After about six months, I’ve completed my tour of re-reading Cryptonomicon (which I consider a prequel to the Baroque Cycle) and my first readings of the Baroque Cycle novels (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World).
These are all really great books and I recommend them to everyone. It certainly doesn’t take six months to read them, I mean, don’t be thrown by the time I spent on them. I spent that much time because I buy almost all my books (I love collecting and building towards a library) and I want to get my money’s worth out of them, so I read a short amount every day at night to relax. Also, the books are filled with minutiae of all sorts which it’s really easy (and sometimes preferable) to skip over. I mean, I had no trouble with all the science trivia, but when the novels move into, oh, the trivia of silver mining and the relative strengths of currencies in a given era, my eyes glazed over a bit.
Anyway, all in all, Stephenson is a magnificent writer, and these books are a huge departure from, say, Snow Crash, so don’t go in expecting THAT. After all, these are science fiction books that take place in the past (and no, that does not mean time travel).
I’ve since moved onto a book by Chris Moriarty entitled Spin State — it has a recent sequel, Spin Control, which I will most definitely be buying. I’m struck by its similarity to Richard K. Morgan’s style, although it is by no means derivative. I thoroughly enjoy both authors and would not hesitate to tell you to go read them.
And that it’s for my literary comments this evening.