Quicksilver

Christina Schulman writes " Quicksilver, Volume One of the Baroque Cycle, is the new doorstop from Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon . It's set in late-seventeenth-century Europe, and while it has a few links to Cryptonomicon, you don't need to read Cryptonomicon first. A bit of background reading about the English Civil War wouldn't hurt, though." Schulman's review (below) is enough to whet the appetite, without major spoilers -- perfect for those of us who've been waiting since the end of Cryptonomicon for another 900 pages. Quicksilver: Volume One of the Baroque Cycle author Neal Stephenson pages 944 publisher William Morrow rating 9 reviewer Christina Schulman ISBN 0380977427 summary More than you ever wanted to know about the English Restoration and the invention of calculus, with lots of explosions, syphilis, and piracy thrown in for good measure.

First, let's make it clear that Quicksilver is not science fiction. It's historical fiction, occasionally about science, for people who like science fiction, i.e. geeks. It has math, optics, and vivisection, but no computers, no code, and no high-speed pizza delivery.

This is also not a book that gets anywhere quickly. It's 900-plus pages, and it's not padded so much as it is fractal. Stephenson wanders down side tracks, stages elaborate adventures and morality plays, explores philosophical issues and geometric proofs, assembles obscure puns, and drags in all manner of famous people and events, purely for his own amusement. Either you sit back and enjoy the game, or you hurl the book (with effort) at the wall somewhere in the first few hundred pages.

Daniel Waterhouse is a seventeenth-century geek; his father's a prominent associate of Oliver Cromwell, but Daniel's more interested in Natural Philosophy than in decapitating kings and Catholics. At Cambridge, he befriends Isaac Newton; later he becomes sort of a grad student and chief bottle-washer to the Royal Society. He starts out as naive observer of London politics, but over a few decades, gravitates into the intrigues of both the Court and the European intelligentsia. Just as Lawrence Waterhouse befriended Turing in Cryptonomicon, Daniel Waterhouse orbits Newton and Leibniz. It seems to be the fate of Waterhouse men to be brilliant thinkers eclipsed by the geniuses of their age.

Jack Shaftoe is a legend in his own time, a thief and mercenary who propels himself around Europe on sheer balls and avarice. He bumbles into and out of ridiculous scrapes, including an ostrich-chase at the Siege of Vienna that results in his rescue of the slave-girl Eliza from a Turkish harem. Eliza's business savvy draws the pair back across Europe to Amsterdam, where Eliza becomes entwined in both the Dutch stock exchange and the court of Versailles.

Cryptonomicon readers will remember the improbably long-lived Enoch Root, who shows up occasionally to nudge the plot along. Most of the story takes place between 1655 and 1689, but it opens with Enoch in Massachusetts in 1713, interrupting Daniel's efforts to found MIT by presenting him with a summons from England. Daniel spends the next several weeks being chased around Plymouth Bay by the pirate Blackbeard, only to have his plot thread left dangling with no apologies. Either it will be picked up in the sequel, or Stephenson is attaining a new degree of sadism.

Where Cryptonomicon was about secrecy and deception, Quicksilver is about revealing the hidden and the unknown, and the free dispersal of ideas and money. Stephenson uses quicksilver as an unsubtle symbol of the scientific discovery that was beginning to percolate through the known world. He highlights the dichotomy between the religious viewpoint, of a world that began in perfect knowledge and order and has steadily decayed since the Fall, and the scientific viewpoint, of a chaotic world that is slowly being brought into order and the reach of understanding. Much of this understanding was accomplished through the efforts and correspondence of the Royal Society, which operated in a state of excitement, enthusiasm, and confidence that they would decipher the mechanisms of nature: an attitude not unlike that of the dot-com startup era, but fueled more by wonder and less by naked greed.

Lesser writers dump blocks of expository prose into the narrative; Stephenson shamelessly shovels it into his dialogue. As a result, much of the dialogue is stilted, and the banter is painfully odd. You get used to it. Some bits are more blatant than others, such as a dialogue between Waterhouse and Newton and a Jewish prism-merchant, in which Stephenson trots out a brief overview of European coinage of the time, while cycling through a catalogue of synonyms for "Jew."

So, is Quicksilver worth the effort? On the one hand, it's an insightful look at both the Scientific Revolution and the Glorious Revolution. On the other hand, it's got plague, pirates, astronomy, sex, explosions, daring rescues, religious strife, and the profound effect on European history of stockbrokers and syphilis. It's a terrific book, but don't expect it to resemble Stephenson's prior books in anything but ambition and length.

You can purchase Quicksilver from bn.com -- the official release date is September 23rd. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Display some adaptability.

[thud2000]

Words to live by. This sort of became my personal motto after reading Cryptonomicon. When things get crazy at work, I just think to myself, "What would Shaftoe do?" Display some adaptability, that's what.

Familiar...

[gowen]

Historical fiction in which a man who embodies Scientific Thought clashes with relgious zealots against the background of social upheaval in Western Europe. Contains lengthy divergent sections dealing with strands of physics, mathematics, theology and sex.

I think Stephenson has been reading a lot of Umberto Eco (either "Name of the Rose" or "Foucault's Pendulum") recently.

It's a ridiculously contrived plot device,

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't agree more. The idea of two generations of the same families coincidentally bumping into each other after 50 years totally ruined Cryptonomicon. Don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan of surreal plot elements. That is, if they are in surreal novels.

Unfortunately Cryptonomicon was a sci-fi novel, which implies that amazing coincidences don't happen unless there's a good reason. Overall, I thought he made some very odd choices, as compared to his earlier work like "Snow Crash" and "Diamond Age". Perhaps Stephenson was aiming for something like the stream-of-consciousness "Gravity's Rainbow"?

BN Link

[corby]

You can purchase Quicksilver from bn.com

When you embed a sourceId into the link, it is reasonably ethical to disclose who will be the beneficiary of the referral.

Eco Book

[scrotch]

This description reminds me of Umberto Eco's "The Island of the Day Before". Eco's book is set in the 1600s and revolves around the search for a method to measure longitude during war and political and religious intrigue.

Maybe if you like this Stephenson book, you'll like that. Eco's books tend to be a little smarter than most people enjoy, however.

I'll pass

[eyegone]

It sounds like Stephenson is turning into Thomas Pynchon.

DFW

[xmutex]

If you're going to work through 900+ pages of a novel, may I also suggest David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest?

Neal would be proud of you.

Re:Hallelujah, Stephenson is back!

[Judg3]

I wouldn't run to the bookstore just yet, afaik it isn't out until tomorrow. I can't wait to pick it up - I'm trying to get a nice hardcover Stephenson library going, and this will be a great addition.

900 pages? Again?

[realmolo]

I liked Snow Crash- I didn't even mind the "non-ending". I also liked Zodiac. But both the Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon left me...bored. Stephenson apparently has decided that he'd rather show-off all his historical research than tell an interesting story.

Re:Looking forward... mostly

[Have Blue]

You do realize that all that stuff about neurolinguistic hackers was fictional? And that there will inevitably be untrue statements involved when fiction references historical fact? This is like demanding archaeological evidence of Middle Earth.

Stephenson

[Dan Weaver]

Stephenson is a really excellent author. Although I'm usually left a bit unsatisfied by his books' endings - particularly Diamond Age - this may only be because at the end of his books I wish there were still five hundred pages to go! He is particularly good at populating his worlds with characters who are, for lack of a better phrase, really exceptionally cool. I can't think of any other author whose characters reach a comparable level of out-and-out badassitude - Gibson doesn't even come close.

I also think that he pressents some interesting and worthwhile takes on politics and modern society, particularly in his portrayal of the faithful. Traditional religion and social conservatism often end up dismissed and/or mocked in scientific and technical communities, but Stephenson manages to present them in a new light and to depict a world where faith and appreciation of traditional values does not necessarily mean intolerance or being terminally lame. :) He is able to present versions of morality and faith that are at once true to their roots and capable of thriving in the modern world. Examples that spring to mind are his descriptions of Juanita's efforts to reinvigorate Catholicism in Snow Crash, his depiction of Avi in Cryptonomicon, and the long homage to Victorianism and Midwestern America that is Diamond Age.

Science Fiction Definitions

[sielwolf]

First, let's make it clear that Quicksilver is not science fiction. It's historical fiction, occasionally about science, for people who like science fiction, i.e. geeks. It has math, optics, and vivisection, but no computers, no code, and no high-speed pizza delivery.

Personally this does sound like SF. Merriam-Webster describes SF as "fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual or imagined science on society or individuals or having a scientific factor as an essential orienting component." Futuristic elements to the science is a common trait, but not a defining characteristic. So Quicksilver is pure SF just like William Gibson's Pattern Recognition is SF, even though its just dealing with meme-passing and culture creation. Heck, a caveman perfecting the flint spear with an atl-atl is SF. The interaction of man and science is the key, not the nature of the science itself.

stephenson endings...

[klocwerk]

I like his endings.
He flies right up to the brink and then stops the car. Apparently most slashdotties have their seatbelts on. I like to leave mine off and fly off that cliff.
He gives you so much to chew on with his endings. plenty of space for "what if..."
I always remember his books far longer than most simply BECAUSE it's not all spelled out for you in detail.

How did Randy read Japanese plaintext?

[Jammer@CMH]

WARNING: Cryptonomicon spoiler. If you have not read Cryptonomicon, please skip the rest of this comment.

I loved Cryptonomicon, but there was one little thing bugging me. When Randy, in jail, decrypts the WWII radio transmissions that mentioned the location of Golgotha, why did that message have English plaintext? Wouldn't the Japanese have used Japanese, which Randy does not speak?

The only 3 reasons that I can think of are: 1) Mr. Stephenson didn't want to confuse the reader by switching languages, the crypto was potentially confusing enough, 2) The messages were sent by the Conspiracy, in English, and I didn't notice that in my reading, 3) Mr. Stephenson made a mistake.

Reason #2 seems most likely to me, but I didn't get that from reading. Do you, dear Shashdotters, have any insight?

Re:Cryptonomicon sucks, anyone else agree?

[bartlog]

And yet, I really liked Cryptonomicon and thought that all of the Dune books except the first one sucked. No arguing with taste, clearly. Unfortunately my memory of the works is not sharp enough to go on at length as to why I liked Cryptonomicon but not the later Dune books, but I doubt my reasons would be all that enlightening anyway... some like Stephenson and some don't...

Re:I still don't get cryptomoncomonmon

[drinkypoo]

Look, Neal is a wanker. He wanks on for however many pages he feels like and then cuts it off sharp and sweet. But the fact is, he's the most amusing and well-written wanker writing anything today, he really has a grasp on how to write amusing and current prose. It's almost like you crossed William Gibson with a smart, funny person, because (compare: though) the style is completely different. So it may be wankery, but it's really damned entertaining.

So if you're expecting deep substance (though some deep thought obviously went into snow crash, and some care went into zodiac, and by the way the Bury books - nice marketing tactic Neal - are quite interesting) then maybe you'll want to skip this book, maybe not, certainly I can see why it would make you dislike Cryptonomicon. But it's a fast, entertaining ride, it's the kind of thing that would make a good movie for geeks. In fact I'd say the majority of Stephenson's books fit the basic requirements for a movie. They have some filler which you could strip out completely, or (much better idea) allude to. They have unique, interesting characters, though the reasons some of them are interesting are pure geek fodder, so you'd have to make them pretty people. They have chase scenes, love interests, good guys, bad guys, causes, struggles, blah blah blah.

Re:*which* English Civil War?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Britain did in fact win that struggle in the long run.

Since Britain has gone from #1 global superpower to a third world shit hole, I'd say Britain lost in the long run.

You were rightly modded down as a troll, but your response brings up a couple of points worth addressing. First, Britain is a long way from a "third world shithole;" the standard of living there is roughly equivalent to that in the US (slightly better in some ways, slightly worse in others, but none of the differences are really all that significant.) Second, and more important: for a century and a half after losing the American Revolution, Britain ran an empire which was larger and more prosperous than any other in history, before or since; that's a pretty good run, and one which I doubt the US (I'm almost sure you're an American) will equal. The American empire has lasted sixty years, more or less, and now looks a whole lot like the British empire in its final days.

In the long long run, everybody loses. But London's turn at running the world was the most successful since Rome's.