[Soon Lee]

Read this a while and will re-read it this month.

My recollections:
IMO, it's not SF. It may be alternative history or speculative fiction. What I do know is that it is the sort of thing SF readers might like; it is about 'science' and it is written by a writer known to write SF. In that sense, it's a bit like WILLIAM GIBSON's PATTERN RECOGNITION.

It's a book in much the same mode as CRYPTONOMICON; if you liked that...

The theme as far as I could tell, was the birth of the 'scientific method'. There is a lot is print devoted to the Royal Society, its beginnings, the key players etc. A large portion of the book describes the transition from 'alchemy' or other hand-wavy magical arts to the birth of rationalism. As one who works in research, I found it fascinating.

NEAL STEPHENSON is keen to share the research he's uncovered, hence the many side-stories, the cutesy bits that don't have any relevance to the main plot (whatever that is). QUICKSILVER is a sprawling monstrosity.

Personally, I really enjoyed it, even and sometimes especially the digressions. This is by no means a perfect book.

Like CRYPTONOMICON, it could have been leaner; a lot of the digressions did not advance the plot and served more as colour or infodumps allowing Stephenson to share interesting bits and pieces with his readers. Having said that, I wonder if Melville's MOBY DICK would have been hailed as a classic if his digressions had been left out? Maybe it's the journey, not the destination.

[Erfael]

Well, I'm feeling rather bad about this, but I've put QS mostly on hold for the moment. With the gig season being in full swing, I just don't have time to read more than about 10 pages or so a night before I'm passing out, and that's just not getting me through QS at any reasonable speed. I really love the book, but it's just so darned big for a december book. I guess making a living trumps reading a book, though, so I'll get back to it as soon as I have more time again.

[emohawk]

It took just over 2 weeks (though the first week was slow going) but I finally finished Quicksilver. As I think I mentioned before it took be able 200 pages or so to get into it - partly I guess because it wasn't until then that I felt I was making any progress through this massive tome. Once I got through that mental barrier though I didn't have much trouble finishing it.

Overall I quite enjoyed it, probably even slightly more than I was expecting, and would have to say that I'll continue with the cycle and pick up the next two volumes when they come out in MMP. That in itself is fairly high praise when you consider the amount time and effort (not to mention money) that Mr Stephenson has gambled on us, the readers, commiting to his significant novel(s).

I won't go into many details, partly because there's just too much to cover and partly because a lot of you are still reading it and I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just give some general impressions I had of it overall. Quicksilver is composed of 3 books, and I found the second to be easily the most entertaining and easy to get through. While the first book is probably the most fascinating, I found it a little difficult to get through at times because it seems to be almost entirely devoid of any sort of plot progression. It just seems to amble from one little historical snapshot to another without really going very far. Having said that, however, most of these "snapshots" are fairly interesting in themselves, it's just as a whole that they don't seem to resolve a whole lot. That may just be my own personal tastes though. Often thoughout the book I was at once awed at Stephenson's research, knowledge and ability and frustrated that he was just using this novel as a way to arbitrarily show this off.

Something that I struggled with throughout the whole novel was his addition of literary tricks such as including discourse through letters and plays and whatnot. While they're all very clever, I didn't find that they really added a whole lot to the novel (the exception being some of the later letters in the third book) and were probably largely unnecessary in any more than a way to flex his skills as a writer. Once again though, that may just be my own personal taste.

It's be repeated many times in reference to Quicksilver that it could probably use some editing, so i won't labour that point other than to say that while this is very true, I'm not sure what parts you'd trim because once you started you'd probably find that a rather significant portion of the novel could be removed without much effect on the story. Having said that it would probably also remove the book's personality, so it's probably the correct decision not to tamper with it too much.

Overall a pretty good (and significant) novel which is worth reading. I'm relieved I've finally finished it though and can read something else.

[Erfael]

Well, I guess I lied. I still seem to be reading this book. I like it an awful lot. I've finally gotten into the second section, and so far I'm not finding it as compelling as the first, but I'm not so very far into it yet. I really liked Daniel's story for all of the interesting political and philosophical happenings, and was certainly not left with a feeling that there was no plot. I did feel that things were happening, potentially very important things. So amidst all of the craziness of December, I plod along. This may take the prize for the book that takes me the longest chunk of calendar to finish in my life so far. At the rate I'm going, I should have it finished in another four weeks, making it only six weeks to finish....sigh....

As far as the editing goes, I agree, Emo, that the whole point of the book is to have all of this stuff in here. It's more a mood and a setting thing to me than it is a tightly written narrative. And to try and make it into the second would severely damage the first. I haven't felt annoyed at any of the diversions so far, as to me they really don't seem all that diverting. They all show something interesting either about the period or the people who populate it. So far, I don't feel like the book is really about the people, but about that period, with the people being just vehicles to show the happenings of the time.

[Soon Lee]

Finished re-reading QUICKSILVER a few days ago. My impressions haven't changed but I did take more note of Archren's comment (thanks) about the different styles; it didn't sink in the first time the varied storytelling styles Stephenson used in the book to good effect. He was playing around with different forms of written/print, perhaps a nod to cryptography and the various modes of information transfer that play an important role within the book.

I still believe that this is an 'important' series. It is as much SF as CRYPTONOMICON was i.e. not very, but still 'of interest to those in the genre'. More and more I find the comparison between QUICKSILVER and MOBY DICK an apt one.

[Archren]

I still believe that this is an 'important' series. It is as much SF as CRYPTONOMICON was i.e. not very, but still 'of interest to those in the genre'. More and more I find the comparison between QUICKSILVER and MOBY DICK an apt one.

Could you elaborate? I recently read "Moby Dick", and I would be interested to hear your comparison.

[Soon Lee]

It's been a while since I read MOBY DICK but it is my recollection that while the main story was about Ishmael's story of AHAB and his hunt for the White Whale, there were a lot of expository passages, stuff that didn't directly advance the plot/storyline but were more background or colour. One that springs to mind is the chapter that goes on about pictures of whales. It was pure infodump that did not directly advance the plot.

MOBY DICK would have been a shorter, tauter work without those background colour passages and IIRC there were quite a few of those. What I'm suggesting is that without those colourful digressions, MOBY DICK would not have been considered the classic it is.

In a similar way, I think that all the asides and infodumps in QUICKSILVER, though not directly progressing the story, helps paint a richer tapestry and thus enriches the novel.

[Archren]

That's a good point, I have to say I agree. The infodumps and side comments certainly lend a (to me) charming air to both works. The only problem with this firt book in a trilogy is that I can't figure out exactly what the main plot IS yet, but I am certainly looking forward to finding out. I got the other two books for Christmas, so I imagine that by this time next year I'll have finished the series. :D

[LordBalthazar]

I can honestly say I did not hate this book. In fact, as quite literally at one time a "student of history", there was a lot to to enjoy here. Stephenson paints an intricate picture of the era and the character that peopled it, and his narrative benefits from some terrific dashes of dark humor. Quicksilver is painstakingly researched and painfully detailed, alternately an entertaining and excurciatingly tedious read. And, at the end of the day, not science fiction. Certainly speculative fiction and, in that regard, probably more suited to the Fantasy Book Club, but far removed from any of the other BOTM selections to date. If I had one quibble with this book (besides the fact that it was at times incredibly ponderous and overwritten) it's that it was missing a little something. A certain je ne sais quoi. No, wait. I sais quoi. A plot!

Still, Quicksilver proves Stephenson to be a thorough and accomplished writer - who I will probably never read again.

[Soon Lee]

Don't discount Stephenson just yet, at least not until you have read SNOWCRASH.