17th Century. It does not matter that our characters do not have depth - they are only vehicles to transport our encyclopaedic knowledge. It does not matter that events do not create and develop a plot - we are not really telling a story.

In the end, Neal hands the reader a kaleidoscope to observe the 17th Century. It shows the richness of life in glittering, but confusing colours, and in identifiable, but jumbled shapes. If there is an overall, guiding principle in the work, the disjointed mass of detail and isolated events makes it hard to discern.

Quicksilver is to literature what music scores are to music, what a dictionary is to poetry, what a street map is to a metropolis. It shows the detail, but not the "soul".

I feel like I should love this book - it is talking about time and people in history that I'm very interested in, and even typing this review, I keep thinking I should still be reading it. But I will save it for summer, when I'm not thinking as actively for my job. Right now, I'd rather read to escape :)

This book is the first in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy and is, in turn, also divided into three books. To make things even more confusing, the first sub-book is also called Quicksilver. As far as I know, these sub-books were also published separately as eight books in the Baroque Cycle.

In the first sub-book, you follow the fictional character Daniel Waterhouse. Through his eyes, you see the development of science in the second half of the 17th century. You meet Newton and Leibniz. You see the development of capitalism and money, all against the backdrop of European politics, the Anglo-Dutch Wars, and the France of Louis XIV, the Sun King.

In the second book, you follow Jack Shaftoe, a vagabond, and Eliza, a concubine from the sultan's harem. Jack frees Eliza, and together they travel from Vienna to Germany and then to Amsterdam. The reader gets to know 17th-century society from the perspective of the common man and worker. At the same time, you learn about the Amsterdam Stock Exchange and the global economy.

In the third book, the storylines of Daniel Waterhouse and Eliza converge. Eliza emerges as a sort of Mata Hari and must balance between Stadtholder William III and the Sun King. Meanwhile, Waterhouse becomes embroiled in political intrigues in England, which ultimately lead to the Glorious Revolution.

The second half of the 17th century is an extremely fascinating period, and Stephenson succeeds in conveying this to the reader. The geopolitical tensions between the France of Louis XIV, England, and the Netherlands of William of Orange, fueled by the religious conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism. The rise of capitalism and the modern banking system, and the emergence of science.

Interesting questions arise, such as what is intelligence and consciousness? If you build a machine that contains a certain degree of intelligence, does it also have consciousness? Is there a force in the background that ensures that something arises? Is this then God (Newton), or is it something that must also be captured in natural laws (Leibniz)?

The prose is typical Stephenson: detailed and dense. It doesn't move quickly but is extremely interesting. This book is an absolute tour de force. I can imagine this book isn't for everyone, but I find it an absolute must-read. 5 stars!

Edit: For all Dutch readers who are interested in the history of the Baroque period I can wholeheartedly recommend Oranje tegen de Zonnekoning: de strijd van Willem III en Lodewijk XIV om Europa by Luc Panhuysen. All major events, especially in the life of Eliza are being discussed in the book. It is a great companion read!

Dear Mr. Stephenson,
I understand that when I pick up one of your voluminous novels, I am agreeing to travel through the written word on whatever meandering path you choose, with stops for quirky lectures from unlikely characters, descriptions of the proper way to eat Cap'n Crunch, or whatever else pops into your brain as you spin your tale. This book was no different, with particularly delightful episodes regarding Vagabond Jack Shaftoe who comes out sort of unscathed through most of his adventures, and Elizabeth's descriptions of kidnapping and court life and espionage and royal dunces, and the peculiar take on Isaac Newton and London politics and Boston and pirating and, um, a whole lot more.

But I'm feeling a bit daunted. I started this book back in May and while other books crept in along the way, I worked hard at this one's 900 pages, great as they were. I gaze upon volumes 2 and 3 in the trilogy, waiting on my shelf, and find myself digging deep for the courage to begin. I will. I really can't wait. But I think I need a break with something quicker, say, Volume 2 of Mark Twain's autobiography, first.