Active Users:1229 Time:25/12/2024 07:10:43 AM
Re: Not much to add Camilla Send a noteboard - 10/02/2011 07:56:23 AM
Overall I really liked the trilogy, and I think Stephenson managed to keep it moving in enough directions to keep it fresh and interesting to the end.

I had read his excellent Cryptonomicon - partly set during WWII, partly set in modern day Seattle and also a lot in present day Pacific area and Australia when it came out (the blurb looked to interesting to pass), and I was very surprised by this "prequel". Not the sort of direction I expected a writer of a sophisticated socio-techno thriller to take, but it was a very pleasant surprise - and it was good fun, and a good idea, to present many characters who are ancestors of those in Cryptonomicon (the Shaftoes, Eliza and most of all Watherhouse etc - and even more original to have a genuine recurring character in a "realistic" book like this). Some parts were a bit longuish, some parts like someone who've read too much Pepy's Journal or De Foe's book on the plage, or Braudel's trilogy on European early modern material life and economy (some stuff is even recognizably inspired by anecdotes and facts found notably in Braudel's) but I must credit Stephenson for making me care for the science and history of sciences in his novels. Not my cup of tea usually, but with him it was a problem at all and even lead me to start reading on the topic afterward.


I have yet to read Cryptonomicon, but I imagine I will pick it up at some point. I knew the characters in the Baroque Cycle were ancestors. In fact, I am slightly regretting not reading Cryptonomicon first, as I really enjoy the feeling of finding out something that has gone before something I have read (like reading Silmarillion after Lord of the Rings.

I remember having had some reservations on his depiction of Louis XV's court and the French characters later on, but nothing book breaking, just an outsider's perspective, I guess, as he otherwise has used some facts from Louis XV's time about which most people who aren't historians know only generalities (details on Le Secret du Roy and what it was involved in, notably).


Louis XIV?

But yes, I had some issues there. I put it down to me having read Dumas, and that I couldn't help comparing.

You might want to either wait or do some research on your own about Eliza's codes (Stephenson likes to make you work a bit, but then helps after a while). It's been a long time since I've read the books, but if I remember correctly, start with some basic documentation on Baroque cryptography (French and Italian, notably) and then jump quite ahead to find out the details of a code like hers, as Eliza's codes are intentionally quite ahead of her time (her descendants too will be crypto geniuses... both in WWII and during the recent techno boom) Stephenson is just going back further in the BQ in the history of cryptology - it's a major plot element of his previous novel, where the plot centered a lot on this. Her talent for codes continues to play a role in the plot of the BQ, and I think it's better explained later (you might even say you might not like Stephenson to go on too much at length about cryptography!)


Well, I got the general idea, I think, but I cannot really see how it is workable at all. This makes me wonder whether I have completely misunderstood. I am not surprised her children will be crypto geniuses, considering their parentage.

A minor downside is that after a while those who've read a lot of history start seing him coming from afar. It gets pretty obvious what well-known developments, facts, events etc. he's going after, and what sort of fictional elements he might build around those events, but even then it never bored me.


Well, yes.

It's probaly the contemporary historical novel that I found the most marking and fun since it came out, perhaps aside from Rita Monaldi and her husband's series (Imprimatur, Secretum, Veritas etc.), which was even more fun and also very well researched (a lot more about arts and politics - and secret agents again).


I am not a great fan of contemporary historical novels. I came across too many disappointing ones when I was a kid, and so I drifted into a division of literature and history as two things to read separately.
*MySmiley*
structured procrastinator
Reply to message
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson (book one of The Baroque Cycle) - 08/02/2011 12:32:41 PM 9978 Views
I agree with most of your points - 08/02/2011 05:12:51 PM 1930 Views
I own it. - 08/02/2011 10:57:55 PM 1555 Views
That's the only cover i've seen for it, although wikipedia tells me this is the original one: - 08/02/2011 11:50:51 PM 1910 Views
Don't have that one either. - 09/02/2011 12:23:44 AM 1538 Views
That's the version I have. - 09/02/2011 09:27:56 PM 1504 Views
Re: That's the version I have. - 09/02/2011 10:05:10 PM 1559 Views
I had that one. - 09/02/2011 09:14:21 PM 1567 Views
Possibly the British cover - 09/02/2011 05:54:33 AM 1536 Views
A fat guy playing a banjo and standing on fire? - 09/02/2011 10:08:52 PM 1592 Views
You mean Mercury? - 09/02/2011 10:21:58 PM 1501 Views
Re: You mean Mercury? - 09/02/2011 10:48:52 PM 1501 Views
Not much to add - 09/02/2011 11:54:28 PM 1880 Views
Re: Not much to add - 10/02/2011 07:56:23 AM 1828 Views

Reply to Message