Editorial Review:

Amazon.com Review:
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

Product Description:


Quicksilver is the story of Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and conflicted Puritan, pursuing knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe, in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight.



It is a chronicle of the breathtaking exploits of "Half-Cocked Jack" Shaftoe -- London street urchin turned swashbuckling adventurer and legendary King of the Vagabonds -- risking life and limb for fortune and love while slowly maddening from the pox.



And it is the tale of Eliza, rescued by Jack from a Turkish harem to become spy, confidante, and pawn of royals in order to reinvent Europe through the newborn power of finance.



A gloriously rich, entertaining, and endlessly inventive novel that brings a remarkable age and its momentous events to vivid life, Quicksilver is an extraordinary achievement from one of the most original and important literary talents of our time.



And it's just the beginning ...

Reading this book made me fall in love with 17th and 18th century Europe, a period in history which I previously had little interest in. This book is a fun and exciting way to walk along the streets of Renaissance Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Vienna. I found the descriptions of the Netherlands to be amusing and very clever--at one point a character stores thousands of pounds of lead in his house, and the neighbors begin to notice because his house starts sinking into the ground and bringing the neighborhood with it!

With that said, I think Stephenson has something against writing a male character who is not a bumbling proto-nerd. I don't know if he has an inferiority complex himself around women or what, but I wouldn't mind seeing a male character who was both intelligent and socially competent. I've read his other books and this seems to be a common trend.

(As an aside, I enjoyed seeing him give a reading in person and hearing his descriptions of writing the first draft of this huge book free-hand, avoiding a word processor until later stages.)

Average Rating:

Rating: - A fun way to learn some history
Reading this book made me fall in love with 17th and 18th century Europe, a period in history which I previously had little interest in. This book is a fun and exciting way to walk along the streets of Renaissance Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Vienna. I found the descriptions of the Netherlands to be amusing and very clever--at one point a character stores thousands of pounds of lead in his house, and the neighbors begin to notice because his house starts sinking into the ground and bringing the neighborhood with it!

With that said, I think Stephenson has something against writing a male character who is not a bumbling proto-nerd. I don't know if he has an inferiority complex himself around women or what, but I wouldn't mind seeing a male character who was both intelligent and socially competent. I've read his other books and this seems to be a common trend.

(As an aside, I enjoyed seeing him give a reading in person and hearing his descriptions of writing the first draft of this huge book free-hand, avoiding a word processor until later stages.)

Rating: - Just what I was looking for...
Quicksilver was exactly what I was looking for this summer, it was in fact more than I'd hoped for.

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Rating: - Nearly Perfect Reading!
I am someone who doesn't like to read, just to read. I like to learn while I read. I read mostly historical fiction books, mixed with some pure fiction and lots of travel narratives. The Baroque Cycle has taken my love of history and travel and merged it into this beautiful, sometimes "seemingly" rambling, but always coherent masterpiece. There is no doubt that this is a long book. And it isn't "always" tight and interesting. It floats around a lot and I found myself reading several pages and wondering how the heck they got from one place to the next without any mention of the character moving from one locale to the other. But it works. Because even though this can be droll and long winded, this is the only way a book like this could have been written.

It reminds me of Amadeus. The 80s movie. The King of Austria is looking at Mozart after one of his operas and the king says "it has too many notes." To this, Mozart says, and I'm paraphrasing, "it has as many notes as is required. No more, no less." And this is the way I felt about Quicksilver. It doesn't have any more words than are needed in order to convey the time, the language, the monetary system, the thought and feelings of the characters, etc. It just so happens that it takes a lot of verbiage to describe these things. But Neal does it perfectly.

It is gaining ground as my favorite book/books of all time especially as I enter The Confusion. I look forward to the next 2,000 pages a great deal!

I highly recommend this long, gorgeous journey that is The Baroque Cycle.

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Rating: - Part 1 of a lengthy epic
This review will be much briefer than the actual book. If you are a fan of Neal Stephenson, then by all means pick up this book. If you are not yet acquainted with Neal Stephenson's work, then I suggest reading Snowcrash or especially Cryptonomicon as your first Stephenson books.

In a nutshell, Quicksilver and the subsequent books are sort of a family history of the Waterhouse and Shaftoe clans and their interrelation, and serves as a sort of prequel to Cryptonomicon. However, reading the Baroque Cycle is not necessary to enjoy Cryptonomicon.

Set during the late 17th and early 18th centuries the plot revolves around, among other things, the two Shaftoe brothers, Bob and Jack, a soldier and a vagabond; Daniel Waterhouse, friend to Isaac Newton, Natural Philosopher and member of the Royal Society; and Eliza, a former slave who rises to nobility while spying for William of Orange and brokering various financial transactions. All of this takes place during the period of European History plagued by, well, the Black Plague, Cromwell's conquering and losing of the English Crown, Louis XIV's reign in France and various other historical events.

It is an interesting story with sex, violence and intrigue, but it moves slowly at times and the lengthy sections of correspondence between Eliza and various other characters slows the pace down even further. But all in all, if historical fiction is something that interests you, then at the very least you should check it out of the library or borrow it from a friend and take it for a test drive before actually buying it.

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Rating: - Misses the mark
(Spoiler warning!)

I read and absolutely loved The Cryptonomicon. I had high hopes for Quicksilver but alas I was disappointed. While written in the same style as the Cryptonomicon the threads are too nebulous and fluid.

An example is that there's a lengthly section about silver mining and how a Natural Philosopher (scientist) and the enigmatic Enoch Root discover a way to economically coax silver from silver mine dregs. So the group travels to Amsterdam (or someplace, I forget) to get mercury, a necessary ingredient for the silver reclamation process. We never hear about it again, except for a single one-line reference 100 pages later.

The book is full of threads like this that go nowhere or are too subtle for my limited intellect.

Quicksilver just didn't gel for me.


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Related Items:

The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 2)

The System of the World (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 3)

Cryptonomicon

Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book)

Anathem

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