• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Neal Stephenson: Quicksilver

HermioneWeasley

HermioneWeasley

Member
I'm quite surprised there isn't a thread about this yet. I"m about halfway through this book and really intrigued - can't wait to finish it and start the other two! I admit, for the first 200 pages or so, it was slow going, with some interesting moments but a lot I had to drudge through. But part two is incredibly funny, entertaining and intriguing. I love that Stephenson's language is more or less sophisticated without being superfluous and showy, and the slightly cynical perspective on most of the 17th century (where supposedly mathematics, science and all those wonderful things were invented) is quite catchy.

So, what were your thoughts? Favorite characters/parts? Suggestions for similar books?

I'd have to say for now Jack and Eliza tie as my favorite characters. Even if, as people, they would be irritating, as characters they are extremely attractive(no, I don't have a crush. For about the first time, I actually like a character for his...character).

p.s. Neal Stephenson is currently doing a tour. Has anyone gone? He's coming to my town on Tuesday, I plane to meet him then.
 
I have the whole series but haven't started it yet. I've heard great things about it and have just been waiting for the right time to start.

I'd love to go go see him but no cool authors come into my neck of the woods or when they do I am out of town. Oh well.

Hermione, have you read Cryptonomicon? The Baroque Cycle is very loosely a prequel to it since it features ancestors of the some of the main characters in Cryptonomicon.
 
I thought it overall fairly spectacular, a tad bloated perhaps in places but then I wouldn't personally know where to cut back so perhaps not. Hugely ambitious and I think underrated.

I wouldn't personally call it SF actually, but Neal Stephenson has said he regards it as such and who am I to disagree with him?
 
I am great fan of Neal Stephenson's. So of course I have started the Quicksilver series and I am very intrigued as well - but I keep getting stuck. Lots of things I enjoy in a book are there: a feel for life in a different age (different ages, actually), lots of accurate details, there is much debate of science, history and progress etc. and an intricate storyline with lots of characters - much like in Cryptonomicom, which I loved. It's just that here the story seems to go to sleep on numerous occasions.

But I have not given up yet!

Has anybody ever finished the entire series?
 
I am like obsessed with Neal Stephenson, but this is my least favorite book of his, but then again I didn't get through the first 200 pages, so maybe I should try agian? I'll finish Cryptonomicon first though.
 
I'm a few hundred pages into both Quicksilver and Cryptonomicon. Only Cryptonomicon is waiting for me; Quicksilver is definitely not. :confused:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top