Si tiene el nombre de Neal Stephenson y el de Newton juntos LO TENGO que leer.
Pero no es lo que esperaba. También hay piratas, enredos varios, una mina de plata y hasta un avestruz. Así que quedan advertidos: no es la típica novela histórica ni de ciencia ficción y pasan tantas cosas juntas que no se pueden creer (muchas de ellas cobrarán sentido en la segunda parte que es todavía más enrevesada que esta).

I'm not really sure what to make of this book. While it's on a number of "best of" lists, as a work of historical fiction I found it plodding and lacking in a sense of plot. I'm also flummoxed by the number of readers who categorized it as science fiction, detecting few to no scifi elements myself, certainly not overtly enough that I would consider it a whole other genre. I guess it wasn't the book for me.

Neal Stephenson needs an editor.

Also, it may be cute and even kind of interesting to write an historical fantasy novel using idioms and vernacular from the 20th century on purpose, but it just doesn't work for me.

And yeah, ok we get it Neal, you're really clever and know a bunch of stuff...that doesn't mean you need to reference every bit of it you can stuff into the books you write.

It's kind of dissapointing because the ideas and possibilities of where this book could have been going were really interesting...Neal Stephenson just kept getting in the way.

I bought this book because it said on the cover that it was a "New York Time Bestseller". How can this be? The paperback version is 916 pages and I got to page eight hundred and sixty something and then couldn't take it anymore. It was one of the most boring books I've ever read in my entire life. There were only a couple interesting characters and of course they had the shortest sections in the book. I could saved myself the hassle and only read the 100 or so pages that were semi interesting. It was like a hugely boring history lesson (that isn't actually factual) that seemed to stretch on and on and on. I had to force myself to keep reading it and I wasn't even successful. I can't believe people read this book and then liked it enough to continue on to two (TWO!!) more books in the sereis. Also, why was this book in the science fiction section?!?