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Neal Stephenson's The Confusion Released
Jon Lasser writes "Neal Stephenson's 'The Confusion', second volume of his Baroque Cycle is released today. I received an advance copy and have a book review up here. The hypertext site for the trilogy is here. The short review: if you liked 'Quicksilver', this one is better; if you didn't, don't bother."
I'm confused, usually there's some long review of a book, followed by the FP! and GNAA posts, along with the 'cheaper at Amazon' links. This thread is different, at least for the time being.
CVsb
free ipod and free gmail!
I loved Cryptonomicon. It was a page turner all the way through. I got bored with Quicksilver half way thru. I liked the parts that involved Newton and other real scientists, but when the fictional characters went off on their own it got complicated and boring. I never finished it.
thats probably just me.
Maybe it was a Kill Bill style 'why not make them buy it three times?' marketing move.
> Neal Stephenson's 'The Confusion', second volume of his Baroque Cycle is released today.
Wasn't it planned to be released on April 1st?
...richie - It is a good day to code.
snowcrash?
Easy way to make cash if you're Cowboy Neal:
- Write a book titled "Stephenson".
- The book cover should say in big letters:
Cowboy
Neal
Stephenson
- Cash in on people who think this is "Cowboy" from Neal Stephenson.
Is it just me or did that book review seem confusing.
I'm pretty sure the author didn't pass high school English, with all the tangents and non flowing structure.
He'd get no more than a C for that one from me.
...was slowsilver, The Confusion will be literal.
I must be out of the loop here, but can someone explain to me why this is front page news?
- 04.11.2004: White House Releases President Bush's Personal Copy of Declassified Daily Intelligence Briefing for August 6th, 2001:
It's funny cause it's true."I know the American people will agree I did the right thing, when after reading that ridiculously vague memo filled with specific references to an al Qaeda attack, I promptly skipped town for thirty fun-filled days of golf, jogging, and naps!"
P
free ipod and free gmail!
Wasn't Kilgore Trout from the Soldier of Fortune tv series?
In The Confusion, Newton's homosexuality becomes a plot point.
Slashdot has a lot of interesting readers who, because they aren't tied up in the mostly non-functional reviewing world, can contribute interesting takes on whatever's come out. Online and off, most of the book reviews are either LCD "here is a book about stuff neither of us understand", or unmitigated love-ins where authors review each other in a mutual backscratch.
I would hate to see people stop writing reviews for first post on slashdot, and I would hate to see slashdot stop supporting its own review culture.
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
does stuff blow up?
Drinking habits can be dangerous. You can choke on the cloth and the nuns will wonder where their clothes are.
I loved all of Stephenson's books, except for Quicksilver.
/. came as a surprise to me.
To tell you how bad, seeing this post on
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
Well, i guess since it's a trilogy, this will actually give stephenson an excuse for a book to not have an ending.
Steven V.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
The boy is in need of a good editor. His 1000 page books are more like 500 page books with lots of flab.
And the endings... they're usually so awful that I can almost feel the author cringing as he types. Its like he runs out of steam and then can't figure out an ending, so he says "oh, the diesel fuel burns and melts the gold". Its a total surrender to laziness.
Maybe if he cut out the description of dive tables he could muster up the energy for a good ending.
Stephenson makes great use of speculative history. He postulates some great "what if" scenarios arising from past events and uses them to weave an alternative present. He always succeeds in grabbing my attention. And then -- and then his male protagonist tries to talk to a woman. And that is where his novels fall apart. His dialog does not ring true. Every conversation sounds contrived. I think it's supposed to be banter, but it's just stilted. Is it any wonder he chose the name "Eliza" for the female protagonist in Quicksilver?
You're being completely disingenuous. It's a complete myth that everything in a novel needs to play a part in the 'story'. One could just as easily ask the question "why are you mentioning homosexuality when the books contain all sorts of othe rmaterial that aren't crucial to the story?". But that's an easy one to answer, you have a homophobia problem.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
That more people didn't like Quicksilver. I thought it was excellent and am really looking forward to reading the Confusion. Since I don't know much about European history, the history itself made the book very interesting.
The Confusion is out ? Well, then, Hail Eris ! Or something...
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Does this book have a plot?
That would be a good start.
I've seen a number of posters commenting on the weightiness of Cryptonomicon and Quicksilver (which I have yet to read).
If you are not familiar with Stephenson and want a brief introduction, I recommend Zodiac. It's a quick, entertaining page-turner that can be read in one sitting but still gives you a pretty good feel for his writing.
Sort of like Neal Stephenson Lite
The Dalai Llama
... absolutely loved Interface and didn't find out Stephenson wrote it until a month ago on /. ...
My sig could be your sig!
the more important question is... Does it support OGG?
I'm assuming you mean you don't know who Neal Stephenson is, and/or why his work should be interesting to /. readers. His famous Snow Crash is a novel with about half its storyline taking place in a higher-tech cyberspace. Various other NS works and activities put him on /. readership radar, including his non-fiction "In The Beginning Was The Command-line..." (in which he espouses Linux with the memorable analogy with the Hole Hawg) and his novels dealing with the favorite post-cyberpunk theme of The Impact of Technology on Society (tm). I'm a fan, have read most of the novels, and even got all the way through QuickSilver. If any of this interests you, I'd recommend starting with Snow Crash for the fiction, and I think you can find some of his non-fiction on the Web. Btw, his Cryptonomicon was "echt geek", with a pretty good story and another memorable character (Bobby Shaftoe).
Except for the part about being true.
I'm completely off-topic, but I'm gonna get this out there in this thread anyway: the notion of a presidential vacation is a fucking joke. The president is on vacation right now; he's was at his ranch yesterday. What did he do? He got up before sunrise for about half a dozen of his regular daily briefings. He met with senior staff over breakfast. He made about a hundred phone calls. And, oh yeah, he spent half the day with the president of Egypt.
And that's a day off.
I think it's about time we put the whole "presidential vacation" meme to bed.
I write in my journal
A somewhat more focused website than the link provided above (which essentially just recreates the wikipedia with references to the events of Stephenson's books).
must... commit... suicide...
Writers are *supposed* to do this. Adding character traits (or, in this case, talking about real ones for real people) makes characters more "human", and more accessible. If your characters are nothing but foils for the plot, you end up with something like "Atlas Shrugged." Whatever you may think of the politics in Atlas Shrugged, the characters are painfully two-dimensional, and a beautiful example of how *not* to do character development. The point of adding extra details (like Randy's cereal-eating habits, or Turing's homosexuality) about a character is to make them closer to a living being.
Sounds like you have some kind of sexual insecurity.
I enjoyed reading about Turing's sexuality in Crypto*, what a shame that in real life he was hurt professionaly by his sexual orientation
Gay rights are an important issue, don't pretend like it's not. Are you also of the opinion that there is no race problem in the world? SHould we not talk about it? I say, talk about it as much as possible.
Maybe you should take some social science classes, put down the sci-fi and go outside.
Snowcrash, IMO, was one of the great works of our time. The same can not be said of Cryptonomicon or Quicksilver. Cryptonomicon suffered from endless diversions from the story, and the end was like the end of Monty Python & the Holy Grail or Matrix: Revolutions or so many other stories where the author did not have a start-to-finish vision of how the story would unfold. That is, the story just ended, with little meat or satisfaction for the reader.
:(
Quicksilver, honestly, was a burden to read. The story had its moments, but when you're 700 pages into a book and have little or no idea where it's going and little or no motivation to keep reading, I submit that the author has basically failed. I frequently felt like the author was writing just to "hear himself type." I'll probably read The Confusion just because I hate to leave thing unfinished, but if it's similarly burdensome, I think I'll just have to give up on Stephenson altogether.
To the commenter who asked why Stephenson features gay characters and their homosexuality so prominently, all I can tell you is that Turing was, in fact, gay, and it was a major issue for him and for the people who worked around him. It's not surprising to me that any story on cryptography would feature Turing and his homosexuality. I can't say as much about Newton simply because I'm only familiar with the history of his work rather than the history of the man.
Who ever said Stephenson needs an editor is right on. Quicksilver is a 300 or 400 page story told in 900 pages. Keeping the length down would do a great service towards making the thing more interesting and readable. But somehow I suspect that neither of these issues are high on Stephenson's list.
If that isn't a creepy tragedy that inspires sympathy (and also a fascinating story), I don't know what is. Scientist saves country, is slightly off-beat, is forced into suicidal depression by same government because of said off-beatness.
Meanwhile, if you want to watch persecuted Christian characters, why not go with the other fifty million people and watch Mel Gibson's film?
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
If you "got through" Cryptonomicon, didn't finish Quicksilver, and then bought "three Pratchetts"
You might also like:
Harry Potter and Sorcerer's Stoner
The Sword of Shanarra
The Mouse and the Motorcycle
Well ok sorry but you get the idea.
Neal Stephenson is a Debian user. See for yourself. I once saw a quote that he liked Debian because of the huge number of bugs in the database. (He liked that Debian is open - not that it has a huge number of bugs ;-))
Isaac Newton was celibate. He was not homosexual. The revisionist historians in the homosexual lobby would like you to believe that every single historical figure who never married was homosexual, but that's simply ridiculous. Heck, they've even said the same thing about William Shakespeare. They are so intent on being able to point fingers and say "Look, he was one of us!" that they don't realize that they are destroying the reputations of fine men who deserve much better than slander and innuendo. Or maybe they do realize it and just don't care.
Either way, Stephenson is not to be believed on this particular issue.
I frequently felt like the author was writing just to "hear himself type."
Actually, Quicksilver was written with a pen and paper.
Maybe it's an ink company conspiracy.
Given that Daniel Waterhouse's Puritan upbringing and steadfast devoutness in the face of his peers' all-but-secularism is one of the defining aspects of his personality, I would say that Stephenson does a rather fair job of doting on Christianity.
Compared to speculations about Newton's sexuality (which are limited to a few vague hints scattered throughout the book), Waterhouse's faith virtually drives the plot. His mentor is a bishop who believes that the established church is heresy -- that one should be free to worship as he sees fit, unhampered by politics. Many of Waterhouse's misadventures are due to his similar beliefs. Most characters in Quicksilver are devout Christians, even some of the homosexuals (viz Leibniz).
If you read Stephenson's earlier work, you'll see a repeated theme of tolerant, unperturbed spirituality in his stronger characters. Juanita from Snow Crash is a devout Catholic -- she shuns organized religion because she believes most of it is politicized claptrap designed to control the masses -- but she is Christian nonetheless. She and her unswerving faith ultimately play a principal role in the book.
If Stephenson goes out of his way to illustrate Turing's homosexuality, or Newton's probable bisexuality, it is merely to shed more light on areas of human experience that have been ignored by history.
For 2,000 years, Christians have had a rich mythology that teaches them valuable lessons on life and gives them a slew of inspiring role-models. For 1,500 years, Christianity has been the accepted "normal" religion throughout most of the developed world; often it is even sanctioned as the state religion. Until very recently, Christians have been constantly reinforced by unanimous, positive feedback from the community, the state and the church that yes, they are good and right and are going to Heaven.
In the same time period, homosexuals have had little or no public acknowledgement of their existence: no role models, and certainly no acceptance from society. In several places and times during the past thousand years, homosexuals have been tormented, imprisoned, tortured and murdered merely for being who they are. Christians had to endure this suffering at first, but by the time of the Spanish Inquisition it was Christians doing the burning and torturing.
I live in southern California, in a city whose populace largely identify themselves as liberals. Just the same, not 18 months ago, a gay man in my neighborhood was doused in gasoline burned alive as he slept by a Catholic man who had befriended my neighbor before discovering his sexuality. Bigotry, hate and intolerance toward homosexuals are very much alive today, and much of it comes from people who call themselves "good" Christians.
In summary: if Stephenson chooses to showcase homosexuality slightly more than Christianity, perhaps he's merely acknowledging the fact that Christianity has already been showcased enough.
But I haven't finished _Quicksilver_ yet, you insensitive clod!
1) The guy makes all of his heroes gay.
2) The guy has no idea of how to write male/female dialog.
3) so a reasonable conclusion about him is that....??????
4) I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist...
5) I wonder if he's ever included a turkish prison scene in any book?
6) Not that there's anything wrong with it.
"I realize that my views are probably in the minority here, but techno-fiction appeals to more than just liberal readers, and I wish Stephenson would realize that."
Funny. I'd have thought Stephenson would have annoyed more liberals than conservatives with this passage from Chapter 65:
To translate it into UNIX system administration terms (Randy's fundamental metaphor for just about everything), the post-modern, politically correct atheists were like people who had suddenly found themselves in charge of a big and unfathomably complex computer system (viz, society) with no documentation or instructions of any kind, and so whose only way to keep the thing running was to invent and enforce certain rules with a kind of neo-Puritanical rigor, because they were at a loss to deal with any deviations from what they saw as the norm. Whereas people who were wired into a church were like UNIX system administrators who, while they might not understand everything, at least had some documentation, some FAQs and How-tos and README files, providing some guidance on what to do when things got out of whack. They were, in other words, capable of displaying adaptability.
One would think he is pushing his own brand of Church philosophy here. Or is he merely putting himself in the shoes of Randy Waterhouse?
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Why, exactly, do you care if a character in a novel is portrayed as a homosexual? Does it offend your sensibilities to know that such people exist? Why? I think you are reading your bible a little too selectively; try to find that part about "judge not, lest ye be judged", and "do unto others...".
To say that Stephenson "advertises" for homosexuality is a gross mischaracterization. Turing was, in fact, a homosexual, a fact which turned the life of this brilliant man (the man who contributed more to the defeat of the Nazis than any other individual), into a sorrowful tragedy for which the British government ought to be eternally ashamed of itself. Alan Turing was a Hero. He was also gay.
And since you say that Stephenson doesn't pay similar attention to Christian characters, I guess you didn't actually *read* Quicksilver, did you? If you had, you would of course know that the central character (Daniel Waterhouse) was not only a Christian, his religion (and that of his family) plays a central role in the events of the book. Not that an author has any obligation to you or anyone else to maintain some kind of ridiculous "equal time" balance in the sociopolitical aspects of its characters.
And what does being liberal or conservative have to do with one's ability to accept a homosexual character in a novel? I doubt that all conservatives are as ignorant and intolerant as you are. I find it totally absurd that you regard the presence of a homosexual character as a "political" statement.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
I read Snowcrash as my first Neal Stephenson book. So I expected all his books to be like that. Wrong! Snowcrash is good but I hate everything else he writes. It is mind bogglingly boring and I don't think he has any insight whatsoever into relationships.
:)
Why do people like stuff like Cryptonomicon? I've read a hundred pages or so and I just couldn't take it. What's so exciting about Shaftoe? Who cares about riding on a ship? War? There is no action, no insight, no perspective, no intrigue, nothing. I mean, it's like pages and pages of nothing and nothing and nothing. Nothing happens. Characters are boring, average, shallow and do not do anything interesting. I mean, why don't I just put a web cam on a bus stop? Because it would be about as insightful and as exciting as any of Stephenson's books. I don't understand.
What is exciting about these books? Is there some depth that I don't see? It's no Dune, that's for sure. Stephenson has no spiritual insight. So what is it?
Even reading highly modded up posts here just blows me away!! Some guy read 300 pages that he thought were mediocre in order to get to the good parts!?!? You guys are crazy? Are you sure you're not reading the book because "Neal is cool" in the nerd culture? How can anyone stomach 300 pages of mundane mediocrity to get to the "good parts" later? I don't understand. I mean, even Neal's fans think he sucks. It's in plain sight here on Slashdot.
I don't get it.
MILD SPOILER WARNINGS
BEWARE
Both books feature sympathetic and heroic characters (Isaac Newton and Alan Turing) that are homosexuals (although I think Stephenson is speculating about Newton.) However, their homosexuality has nothing to do with the story. Why mention it at all?
Instead, Stephenson goes out of his way to talk about it, especially in the case of Turing. If Stephenson doesn't have a personal issue with "gay" people, fine, but he doesn't have to turn his books into an advertisement for homosexuality. I notice that he doesn't lavish similar praise and attention on Christian characters.
Turing makes a pass at a character, and then has a fight with his ex. That's pretty much all I remember about his sex life.
Newton is girly, and teased a young boy for being girly, and then its assumed (wrongly) that his best friend and concerned roomate was his lover, and he has secret meetings with this other gay character.
The book is, what, 800, 900 pages long?
Yeah...that was such an advertisement for homosexuality! Sheesh...
You didn't like it because you want homo characters to be either not in there at all, or punished for their sins. Fine, let the rest of us read books and not care about wether some character is gay or not.
P.S. Whatever you do, don't read American Gods by Neil Gaiman.
You can't take the sky from me...
Completely agree. Snowcrash was brilliant. Hilarious, scary, insightful, new, fresh, amazing. Cryptonomicon was good, but not as good (what's with Enoch Root - he Stephenson's Ellsworth Toohey?) and Quicksilver is just a complete yawn. I'm at about p 250 and had to divert to Dan Brown before I passed out with boredom. It does show some flashes of Stephenson's brilliance, but only rarely. I'm praying it gets better, if it doesn't pick up I'm gonna have to bail on the whole series.
Good post. As another poster noted below, in the scene where Randy returns to California and his earthquake ravaged home, *only* the Christian people behave decently to him and America Shaftoe.
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
Fictitious hack author in a Kurt Vonnegut story, sort of a persona for Vonnegut, himself. Another author wrote a book under the name, once.
Antique Dealer: I'd say don't fix it unless it's baroque.
Homosexuality WAS an important thing to Turing, whether it was up to him or not. However, I didn't like how he was portrayed more-or-less as a simpering late-20th-c. fag. It just doesn't sync up with the image of Turing I've gleaned from real biographies, and I think it's a cheap tactic. Try "Turing: A Novel about Computation" by Papadimitriou for something a little less cartoon.
And Newton? Give me a fscking break (only going by hearsay here - read Crypto'micon only, and that just barely).
Fine, but can you name another President that wasn't in DC for almost 20% of his presidency? http://lefttochance.com/taxonomy/page/or/12 So we won't call it a vacation, but why doesn't he stay in DC?
DISCLAIMER: I live just south of Crawford, in Austin
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
I was probably one of the few people that finished Quicksilver. It was slow, slow, slow and boring with some minor fun parts. Newton was fun, Shaftoe was fun, the rest was a pain to read. It went everywhere and nowhere. I still don't feel it moving anywhere. After 900 pages I demand to get at least something from a book, besides tired biceps (that thing is heavy). He needs and editor. He couldn't have condensed all that crap into 300 pages of pretty good stuff. Should I even bother reading Confusion? The review is not very helpful, it talks about the plot, but not a lot about if it is a good book or no.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
And finished it a few days ago (amazon.co.uk has had it since the 1st)
:-) ). Written as well as the first one, in the style one either hates or likes. I don't mind the extended descriptions as I'm a speed-reader when I decide to do so :-)
Without spoiling the plot too much, I'd recommend it for fans of Quicksilver, even though unlike the original reviewer, I didn't think it was as good as the first book.
I really liked the "history" of modern science bits in Quicksilver, which were lacking in "The Confusion". (Economy and exotic locations being the theme for this book, which aren't as cool as science
Anyone remember that song? From the rave in Blade.
Confusion by New 0rder. Best. Rave. Ever.
True story.
Stephenson makes great use of speculative history. He postulates some great "what if" scenarios arising from past events and uses them to weave an alternative present.
They are OK, I think, but not great. For the absolute best I've come across in alternate present novels, check out Pavane by Keith Roberts, who sadly died in 2000.
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
I'll have to chime in as well, since I just finished Quicksilver myself.
Christ, what a tedious read. It was one of the worst Xmas presents I ever received. (Yeah, it took me this long to slog through it.)
I got the feeling throughout the whole book that Stephenson was writing to impress himself. The interesting moments and plot points were drowned out by relentless pedantry. (Quick, raise your hand if you finished the book, and you really wanted to get Daniel Waterhouse off that damned ship for the first 200 pages. Arrrrrrrrgh!)
And Stephenson's tendency to ramble.. and ramble.. and ramble.. has finally caught up with him.
I was disappointed to say the least; I expected better. Sigh.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
and then his male protagonist tries to talk to a woman. And that is where his novels fall apart. His dialog does not ring true. Every conversation sounds contrived.
;-)
Well, he writes geeks talking to hot girls...of COURSE the conversations sound contrived!
You can't take the sky from me...
Snow Crash was a damn fine book, but as far as I'm concerned, Cryptonomicon is hands down Stephenson's best. 've never understood the complaints about Stephenson's endings, though. When the story's over, the book ends. That's the way it should be. I hate spending the last 50 pages of a book building up to some "satisfying" conclusion where everything gets tied up neatly into a perfect little Hollywood package.
As for the length, if an editor had cut 300 pages from Cryptonomicon, it would have completely castrated the story. Quicksilver's about twice as long as it needs to be, but if forcing myself through 900 pages of Quicksilver is the price I have to pay for an intact Cryptonomicon, then so be it.
The great thing about abridged books is that it really forces a long-winded author to get off his cliche and tell the story. So, with a 900 page book, you can cut it down to a "reasonable" 8 hours of tape. Long-winded tomes are about the only time I recommend abridgements, though. While it is possible to cut a 300 page novel down to a 3 hour cassette, IMHO there usually isn't enough left to trouble yourself with. And just as a point of reference, I have greatly enjoyed most of Stephenson's work, but the first half of Quicksilver did not flow like its namesake. The middle half did pick up considerably with the introduction of the Shaftoe brothers. So I will give it a try.
And I totally agree on how his books overdo the sexuality politics. I mean do you know how much effort was wasted pushing the heterosexual agenda in Cryptonomicon? Page after page of "Randy" getting worked up over some chick in a wetsuit. And that WAY too descriptive het-sex in the car scene. Imperial Pint?!? YUCK! Too much information!
I sure as hell don't want to have to think too hard about why they do stuff. Just hurry up and get to the good parts where they wire routers and blow stuff up.
Neal, fire your editor.
Dude, it's a fictional book. It's historic fiction, but it's still fiction. He could've made Newton into a cross dresser if he felt like it.
Jeez.
-=Android=- Chew's Eye Shop http://www.chewseyeshop.com
I think that for a work that large you really do need to work on making the story more satisfying at the points along the way too
What about eliza made you feel supposed to be banter?
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
With that title I wouldn't be surprised if the book was only about Newton's sexuality. BTW Have you tried reading Newton's more esoteric writings. He was really weird!
Ok, so now all the rambling, inconsistency, and bloatware feel makes sense..
- excerpt from an Amazon.com interview with Neal Stephenson available here.
"for instance, there might be one person who gets the job of looking after EMACS"
Neal, Neal, Neal.. vi buddy, trust us.
0h
I've enjoyed just about all of Stephenson's novels; Cryptonomicon was a personal favourite and the best creative expression of the late 90s geek zeitgeist that I think we're likely to get.
But ah, then we come to Quicksilver. Parts were entertaining, but it didn't hang together, and as others have pointed out there's a lot of filler between the good bits. From my perspective, too much work for too little reward.
The problem for me is not the number of digressions and asides; the problem is the digressions in Quicksilver are mostly not that interesting.
I get the sense that Stephenson is a little too hemmed in by history; his imagination is weighed down by the need to at least marginally respect period detail (though he doesn't mind bending it on occasion).
And maybe it's because his most interesting writing focusses on technology, and there wasn't as much of that back then. In Quicksilver he focusses much more on character and plot, which aren't his strong points as a writer.
I'd be a debian user, also, except for gentoo(www.gentoo.org). All the advantages of FreeBSD, without having to wait for them to finish 5.0
Sitting Walrus Blog
Bravo ;) Wish I had mod points today!
I don't understand the bit about it being "released today". I bought it at Wordsworth in Harvard Square at least a week ago, more like two I think.
One of the things Newton prided himself on was his virginity. Despite being married, he claimed to be a virgin up until his death.
I can see a few options for this.
1. Being the ubergeek of his time, he simply couldn't get laid.
2. He was lying.
3. He was confused as to what 'virgin' meant.
4. He was gay.
Now, I should mention that, for #4 to hold true, he'd either have had to not act on his impulses, or to have defined sex as being between a man and a woman. I think the latter's probably quite likely.
So depicting Newton as gay, while potentially controversial, isn't entirely improbable.
Didn't see it mentioned so, The Metaweb is Stephenson's wiki about Quicksilver (presumably information on the rest of the trilogy will be added). It's very interesting, has all kinds of information on the people and ideas in the book. Especially the annotations, add a lot of interesting background and details.
The sex scene in Cryptonomicon was quite possibly the worst one ever written, including the ones written by Newt Gingrich. Serious Bulwar-Lytton territory.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
You'd think that pronouncing Neil Gaiman's name out loud ("Gay Man") would be enough to scare off any readers who might be disturbed by homosexual themes. ;-)
Maybe he's afraid Al Qaeda isn't going to miss the White House next time.
Save Zodiac for last. That way, after flogging yourself through his increasingly turgid prose, increasingly leaden dialog, and increasing immunity to proper editing, you can enjoy the treat of a Neal Stephenson novel with a tight plot, believable characters (well, by comparison) and an actual ending.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Hey, what page do they wire the routers on?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I've read both of these books and (nominally) enjoyed them as far as the story was concerned, but on the whole, both of them left a bad taste in my mouth because of Stephenson's inability to tell a story without injecting his own political viewpoint into it. Take for example heterosexuality. Both books feature sympathetic and heroic characters (Jack Shaftoe and Bobby Shaftoe) that are heterosexuals. However, their heterosexuality has nothing to do with the story. Why mention it at all? I mean, Bobby sleeps with two different women in the book! Stephenson is obviously hitting out over the head with his pro-heterosexual agenda. Why can't we just have good old fashion books about upstanding Christians of undisclosed sexuality?
Heh, pinko leftist Euro liberal homo here. I have to admit Cryptonomicom made me FURIOUS. :-)
We have ONE smart Japanese guy. When confronted with Christianity he immediately converts and moves to America.
Somewhere in the book the hero meets his girl where she is at a cafe (I think) with her friends and some famous liberal arts guy from the university someone I get the feeling is a thinly disguised real person. Our hero reveals the sloppy thinking of this evil liberal person and completely demolishes him with a few choice phrases. I'm surprised the Stephenson alter ego didn't kick his ass and sent him crying home to mommy while he was at it. Can you say strawman?
We have the scene where a Chinese person in a business negotiation has a twinkle of irony in his eye despite trying to play hardball, because he was once an exchange student to California and "once exposed to the virus of irony you can't completely be rid of it". Yes Virginia, only USians have a sense of humor. They invented it you know!
The whole worshipful attitude of the military and the perfect masculine marine... Stephenson is practically on his knees drooling in front of Shaftoe.
These are just the things I remember off the top of my head. The whole book was full of these little digs. Going back and reading the books by him that I like (Zodiac, Snow Crash, Diamond Age), you can see the beginning of this attitude. The veiled contempt he has towards the average environmentalist ("checking the wires on the car would be like black magic to these people"). How incredibly one dimensional all female characters are in his books and how unconvincing the relationships.
He is turning more and more conservative with every book. People worrying about the pro-gay content in the books shouldn't be concerned, he probably won't bother keeping up this pretence of tolerance long either.
Hmmm.. I always heard it "Guy-mun" phonetically.
Second vowel does the talking, first one keeps it's mouth shut? Not like proper English applies to proper names though.
Yeah...that was such an advertisement for homosexuality! Sheesh...
I like my beer cold, my TV loud and my homosexuals FLAMING!
The lumber cartel strikes again :-)
Hear! Hear! Except that you may want to look into the history of Turing and notice that it was the American government, and not the British, that objected strongly to Turing's sexuality. They regarded him as a 'security risk', and requested that the British governmnet do something about it. Of course the fact that they did means that they are not toally without blame . . .
>It was destined to become a hit among twenty-something geeks who live in Silicon Valley and have no life outside of their job.
Considering how many people bought this book, your argument about who it appeals to holds as little water as your arguements about the writing. Sorry you didn't enjoy it; Clearly it was NOT written for 20-something geeks or he wouldn't have put in the exposition you found so painful. I don't know shit about Linux and found the whole book to be a fascinating techno-thriller on one hand and a great adventure story on the other. Can't wait to read the Baroque.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
I had to struggle through Quicksilver but I did enjoy it. I should reread it to better understand it but really don't have the time. Some people like a simple straight forward story without having to think about it. Cryptonomicon is my all time favorite hands-down. It did start slow and if you gave up on it early then expect to miss out on a lot of good things in life.
....... Thus ends my attempt at wit or whatever
Mr President: Why does The United States of America, the only country that supports freedom in the world, support religious repression in Uzbekistan?
Thanks for nothing,
Kilgore Trout
I don't have a history book in front of me, but to the best of my knowledge Newton never married. I think he mayhave proposed to a woman once, but was rejected. I think the evidence comes from one letter that isn't really clear.
Newton had several roommates, all young men except for late in his life he took in his niece. Many accounts by others from that time seem to strongly imply that there were romantic relationships between Newton and one or two men, but most likely he did maintain his virginity until he died. Although the suggestion that he strictly regarded that as being between a man and a woman sounds very probable, also.
If someone can recall more details, or better yet has a reliable biography handy please post. But I'm pretty damn certain Sir Isaac never had a Lady Newton.
Well, given that Cryptonomicon was published first, I guess that you have things pretty much backwards. The price you have to pay for a bloated, poorly edited, grammatically and spelling challenged piece of drivel is that Cryptonomicon was just as long as it needed to be. And even that doesn't make much sense. I guess that the moral of this story is that even idiots know how to read. They just can't reason.
A dangerous trap. I'm really not that interested in the sheer weight of (irrelevant) historical detail in Quicksilver. But Stephenson has done his time in the library and you are damn well going to hear it. All of it. Also, being of the UKian disposition seemed to compound things. The vast majority of this stuff is school history and common knowledge here anyway, which just made it even more tiresome. I finished it in a few days, but I have no desire to repeat the experience.
Its a shame really because there are some nice ideas therein. Confusion can stay on the shelf as far as I'm concerned.
So you're saying you don't give a damn if the facts are straight, as long as it's a page turner? Bah. Anyone who can confuse the theory of public key cryptography with the mechanics of how PGP works (see digital fortress, somewhere in the first couple chapters, 'cos that's all I could stomach) needs to do more homework. You can argue quite plausibly that Stephenson needs to be edited, but don't compare him to Brown, please.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Quicksilver - I like to finish what I start, but this book sure made it difficult. I will certainly not read such a long book from Mr. Stephenson again unless the reviews are amazing.
Despite loving Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon, I couldn't find a way to like this book.
Pros:
- The vagabond adventures
- A glimpse into the cutting edge of 17th century science, politics, and warfare both on sea and on land.
- The provocative moral shades expressed by various characters.
Cons:
- "I'm so clever" forced historical situations, where the author has a historical figure preciently hint at something in the modern day. Canal-rage, indeed.
- Romance novel-esque formulatic building and eventual climax of achievements with biological plumbing, with empasis on things some people may consider odd or just disgusting. How many people enjoy reading about scooping feces out of baby mouths inside the womb with ones hand?
- Loose ends left dangling everywhere
- Too much mixing of things that are historically accurate with things that require significant suspension of disbelief. The world isn't treated consistently enough to be immersive.
- Underwhelming end, even for the first part of a trilogy
- Underdeveloped primary character, while lavishing enormous energy on a carnival of side-characters.
- 700+ pages of tedium, 200 pages of interest.
...if you are a European reader. It seems the author came over and got drunk on the depth of research he could do. And then insisted on putting all of it in. Its rather tiresome you've had the standard education in the history of these things, you're constantly waiting to be hit in the face with the next great historical event.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
It feels contrived for me and at times it looks like hes just showing off the research.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
Finally someone who has some sense and wasn't raised by the TV. Dildo-parent says there's no Action? How about cutting Frosty the Pig away from a dead army butcher? How about skydiving onto a roof covered with spearpoints? Etc etc.. And people bitching about spelling errors? I've read every book NS has written, most of them more than once, and I've never seen anything spelled incorrectly, and I'm a stickler. And the typical /dotter spells "than" with an E in the middle.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
Man, Digital Fortress was his first novel. It's FULL of errors of all sorts, not just laughable technical research (it's almost as bad as "The 'Net"). I've read three of his books and the newer they are, the better they are. However, I've read his books in reverse chronological order, which happened to also mean reading the best books first. Had I read Digital Fortress first, I'd label him "king-of-hacks".
-- All views expressed in this post are mine and do not
-- reflect those of my employer or their clients
I think you missd the point. Waterhouse's religion plays a key role in how he relates to the others in the society around him. In a time when there is turmoil and religious conflict, being part of an outspoken minority has its own perils and direclty shapes the behaviour of W. in his pursuits and choices.
..d
There are many complex social threads running through the book. It was a lot deeper than I was expecting and very entertaining for someone with a sense of history and place. (He is talking my language as a chemist, and the developement of London during the scientific enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is fascinating as it's echos are still apparent in much of the modern city. Some parts are contrived but are forgiven as they are necessary to bridge the gaps in the narrative.
At first I didn't realise that it was a trilogy so got to the end of the first volume and felt somewhat cheated as there were more loose ends than I could count still unaccounted for.
For those who are still looking for a plot, you are wasting your time. There are minor plots and subplots, but it is a historical narrative, along the lines of War and Peace or similar. There is no major 'Grand Design' a la Cryptonomicon where the story rotates around teh ultimate treasure hunt. In the Baroque Trilogy the story centres araound the characters and their relationships with the times and implicitly how those times relate to us in terms of the knowledge and developments that we take for granted.
Quicksilver was slow. It is not a pulp fiction page turner. It is not a thriller. But taken on it's terms as a narrative of characters and times rather than of a plot, it is an excellent work. The pace is jsut right and I am looking forward to the next two volumes (just ordered The Confusion).
What was least believable? Jack Shaftoe's Eastern European trek and much of the travel. The timescale is far too compressed. Apart from that, it doesn't rankle too much, and is far better than most of what passes for literature these days.
--- Four bases should be enough for any genetic code
"Crypto's gold flowing out of the mountain was a fine ending "
No, it violated the laws of physics. You can dump a bunch of diesel into a tunnel sure. You may even get it lit (although I doubt it).
But you can't get around the fact that:
a) Diesel in the absence of oxidizer (i.e. just air) doesn't burn hot enough to melt gold
b) In an enclosed space, the oxygen would be exhausted quickly, meaning the fire would go out.
c) The gold might get singed.
Besides which, even if we ignore the laws of physics, it was a dumb ending considering his zillions of pages of build up. Its like making out with a hot chick and at the end she says "Oh, go finish yourself in the bathroom".
Really, to defend it is to defend crap on both literary and scientific levels. Please stop.
If you live in Boston (whether you're from here, or you're just visiting as a college student) this is a great read for someone that knows the city well. I've lived here most of my life, and was still very impressed with the overall level of accuracy of his city layout. All those little streams that I never noticed before (I'm not talking about the muddy. everyone knows about that.)
Also, his description of moving up Commonwealth Ave, on a bike, in rush hour, was spot on.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
There's a common thread running through all Stephenson's books, a fascination with the history of information and how processing it has affected the development of human society and culture, from prehistory to the imaginable future. This is why he appeals so much to many geeks. Since Snowcrash, his breakthrough novel, he's been piecing together a remarkable perpective on the very essence of what makes humans special. The extent to which it is sometimes hard going just reflects what a difficult task it is, but the exploration is far-reaching and important. To those who couldn't hack Quicksilver, I say keep at it and instead of thinking of it as an entertainment, use it as a bunch of bookmarks to stuff that you should really know about.
Most importantly, the Enoch Root character introduced in Cryptonomicon is now the unifying factor of the Baroque Cycle. Whereas in just one book he could be accepted as a spooky, mysterious character, giving him a blatantly immortal lifespan moves the book more towards fantasy and away from semi-educational speculative history. (The fantastical parts of Crytponomicon, like the vowel-free isle of Qwflgm and the invention of the digital computer in Austrailia, were some of its weaknesses)
Retelling the same story in a different era is a sign that an author is out of good ideas. (But hey, Ken Follett retells the same story on the exact same date, and readers keep buying it)
But unfortunately, the two protagonists (Waterhouse and Shaftoe) are both willfully disconnected from the mainstream of society, and no supporting characters pop up to expound on backdrop factoids.
Many posters here have complained about Stephenson's prose: too much detail, not enough character development, and so on. I disagree with all of them. With Stephenson, you get scientific, historical, and technical knowledge along with characters that will grow on you if you let them. I think that by spending so many pages on information, he gives the characters a foundation in their environment. They have a depth that they would lack without the benefit of their surroundings, which are best explained the way he does it.
Another thing I love about his books, but especially Quicksilver, is the mixture of fictional characters and real people. The political intrigue of England in the 1680s was fascinating to me, as I'm a big fan of English history. I knew little about the people of that era before I read the book, but now I've sought out other materials on the time period and I'm looking forward to learning more. I've been to London several times, and I enjoyed picturing the city as it looked 320 years ago.
I do agree with those who say that his recent books have been too long, but not with their reasons. I take the subway to work, and I like to read to pass the time. Lugging Quicksilver back and forth to work for two months wasn't much fun. If he'd published the trilogy as a series of 300-page books instead, I'd be happier. But I'll gladly put up with the extra weight to enjoy Stephenson's writings again. You can only read a book for the first time once.
Lousy minor setbacks! This world sucks! -- Homer Simpson
If I may humbly disagree, I felt that the abrupt ending of Cryptonomicon was actually the point. The impact of the scene with the eldery Goto Dengo and Avi totally stunned me. I know there are many pages after that, a sort of wrapping up, but I thought that scene was the end, really. Directly because of that scene, the end came about and the story was resolved. I don't think that authors always have to tell the happily ever after bit, and I think Stephenson lets the readers use their imagination in a very satisfying way.
I'd much rather a good N.S. read, the guy's a modern day genius. Cryptonomicon was awesome, but Snow Crash was better imho. I'm only comparing him to Brown in the sense that that's how disappointing I'm finding Quicksilver. Not just because it's slow, it also doesn't have the style, wit, sharpness or quirkiness of his classics (so far). Brown is fodder, but certainly readable. I've only read DaVinci, and just starting on Angels and Demons, half expecting it to be junk. We'll see...
I saw it in a bookshop several days ago.. and I'm in Sydney, Australia. I still haven't finished reading Quicksilver though, so I didn't buy it..
As telecommuting and related technologies and activities become more prevalent, more cost-effective, and more effective overall, I would expect to see a consistent trend towards Presidents doing an increasing amount of presidenting from places other than the White House.
Soon, the question will be, "why does the President bother to go the White House at all?"
Surely we can all understand the productivity and job satisfaction increases that come from working in an environment of our own choosing, tailored to meet our own personal ideas of comfort and convenience.
The Oval Office has served this nation well, as a "Fortress of Solitude" for Presidents throughtout the years before web-enabled cell phones, broadband internet, and strong encryption. Doubtless it will continue to serve in such a capacity for many years to come. But I expect that from a practical point of view, those years are numbered.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
. Quicksilver is a 300 or 400 page story told in 900 pages
Well, to each their own, but really, all this "too many diversions from the plot/ too long" stuff really misses the point. Literature isn't *about* plot, any more than painting is about reproducing a scene with photographic realism. Sure pulp genre fiction often is little more than a plot (just as cheesy amateur paintings often just try to represent a house by a stream), but literature and art are capable of much more than that. Unfortunately, writers like Stephenson and Vonnegut often alienate both genre and literary readers because they use the tools of genre SF to make more serious works.
One of these days I'll head back to Cryptonomicon, and have another go at it. I really want to finish this book because...well mostly because.
Still, I'm not too hopeful. I took it on a week-long holiday with no plans other than reading, and after about 200 pages, went back to reread "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Stephenson writes (or at least wrote) in a loooong, verbose, and self-consciously aware style which makes me roll my eyes. I kept thinking, "if only he had a strict editor, this might be a great book."
So has his style gotten any tighter, and as a side question, how far into Cryptonomicon do I have to get before it becomes overwhelming engrossing?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I've mentioned this offhandedly before, but the reason I think that Neal Stephenson is amazing is because of what he is currently doing. He's gone from a 'eco-terrorist' to a cyberpunk writer. Then he took it a step further and became a New York Times Bestselling Author writing straight fiction.
He's made a transition from scifi to fiction, but carried the tech along with it. 50 years from now, there's only going to be a few authors from this genre (scifi) that will still be read, and I believe that Stephenson will be one of those. He can tell a story, when he gets down to it. Why do people still read Phillip K. Dick? Why are there now movies being made from his stories? Because he can tell a story, in the end. Why is Stephenson still being posted here? Because his stories are good. He might get a bit bogged down in the details, but he's a great storyteller and that's why I'll start 'The Confusion' tomorrow and I can't wait for the 3rd part of trilogy. He's had some time to develop his skill, I'm guessing that the entire trilogy and 'Cryptonomicon' taken as a whole, will tell an entirely diffent story, taken altogether.
Just my thoughts...
It might be that the President, as do other elected officials, sees Washington DC as a place which isolates them from reality rather than connects them to it.
This is not a self-referential sig.
Um ... check your facts.
Newton never married. For the most authoritative Newton biography, see Richard Westfall's Never at Rest. The biography rivals Stephenson's (and Newton's!) works in size, but is, I think, worth the read.
As an historical aside, for sexual exploits of Newton's time (really the next generation), read about Newton's niece Catherine Barton and/or Emilie du Chatelet, who translated the Principia into French.
When I started reading Quicksilver, I came to the horrible realisation that there were two more of these drawn out historical tomes to be released before the vaguest possibility of a new work of the calibre of Snow Crash or Cryptonomicon.
With Confusion being released its now only one more to go.
I am hoping he still has another science fiction masterpiece left after his excursion into the Baroque cycle.
I'll say it again: woo-hoo!
If you can't read these books, you can't read. Give up, don't bother trying, it's too hard for you.
The rest of us can enjoy one of the few interesting authors left. I just wish he'd write them faster.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
On the one hand, the idea of seeing "just about everything" in UNIX metaphors is inherently satirical (unless you're a humourless geek). But on the other, this is a parody of one of those desperately contrived and long-winded religious lessons ("And if Jesus were alive today, I'm sure that he, too, would enjoy a happy meal at McDonalds, for did he not say "suffer the children..."").
And finally, you could take this as a serious argument, too.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I agree whole-heartedly. This is Stephenson's big problem. He can't end a book! His stories are inspired; but by the end they just spiral out of control and leave the reader disappointed. I guess with him it's the journey, not the destination...
The thing that concerns me is that he calls this the Baroque "cycle". Does that mean that it never ends? I don't want to spend my time reading 1800+ pages and then be left hanging out to dry.
> For 1,500 years, Christianity has been the
> accepted "normal" religion throughout most of
> the developed world
If you read the introduction to ibn Khaldun's 'Muqaddimah' (one of the great sociological/historical works of human history), you will find that he rails against those 'fools' who describe the past using the mindset of the present. And that is exactly what you have done in the above quote!
For example, for most of the shared history between the Islamic and Christian worlds, the Christian world was NOT 'the developed world'. Prior to the Mongol Holocaust, the Muslim world outstripped Europe in most areas of scientific endevour.
And I haven't even mentioned China/Egypt/India in comparison to Christian Europe in pre-Muslim times.
I suggest that you may like to revise the '1500 years' part of your sentence.
You make a very good point. Especially given the recurring theme, throughout Quicksilver, of European medicine and science being vastly inferior to the Turks'.
... what else to say? Other than the fact that I was trying to paint Christianity as the dominating incumbent power structure, and my post was addressing the conservative, Christian and probably small-minded author of the parent ... so perhaps a few fallacies on my part can be forgiven.
Substitute 'European' for 'developed' and my statement holds true. But, since Europe was formerly known as Christendom by the majority of its inhabitants, the statement at that point comes dangerously close to being devoid of meaning. ("Christianity was the accepted normal religion throughout Christendom.")
Mea culpa
I am not sure what it could be, but I know it has to do with business, technology, finance, governments (past, current, and future) - and where it is all headed - or could head, if we geeks of the world would just get our damn act together and make it happen...
But he feels that we lack some information - information about the world that we could only gain if we were all super-well read (some of us are, but not all of us), versed in world history and business, and how it all interelates.
I wonder if he is doing this to spur on such things like the Free State project, or something similar? How many of you have thought "How can I escape from the tyranny that is our world?" - but didn't know how? Where to get the resources, the money, everything needed to start a country? Is it even possible today?
In Crypto, he showed one possible way. In Quicksilver - he is showing how it was done long ago. We cringe and wonder today over how corporations are controlling our world, but we have yet to see (and pray we never do!) something on the order of the East India Company - a world dominating corporation that lasted nearly 200 years, had a standing army and navy, and it's own country to boot (India) - before the British finally ousted them and broke them up.
Does anyone here think such a thing couldn't happen again? Have any of you paid attention to the rise of private companies that provide private "security" training and weapons systems? What about all the of the oil companies gradually buying each other up - could Standard Oil come back from the dead?
I think Neal may be trying to teach us something, if only we would look and learn...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Next time preface your spoilers with a **Spoilers** note of some kind. Bastard.