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lauderbaugh's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
3.25
greaydean's review against another edition
4.0
While this is the hardcover edition (I used to own), I did not actually read it. I had the unabridged version from audible (read to me).
Excellent. Extravagant detail. Neal loves to tell a story. One after another. Witty and wise. Alluding to today and reflecting on the past. Sometimes, the story is just a story and could be considered boring. But Neal alone has preserved storytelling while other authors chase thrill and kill.
Excellent. Extravagant detail. Neal loves to tell a story. One after another. Witty and wise. Alluding to today and reflecting on the past. Sometimes, the story is just a story and could be considered boring. But Neal alone has preserved storytelling while other authors chase thrill and kill.
bret's review against another edition
4.0
I don't actually recommend trying to read this immense trilogy(?) to anyone who hasn't already exhausted his other books (minus Zodiac) and you can rate at least one of them (maybe 2?) in your top 5. It's incredible, smart, detailed, and I'm glad I read it but wow did it take a long time to finish.
If you decide to do it, I wish you luck!
If you decide to do it, I wish you luck!
mjt26's review against another edition
challenging
funny
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
mnapoleon's review
3.0
Only giving it a 3 because I can't remember if I really liked it or disliked it.
jason_ell's review against another edition
3.0
Stephenson at his sloggiest. This trilogy is full of interesting ideas and storytelling but it's also just so full of diversions and long-winded chapters of so little.
dawn_marie's review against another edition
1.0
DNF - I got about 200 pages in and just quit; I simply could not become engaged in [b:Quicksilver|823|Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, #1)|Neal Stephenson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1377095669l/823._SY75_.jpg|1610031] by [a:Neal Stephenson|545|Neal Stephenson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1430920344p2/545.jpg] despite being assured that this book was "right my my alley" and to "give it time" . . . it wasn't and I did.
My biggest issue I had with the novel with Mr. Stephenson's meandering, often dense, into the weeds narrative . . . I find myself getting bored and not at all invested in the characters, plot (when there was one to be found), or environment. I've come to the realization that Mr. Stehpenson's writing sytle does not "speak" to me and his work is just not going to be something I enjoy.
My biggest issue I had with the novel with Mr. Stephenson's meandering, often dense, into the weeds narrative . . . I find myself getting bored and not at all invested in the characters, plot (when there was one to be found), or environment. I've come to the realization that Mr. Stehpenson's writing sytle does not "speak" to me and his work is just not going to be something I enjoy.
bluestjuice's review against another edition
3.0
Go look up a townscape painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Go do it, I'll wait. That level of intricacy, complication, detail, richness? It's the best metaphor I can come up with for Quicksilver.
I read this in several chunks, over a span of ten months. It's enormous. It's not overly burdened by the weight of its plot: which is not to say that it has none, but rather that what plot it has meanders hither and yon and pauses for lengthy interludes and is none too interested in such mundanities as narrative arc. This is historical fiction, but the history is emphasized much more than the fiction, and even the history is really only there as a convenient reason to introduce musings on topics so varied and seemingly tangential that it can take awhile to notice that really, they are the point of the book. Stephenson loves to write about what he loves to know about, and if you can tolerate the mannerism, much of what he has to say is illuminating or fascinating or absolutely entertaining. It can also, in the right mood, be maddening, baffling, confusing, and make it impossible to engage in his story. In the vast span of time I spent dealing with (or sometimes, at length, specifically-not-dealing-with) this book, I experienced all these reactions and more.
Perversely, it's now at the finishing of it that I'm most charmed by its idiosyncratic personality. Like a prisoner with Stockholm Syndrome, I rationalize: I could absolutely pick up the next book in the series. Parts of this book were absolutely grand! Let us just forget about all those nights I slogged painfully through a few scant pages, barely keeping my eyes open, because the topic of the hour didn't happen to capture my attention. Let me internalize any fault standing between this work of incontrovertible genius and my enjoyment of it: if I found it dull or difficult or uninteresting at any time, let us assume it is because I am not sufficiently intelligent or a sophisticated-enough reader. Let me take another dosage as a penance, an effort to elevate my mind, and trust nothing to my discernment as a reader of literature.
Or, not. Instead, despite my inclination to push onward, I'm going to at the very least take a good long break and read some other sort of work. Quicksilver is a very particular literary experience, and I enjoyed parts of it very much. I think it is a much better piece of writing than you would credit it with, to judge by my three-star rating. I have tried to balance my judgement of the work with my enjoyment of it as a reader, but in the end I have weighted my enjoyment more, because these ratings are a display of the books I like as well as what books I think have merit. Quicksilver is great, but like Breugel paintings, their composition is less to me than the sum of their parts. I could look at them endlessly but would not care to hang them on my wall.
I read this in several chunks, over a span of ten months. It's enormous. It's not overly burdened by the weight of its plot: which is not to say that it has none, but rather that what plot it has meanders hither and yon and pauses for lengthy interludes and is none too interested in such mundanities as narrative arc. This is historical fiction, but the history is emphasized much more than the fiction, and even the history is really only there as a convenient reason to introduce musings on topics so varied and seemingly tangential that it can take awhile to notice that really, they are the point of the book. Stephenson loves to write about what he loves to know about, and if you can tolerate the mannerism, much of what he has to say is illuminating or fascinating or absolutely entertaining. It can also, in the right mood, be maddening, baffling, confusing, and make it impossible to engage in his story. In the vast span of time I spent dealing with (or sometimes, at length, specifically-not-dealing-with) this book, I experienced all these reactions and more.
Perversely, it's now at the finishing of it that I'm most charmed by its idiosyncratic personality. Like a prisoner with Stockholm Syndrome, I rationalize: I could absolutely pick up the next book in the series. Parts of this book were absolutely grand! Let us just forget about all those nights I slogged painfully through a few scant pages, barely keeping my eyes open, because the topic of the hour didn't happen to capture my attention. Let me internalize any fault standing between this work of incontrovertible genius and my enjoyment of it: if I found it dull or difficult or uninteresting at any time, let us assume it is because I am not sufficiently intelligent or a sophisticated-enough reader. Let me take another dosage as a penance, an effort to elevate my mind, and trust nothing to my discernment as a reader of literature.
Or, not. Instead, despite my inclination to push onward, I'm going to at the very least take a good long break and read some other sort of work. Quicksilver is a very particular literary experience, and I enjoyed parts of it very much. I think it is a much better piece of writing than you would credit it with, to judge by my three-star rating. I have tried to balance my judgement of the work with my enjoyment of it as a reader, but in the end I have weighted my enjoyment more, because these ratings are a display of the books I like as well as what books I think have merit. Quicksilver is great, but like Breugel paintings, their composition is less to me than the sum of their parts. I could look at them endlessly but would not care to hang them on my wall.
rebcamuse's review against another edition
3.0
I really need to preface this with the following: This was probably not a good choice as an audiobook. So, please know that this rating might be much better if I had read the print version--I hope. Visual tedium doesn't bother me nearly as much as aural tedium, so with that out of the way...
I had heard some good things about Neal Stephenson's books, and as someone who enjoys historical fiction, and is a music historian, I thought this initial volume of The Baroque Cycle would be a "no-brainer" (of a choice). The story is immeasurably creative and inspired, taking place in both in 1713 and in flashbacks some 40 years earlier. The protagonist--not the right word-- is Daniel Waterhouse, a ex-Puritan scientist ("natural philosopher"), who is living in Massachusetts Bay Colony and is on board a ship (the Minerva) headed back to England to resolve one of the many intellectual disputes which seem to have been the lifeblood of thinking men in the eighteenth century. And yes, the cronies of the Royal Society and the illustrious historical figures are names that Stephenson whisks out of the history books and into his drama: Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, Robert Hooke...just to name a few. The droll humor was the saving grace and largely what had me coming back to finish.
Where I struggled were the long passages of historical minutiae which seemed utterly superfluous to the story and very much an attempt to show Stephenson's immense research and knowledge of the time period. A discussion of coinage, for example, added very little to the story, and was one of the most tedious things I have ever listened to within the context of a piece of fiction. Encyclopedic detail has a place, and I prefer it to historical fictions that are so absurd as to be unethical, but historical fiction is still literature and I felt there were far too many moments where the "plot" came to halting stop to luxuriate (fixate) upon some historical icon of progress.
On the other hand, there are clever moments where Stephenson shines as an author: the discussion between John Wilkins and Daniel Waterhouse regarding redundancies in the philosophical language they are creating is subtly mirrored in Wilkins running to write something down and grabbing his quill, and shaking off the "redundant" ink. Ha!
About halfway through I felt perhaps I was doing this book a real disservice by listening to it instead of reading it, and it made me think about modalities. I have the privilege of choice here, and I'm wondering if I didn't, perhaps I would not have found the book so tedious. The failing may be mine, because even when I was frustrated with rabbit holes of endless details, I had a sense that there is a brilliance to what Stephenson has created here. In amongst all the self-indulgent navel gazing (of the characters), there is a coming-of-age story, a seafaring adventure story, a recasting of historical figures (Newton as a masochistic emaciated brat was essential), and the more traditional history-as-scenic-backdrop moves (the Great Fire of London, the bubonic plague) that Stephenson does more justice to than most.
Listening to the book was an experience--and while it wasn't altogether joyful or pleasurable, I came away from it wanting to pick up the next volume in print. I respected and enjoyed Stephenson's ability to enliven historical narratives with multi-dimensional perspectives and wit, to boot.
I had heard some good things about Neal Stephenson's books, and as someone who enjoys historical fiction, and is a music historian, I thought this initial volume of The Baroque Cycle would be a "no-brainer" (of a choice). The story is immeasurably creative and inspired, taking place in both in 1713 and in flashbacks some 40 years earlier. The protagonist--not the right word-- is Daniel Waterhouse, a ex-Puritan scientist ("natural philosopher"), who is living in Massachusetts Bay Colony and is on board a ship (the Minerva) headed back to England to resolve one of the many intellectual disputes which seem to have been the lifeblood of thinking men in the eighteenth century. And yes, the cronies of the Royal Society and the illustrious historical figures are names that Stephenson whisks out of the history books and into his drama: Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, Robert Hooke...just to name a few. The droll humor was the saving grace and largely what had me coming back to finish.
Where I struggled were the long passages of historical minutiae which seemed utterly superfluous to the story and very much an attempt to show Stephenson's immense research and knowledge of the time period. A discussion of coinage, for example, added very little to the story, and was one of the most tedious things I have ever listened to within the context of a piece of fiction. Encyclopedic detail has a place, and I prefer it to historical fictions that are so absurd as to be unethical, but historical fiction is still literature and I felt there were far too many moments where the "plot" came to halting stop to luxuriate (fixate) upon some historical icon of progress.
On the other hand, there are clever moments where Stephenson shines as an author: the discussion between John Wilkins and Daniel Waterhouse regarding redundancies in the philosophical language they are creating is subtly mirrored in Wilkins running to write something down and grabbing his quill, and shaking off the "redundant" ink. Ha!
About halfway through I felt perhaps I was doing this book a real disservice by listening to it instead of reading it, and it made me think about modalities. I have the privilege of choice here, and I'm wondering if I didn't, perhaps I would not have found the book so tedious. The failing may be mine, because even when I was frustrated with rabbit holes of endless details, I had a sense that there is a brilliance to what Stephenson has created here. In amongst all the self-indulgent navel gazing (of the characters), there is a coming-of-age story, a seafaring adventure story, a recasting of historical figures (Newton as a masochistic emaciated brat was essential), and the more traditional history-as-scenic-backdrop moves (the Great Fire of London, the bubonic plague) that Stephenson does more justice to than most.
Listening to the book was an experience--and while it wasn't altogether joyful or pleasurable, I came away from it wanting to pick up the next volume in print. I respected and enjoyed Stephenson's ability to enliven historical narratives with multi-dimensional perspectives and wit, to boot.
cwebb's review against another edition
5.0
http://www.weberseite.at/buecher/quicksilver-neal-stephenson/