Quicksilver -- the next big novel from Neal Stephenson

[Anonymous]

I was in B&N today and noticed that they FINALLY put out the paperback version of Cryptonomicon, perhaps my favorite novel of the 90's. And as an added bonus, they put in an excerpt from Quicksilver, Neal Stepheson's follow-up! But talk about EARLY. According to Amazon, Quicksilver is due out in September, 2003.

Now, I've tried reading Stepheon's Snow Crash, and just could not get into it. But Cryptonomicon was just fucking brilliant and hilarious. So I can't wait for Quicksilver.

From what I've gleaned so far, it's not a traditional follow-up in any sense of the word. It's set in the early 18th century. The excerpt follows one Enoch Root (could it be the same Enoch Root?) as he goes around early Boston trying to find someone and he runs into a smart, if not persistant, kid named Ben Franklin. It sounds like we'll meet the descendents of Waterhouse and Shaftoe as well. The prose is a bit tough to digest... he really goes for the 18th century style, but it has lost nothing in its wicked brilliance. People in B&N looked at me kinda funny as I stood there snorting in laughter.

Can't wait!

[Brad Grenz]

Franklin was a cool cat. I read a diary of his for a History class (right before I dropped it) and it was pretty interesting. I'm looking forward to the book. His and Gibson's next.

[Mike Cathcart]

Now, I've tried reading Stepheon's Snow Crash, and just could not get into it. But Cryptonomicon was just fucking brilliant and hilarious.

I don't get it.

[dannimal]

Me either. It was gripping (funny/brilliant) at points, but overall the book wasn't great. Too much left unsaid, too much contrivance, and too much reality ignored when it's convenient.

[Miramon]

Snow Crash was very cool. It took me a while to get past the over-cute protagonist name, but I really liked it overall, even the chapter off for the essay on neurolinguistics or whatever the hell that was. Diamond Age was good (could have been very good, but the weak ending ruined it for me.) Cryptonomicon was mediocre. I'll read Stephenson's next anyway, but I was not really impressed with this book.

The WW II thread was amusing, but that's about it. The messing about with the historical facts of the Enigma efforts was not IMO a great idea. I thought that gay mathematician was an annoying character. It also seemed a bit offensive in that Turing and others like him were hounded to death for being gay in that period. The entire modern thread was uninteresting. Sort of like Dilbert, but less funny. I already know how corporations and tech companies work, Stephenson's take on them doesn't thrill me.

The hidden gold plot has been done much better by the late Ross Thomas, who excelled with stories about sleazy con artists, Pacific Rim entrepeneurs, out of work spies, and all their friends.

The mysterious society thing is kind of interesting, but I'm afraid it will turn out to be a disappointment in the sequel.

Still, you never know. Stephenson is a very flashy writer who seems to specialize in the tour de force, and he's had a long time to work on this new book, so it might be very different.

[Woolen Horde]

FINALLY. Quicksilver is about a month away. It's been a long, long wait, and I finally found out why today.

The latest Wired has an article about Neal. Way back when Cryptonomicon was published, the rumor was that he already had his next book written, so everybody was somewhat surprised that it's taken 3-4 years for it to appear.

Well, apparently the rumor was near correct. Quicksilver is Book 1 of the 3-book Baroque Cycle, a project that he's been working on for about seven years. And get this: all 3 books are pretty much finished. The plan is to release Book 2 (titled "Confusion") six months after Quicksilver, and Book 3 (title still unknown) six months after that.

Now *that's* the way to do it! Get them all written, then publish them! That way, we don't have to wait years and years for the next installment!

[quatoria]

That's freaking great. I've always hated having to wait and wait and wait for the followups to books I love. This is really a great idea.

[ydejin]

Now, I've tried reading Stepheon's Snow Crash, and just could not get into it. But Cryptonomicon was just fucking brilliant and hilarious. So I can't wait for Quicksilver.

Coincidently I happen to be reading Snow Crash right now. I'm about half way through. So far I really like it. I find his whole view of the world fascinating. Yeah, it's a bit wierd, but it's interesting.

[graller]

I loved Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon. But I like his sense of humor more then some of you here I guess. I found Diamond Age a bit hard to chew on. I will scoop up Quicksilver as soon as it hits the stores.

[Jason McCullough]

Hopefully he'll move a little beyond having supermen protagonists.....

[Jim F.]

I've enjoyed all his books that I've read so far. His endings though... it's like he just kinda gives up and says "Yeah, I guess I'll end it here". Each book left me wanting another chapter or two to expand on the ending.

That's a good sign though, since some books (most Steven King) I'm relieved when the ending comes and could care less what happened after the ending.

I'll no doubt pick up the hardcover of Quicksilver. And I'm glad as hell to find out that he wrote the book in "LoTR: The Movie" style, getting each close to completion so the fans don't have wait an eternity for each book (go Robert Jordan!).

[Case]

Now, I've tried reading Stepheon's Snow Crash, and just could not get into it. But Cryptonomicon was just fucking brilliant and hilarious. So I can't wait for Quicksilver.


How can you not get into a book about hacking the human brain stem?

:D

[Thierry Nguyen]

www.baroquecycle.com

[Woolen Horde]

Heads up, Seattle Qt3'ers, our local boy Neal is going to kick off the release of his new book with an appearance at the University Bookstore on Sept. 23, the day the book goes on sale.

(Actually, since it'll be a huge crowd, the appearance will be at Kane Hall on the U-Dub campus.)

Tickets (which are free) are available Sept. 1 at the U Bookstore.

[Nellie]

I loved snow crash when I first read it. Dont know whether I just got a bit older and wiser, but its lost a lot of its sparkle having re-read it again recently. When I first read it I had a definite OMG moment at the overall premise of some of the ideas.

Diamond age starts well, but just seems to lose its way halfway through and heads downhill from there.

Cryptonomicon I had to read twice just to make up my mind what I thought of it. Overall think I came to the conclusion that it was a pretty good yard, but hard to argue with the points above about the ending of this one in particular, you turn the page expecting some development and conclusion and find out you just finished the last page :shock:

Thought Zodiac was actually the best of his books

[Jim Hoffman]

Snowcrash was great. Even my wife, who's not at all into sci-fi, and doesn't even read much, really enjoyed it. We both read Zodiac too. Also a good book. I'd say those two are his best. Diamond Age.. meh. Cryptonomicon, fairly interesting. I found the part taking place in the modern day more like his humorous snowcrash writing. LIke how the character catagorized everybody as D&D character types. I love how N.S. always gives more than a nod to the geeky crowd. :)

[Nellie]

I loved the first half of Diamond age, though I found the concept of Neo-Victorian society a bit hard to swallow, but maybe thats just me. But as I found with Cryptonomicon, at times it starts to draw you in to one side of the storyline and then just drops it to go off exploring the other "wierd" half of the story that to me just seemed a lot more surreal and featured an awful lot of characters and subplot that I really just wasnt interested in.

Cryptonomicon seems to me to be a lot more accomplished in carrying two parallel plots within the main story, but I just found a lot of the WWII storyline to be, frankly, silly. Had Graham Chapman's Monty Python character popped up halfway through and done the silly sketch at some points I dont think it would have surprised me in the slightest.

[snowcrash22]

I agree, I really enjoy his novels but the endings are a little abrupt.

Can't wait for this book to be released. May have to change my whole internet identity....*blank stare*

[Ummagumma]

ICryptonomicon seems to me to be a lot more accomplished in carrying two parallel plots within the main story, but I just found a lot of the WWII storyline to be, frankly, silly. Had Graham Chapman's Monty Python character popped up halfway through and done the silly sketch at some points I dont think it would have surprised me in the slightest.

That's funny, I found the WWII storylines in Crypto much more compelling than the modern "data haven" stuff.

[Nellie]

That's funny, I found the WWII storylines in Crypto much more compelling than the modern "data haven" stuff
I did to a degree and then, to be blunt, they just got silly. The whole WWII stuff just seemed to get lost in itself, couldn't figure where to go next and just settled on a "we'll see if we can get away with this" scenario.

Neal (is this pretentious? Seriously I don't know) in all his books from my beloved snow crash onwards has an earnest attempt to maintain multiple storylines, but always, as do I, seems to lose interest in at least one of them.

Sadly I just get the impression that if he could focus on one storyline per book, especially having declared crytonomicon a series, that he could have done far more justice having, say, done I and II as parallel story lines. I just always get the impression that his mind from one chapter to the next is more focused on one storyline than the other.

[Woolen Horde]

Thanks to the miracle of technology, I'm typing this as I'm standing in line waiting for Neal to sign my copy of Quicksilver, purchased today.

We're at the University of Washington, where he read a passage from the book and answered some questions. Packed crowd.

More later, cause it's uncomfortable typing this on my knee.

[Brad Grenz]

Hey, it's out. And me with no money...

[Woolen Horde]

It was a pretty cool signing. He packed the largest lecture hall on UW campus.

Since this was his first public reading of Quicksilver, he wasn't quite sure which passage would be best for this kind of thing. He didn't want to do dialogue-laden passages, because, for one, he couldn't do the cool accents he wanted. So he ended up reading to us about Jack Shaftoe's experience in lifting the Siege of Vienna, which had a lot of narrative passages. He has such a soft spoken voice, though, and he skipped the dialogue parts, so I'm sure he'll refine it as he continues the book tour.

Then it was the obligatory Q&A session, followed by the mad dash to get in line for getting the book signed. Only had to wait about 45 minutes, then got mine signed and dated (so I could show I got it signed on the day of release!). I also asked if he could sign "Display Adaptibility!", and he smiled and did.

I was exhausted when I got home, but I have the day off today, so I'm going to crack it open and start reading.

SPOILER????

Neal told us Quicksilver is actually 3 books in one. Literally. So I've heard it can be a bit jarring, because you'll get a third way through the book and the story you're reading ends, and the next one picks up. It's not like Cryptonomicon where it's constantly shifting perspectives; the continuation of each story will occur in the forthcoming novels. So, thankfully, he's issuing them 6 months apart.

Also incredibly impressive is the fact that he wrote all three books in longhand. It was something he discovered in Cryptonomicon, that whenever he got stuck, he got unstuck by actually writing instead of typing. So he wrote all of the Baroque Cycle by hand. All 3,000 pages. And it actually went pretty smoothly, because his theory is that your brain has like a sentence buffer (he loves using geek terms) where it stores a sentence while you're writing it down. If you're typing at 8 million words a minute like he writes, the sentence barely spends any time in the buffer before it's out on the page. But if you're writing, the sentence is forced to spend a lot more time in the buffer, where you can actually edit and form it better.

Anyway, it was a cool event. I'm kicking myself because I didn't bring my Cryptonomicon for him to sign. (You get one non-Quicksilver novel signed for each Quicksilver novel you buy, the "One for One" rule), but I figure I'll catch him for Book 2 of the Baroque Cycle.

[Woolen Horde]

*bump*

I'm about 150 pages in. It's slow reading, cause of the style he writes in. While Cryptonomicon was downright breezy at times, this requires a bit more thought to digest, which is great, cause it's all brain candy.

[XPav]

I started reading this last night.

My first comment was...

Enoch Root in 1713? WTF? I could pass off his "death" and reappearance in Cryptonomicon as sleight-of-hand and being really old in the "modern" timeline, but now I'm not as sure.

I know there's a web page which covers this, because I looked at it last night, and those people have already come up with all sorts of strange theories like...

Enoch Root - chroot -- a UNIX command! What does it all mean?

[Woolen Horde]

http://www.metaweb.com

That's an address Neal gave us at the reading. It's an experiment of sorts, to create a sort of evolving annotation for Quicksilver.

As to the Enoch Root character... lots of theories, lots of ideas.

My own is that Root is an "observer" character... like a stand-in for God sorta. He doesn't really get involved directly in the plot, but he's there kinda guiding and nudging them along. Hence the reason he doesn't age, especially in the 50 years covered in the story.

He does age in Cryptonomicon (young man in World War II, old guy in Manila talking to Randy at the end). So does he "morph" or get reborn like the Pheonix? Or is he Enoch Root (the 11th) or something like that? Who knows?

I don't mind, but this kind of thing seems to get some people's panties in a bunch. I mean, Pynchon had' talking dogs in Gravity's Rainbow, and it's a novel about the Second World War. A farcical novel, to be sure, but not unlike what Stephenson is riffing on in Quicksilver and in Cryptonomicon.

[XPav]

I hurt myself with Quicksilver yesterday. I dropped it on myself.

[Union Carbide]

He does age in Cryptonomicon (young man in World War II, old guy in Manila talking to Randy at the end).

No, he doesn't. Go back and read the first part of Cryptonomicon again, when Shaftoe is first in the South Pacific. Root is described there as he is in both the Manila scenes in Cryptonomicon and the Boston scene in Quicksilver.

[Alan Dunkin]

Will look to pick this up very soon...

Some of the Amazon reviewers seem to think it has like no plot.

I realize Amazon reviewers aren't the greatest (hell I review on there :) sometimes but am curious what the nutcases here think of it.

--- Alan

[Woolen Horde]

The NY Times Sunday Book Review did a feature review on Quicksilver yesterday...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/books/review/05SCHULMT.html

I'm about 250 pages in. It's slow reading, cause your brain needs time to digest it. It's like big chewy brain candy.

I can kind of see why people complain it has no plot, but I can also say that they're wrong. It's not an adventure like Cryptonomicon. Since the first 300 pages are dedicated to Daniel Waterhouse, it's about the struggle in both himself and society to reconcile many issues.


Book 1 of ''Quicksilver'' narrates Daniel's early days in England as the son of a prominent Puritan during and after the Cromwell period. Daniel is a scientist, a member of the newly formed Royal Society, a university buddy of Isaac Newton's and a protege of the ecclesiast and philosopher John Wilkins -- the man who wrote a book called the ''Cryptonomicon,'' which functions as principal McGuffin in the novel of the same name. Young Daniel has the dubious luck to live through the plague year of 1665-66 and to see his childhood home burn in the Great Fire of London. He's a man torn apart in a time of dualities, which Stephenson takes as his themes for this section of the book: reason versus faith, freedom versus destiny, matter versus math. Another theme, of course, is the cyberpunk's delight -- information and how it moves through minds like a fire, or a plague, or quicksilver.

[Woolen Horde]

*bump*