Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The ironically named _Quicksilver_ is the most disappointingly leaden book it has been my displeasure to read in recent years. After _Cryptonomicon_ my expectations were high. Early on in _Quicksilver_ I realized that there was no way this book could be as good as the earlier one, so I adjusted my hopes downward accordingly...and even then, I was disappointed. The flaws are numerous. The one thing that everyone knows about the book is that it contains a frantic pile of trivia. I was actually looking forward to this aspect of the book, given that I enjoy random learning opportunities as much as the next geek, and given that this is one part of _Cryptonomicon_ that I was enthused about. _QS_ disappoints in this regard. To my mind there are two main bins that trivia are sorted in to: (1) those random items that are capable of clicking in an interesting way into the knowledge structure I already have; and (2) utterly random tidbits. NS delivered a few of the former, and a few truck-loads of the latter. In so far as the trivia was interesting, I already knew it (Germanic witch trials, etymology of the word "dollar", the broad outlines and purposes of the various 16th century political structures), and in so far as the trivia was not something I already knew, I found it dreadfully boring (hail-storms of random names of royalty, many of them playing minimal roles in the plot, etc.). Ah. I used the word "plot", so I've segued onto the next region of disappointment. _QS_ does not have a plot, in the conventional sense. Sure, in a 900 page novel (or a 2,700 page novel, really), one wouldn't expect the broad sweep of the action to be clear by page 50, or 100...but by page 500 or so, one would hope to have an idea of where things might be going. The book has Theme aplenty. The Theme, however ("Things Really Changed a Whole Lot, Religiously, Economically, Politically, and Scientifically"), is big, but too insubstantial and too vague to construct a huge novel like this on. _A Winter's Tale_ managed to work very well with out a real plot - it could hang off of the Theme that "New York changes a lot, and is magical through the ages". Then again, _A Winter's Tale_ was about 1/9th the length of Stephenson's Inflated Series. Speaking of inflation, this book needed an editor, badly. Dialogue and exposition are clunky in many many places. For that matter, dialogue and exposition are poorly differentiated. There's a joke about 1950's science fiction that 3/4 of the plot and background information are revealed in "As you know, Bob" asides. The same is true of _QS_. There's some minor variation on a theme: there's "As you know", there is "I need not mention the fact that X ...<1,000 words elided>...because you already know that", and there is "as everyone in the town knew...". There's a persistent and pernicious meme in the art world that to truly convey some situations you need to recreate those situations for the audience. Thus, the only way to convey tedium is through a four hour movie, etc. NS seemed to be held by this meme: to convey the intellectual ferment and vast scope of the 17th century he felt the need write a book that was adrift in a ferment and vast in scope. Certainly he could not have conveyed these things in a novella, but that does not mean that he could not have pruned perhaps a third of what he wrote. The book is large enough that there's a Dramatis Personae at the end, which was somewhat useful...but it didn't work wonderfully well for me, because the entries were fairly short and defined the characters (well, historical figures) mostly in terms of descriptors and events that did not take place inside the book. If I come across a character who I know was present 500 pages earlier, but I'm trying to remember whether that character was a alchemist or a merchant, it helps little to learn that the character was a friend of the Duke of Wessex (or what have you). This is not a huge departure from how Dramatis Personae are usually implemented, so this is not a failing unique to NS, but in a long, meandering, and yawn-inducing book the author should be at particular pains to provide aids to the reader. Finally, I found it difficult to read the book at points because of several incidents of barbarous cruelty to animals. I understand that the moral code of the time was different, and that these actions are historically accurate, and even that some reference should be made in the book, so as not to commit the sin of omission, and thus render the book less of its time...but NS went further than that and introduced the cruelty repeatedly. If it was required to advance the plot, he'd have an out. I would wince (and more) at a book that had explicit scenes of child rape or brutality, but would accept it if the book was about the pursuit and capture of a child abuser...but I would find it hard to read a novel that threw in a random scene of a child being scalded as punishment just, because, you know...these things happen. Yeah. Yay verisimilitude. The book was not with out wondrous scenes. Jack Shaftoe steps onto center stage in an audacious scene at the siege of Vienna, which matched the very best action scenes of _Cryptonomicon_. Daniel Waterhouse meets up with danger at sea, and the intellectual faint and bluff of the ensuing engagement is wonderful, as is the nonchalance of the captain of the ship that Daniel is on. However, the scenes are all too rare and far between, and concentrated disproportionately in the first half of the novel. I suppose I'll end up reading the remaining two volumes to see if NS manages to pull a rabbit out of a very battered and pathetic looking hat...but I've got to say, I'm not particularly looking forward to another 1,800 pages of lying back and thinking of Enlightenment England.