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Loading... Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)by Neal StephensonSeries: The Baroque Cycle (Vol. I, Books 1-3)
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. I love this whole series. This was so interesting it had me hooked from the very beginning. Jack is a great character with stuff to carry the interst throughout the other two books. (  ) trinibaby9 | Nov 24, 2009 |  Gave up on this book. Boring and tortuous reading. (  )1  |  simondavies | Sep 30, 2009 | Wonderful piece of historical function set in the 17th century world of Newton, Leibnitz, Hooke, Boyle and Wren and the start of the Royal Society. Stephenson manages to tell a good tale, inform with the historic setting, while teasing a little about what is going to happen next – in the other two door-stoppers of this series. His lead characters, Jack and Eliza, are believable as 17th century characters, without being locked into the limitations of the period. Read October 2008. ( ) mbmackay | Aug 30, 2009 | Detailed but turgid: I had great expectations for this book, having read all of Neal Stephenson's previous books, but was disappointed by this. Although he has obviously invested immense hours in research, the book comes across as stiff and overly ornate - much like baroque design.In particular, Stephenson's smart-alecky dialogue, that worked to great effect in Snow Crash, is merely grating here, as are the anachronisms that the characters utter from time to time.As for the characters themselves, I found it very difficult to care about any of them, which made it very difficult to involve myself in the story.I really had to wonder what the benefit was of creating a gargantuan work that appeared to say so little; as if mere volume could substitute for depth. 1 iayork | Aug 9, 2009 | c.pergiel | Jun 13, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0060593083, Paperback)In Quicksilver, the first volume of the "Baroque Cycle," Neal Stephenson launches his most ambitious work to date. The novel, divided into three books, opens in 1713 with the ageless Enoch Root seeking Daniel Waterhouse on the campus of what passes for MIT in eighteenth-century Massachusetts. Daniel, Enoch's message conveys, is key to resolving an explosive scientific battle of preeminence between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over the development of calculus. As Daniel returns to London aboard the Minerva, readers are catapulted back half a century to recall his years at Cambridge with young Isaac. Daniel is a perfect historical witness. Privy to Robert Hooke's early drawings of microscope images and with associates among the English nobility, religious radicals, and the Royal Society, he also befriends Samuel Pepys, risks a cup of coffee, and enjoys a lecture on Belgian waffles and cleavage-—all before the year 1700.In the second book, Stephenson introduces Jack Shaftoe and Eliza. "Half-Cocked" Jack (also know as the "King of the Vagabonds") recovers the English Eliza from a Turkish harem. Fleeing the siege of Vienna, the two journey across Europe driven by Eliza's lust for fame, fortune, and nobility. Gradually, their circle intertwines with that of Daniel in the third book of the novel. The book courses with Stephenson's scholarship but is rarely bogged down in its historical detail. Stephenson is especially impressive in his ability to represent dialogue over the evolving worldview of seventeenth-century scientists and enliven the most abstruse explanation of theory. Though replete with science, the novel is as much about the complex struggles for political ascendancy and the workings of financial markets. Further, the novel's literary ambitions match its physical size. Stephenson narrates through epistolary chapters, fragments of plays and poems, journal entries, maps, drawings, genealogic tables, and copious contemporary epigrams. But, caught in this richness, the prose is occasionally neglected and wants editing. Further, anticipating a cycle, the book does not provide a satisfying conclusion to its 900 pages. These are minor quibbles, though. Stephenson has matched ambition to execution, and his faithful, durable readers will be both entertained and richly rewarded with a practicum in Baroque science, cypher, culture, and politics. --Patrick O'Kelley (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:53 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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