A review by luckypluto
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson

adventurous challenging funny informative inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

It took me twenty years, but I finally finished reading this book. Overall, I’d say it was pretty good. It’s more or less a European history lesson, and I loved reading about that, as well as the birth of science during the enlightenment. I enjoyed the characters’ stories as well, but the book definitely gets bogged down a third of the way through and my interest began waning (and thus my reading pace began to slow). It’s a dense book and reading it can be a chore. It’s interesting to consider how our reading habits have changed dramatically in twenty years; would a “normal” modern reader (i.e., not me) who is distracted by social media, video games, etc., force themselves to read this tome? Stephenson keeps churning out these novels so I suppose the answer is “yes”, but the baroque prose of The Baroque Cycle makes me wonder.

Despite the density of this novel, I remain dedicated to my mission to finishing the other two books in this series, come hell or high water.