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A review by adamrbrooks
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
2.0
Anathem and Cryptonomicon are two of the best books I've ever read.
Quicksilver was, for the most part, an awful slog. It took me months to get through this, because I often couldn't force myself to go back to it. All this on my second attempt to read it.
Maybe I just don't have the patience for the layers of storytelling, don't know the real history enough to care about his versions of what might have been going on in the background, but the explanations were tedious, the letters and plays and diaries to describe the action distracting and dull.
And while I get that actions at those times helped shape the modern world we know now, it seems to tidy to give all the credit to just a small group of men (and one woman, who has more adventures than any other in history).
Whatever he writes next I may read, but I doubt I'll ever even touch the other two volumes in the Baroque Cycle.
Quicksilver was, for the most part, an awful slog. It took me months to get through this, because I often couldn't force myself to go back to it. All this on my second attempt to read it.
Maybe I just don't have the patience for the layers of storytelling, don't know the real history enough to care about his versions of what might have been going on in the background, but the explanations were tedious, the letters and plays and diaries to describe the action distracting and dull.
And while I get that actions at those times helped shape the modern world we know now, it seems to tidy to give all the credit to just a small group of men (and one woman, who has more adventures than any other in history).
Whatever he writes next I may read, but I doubt I'll ever even touch the other two volumes in the Baroque Cycle.