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."

Comments

Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver

[dmh20002]

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.

Re:Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver

[Strange Ranger]

Cryptonomicon was kind of destined to become a hit. An outstanding writer who is a geek's geek geeking out on top geeky topics.

The Baroque Cycle seems more like Neal exploring his own niche interests. Alchemy, the history of modern banking, etc. Makes think Neal might have been poking fun at himself with his choice of The Baroque Cycle as the trilogy title.

Anyway, though not as immediately accessable as Cryptonomicon, it is a fascinating pleasure to experience a writer of Mr. Stephenson's caliber and style work through his own exploration of things that are:

marked generally by use of complex forms, bold ornamentation, and the juxtaposition of contrasting elements often conveying a sense of drama, movement, and tension 2 : characterized by grotesqueness, extravagance, complexity, or flamboyance

Go Neal. And thanks again!

Re:Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver

[John Harrison]

Neal's books don't end. They accelerate. Allow me to explain. Snowcrash, The Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon all begin with very detailed explainations of the technology that the plot hinges on. Stephenson is actually pretty good at making this interesting, and he puts plenty of plot in while he does it.

Once the tech is explained the story starts to move faster. It is as if the story is passing through Stephenson's mind faster and he isn't able to type fast enough to keep up. So as it accelerates the details that make it to the page are more and more sparse until there are no details or explainations left. That is when the book is over, since there is nothing to print on the next page as the pace of the book approaches infinity and he simply can type anything.

Quicksilver seems to break the mold. It doesn't get faster and in fact just gets harder and harder to read. The pace at which I could read it got slower and slower until I was unable to read any more of it. I stopped (well, the velocity of my reading reached zero) about 300 pages from the end. This from a person that read Cryptonomicon in two sittings.

Re:Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver

[Strange Ranger]

Each to their own I guess. I like him partly because of the stuff you don't like. Things I know he relates in a humorous way, things I don't (bletchley park, etc etc) he makes fascinating. He bridges gaps for many who aren't the "digerati" that we profess to be. But the best part is none of that, nor the endings, nor the ideas, but the angle from which he explores those ideas, his turn of phrase, etc. Hmmmm... maybe his sense of humor is the key. He makes digging a mine shaft fun and interesting. I thing he could write a Star Office training manual that would make learning it a total hoot. And it would still be greatly enjoyed by those who know Star Office well. YMMV obviously.

book reviews, not links to book reviews

[sdedeo]

I thought the tradition for book reviews was for slashdot contributors to post their own, here. It would be disappointing if we forewent this to just post a link to somewhere else.

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.

I like Stephenson, BUT

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver, & the downward spi

[drdread]

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. :(

Re:Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver, & the downward

[sketi]

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.