Stephenson's Confusion

[Miramon]

So Quicksilver was basically 3 stories:

1. Annoying milquetoast Waterhouse with tedious and probably wildly inaccurate retelling of the late 17th century history of science. (~50%)

2. Funky 17th century vagabond and soldier-of-fortune Jack Shaftoe, his wacky and implausible adventures. (~25%)

3. Post-modern 17th century financier (financeuse?) Eliza, her semi-interesting and implausible adventures. (~25%)

Parts 2 and 3 were OK, and part 1 was excruciating.

The Confusion, a direct sequel, has basically the same parts, but fortunately the proportions are very different.

1. Waterhouse. <1%, thank god.

2. Shaftoe. ~50%.

3. Eliza. ~50%.

The quality of parts 2 and 3 is about the same as those parts in Quicksilver -- entertaining, but not as good as say Snow Crash, Zodiac, or even The Diamond Age. If you liked that aspect of Quicksilver, then you'll like The Confusion more than Quicksilver. Otherwise, there's no reason to read the book.

In case you were wondering: No, there's still no damn explanation for Enoch Root. Is he immortal? Is he a hare-brained time-traveler? Is he just an arbitrary unexplainable character intended to make the whole book even less plausible in some lame post-modernist way? Do you care?

[Midnight Son]

Nah, don't care. Haven't read any of his stuff. Is it any good?

[Gendal]

I finished Quicksilver but I was bored senseless with it. There where a few interesting parts but not enough to justify the effort. Will not be reading The Confusion, nor anything else till he starts getting good reviews again.

[nKoan]

It was very hard for me to finish Quicksilver. I liked the Waterhouse stuff, and the Shaftoe stuff, but I just couldn't like the finance and court politics of Eliza's own story.

But, I'm not halfway through the Confusion, and I think I like Eliza and her parts of the book much more now. I do miss the Waterhouse stuff, and hopefully there will be more in The Sytem of the World.

[Talisker]

I've only read Diamond Age and Snow Crash; in both, he did a phenomenal job of making the world in the books vibrant, real, and fascinating, the characters plentiful and interesting. Loved both of 'em until 'round the 3/4 mark or so -- 'cause he's not quite so good at plotting. He'll have several different plot threads up in the air, waving around, dancing around each other, lots of tension and possibilities, and suddenly it feels like he goes "meh, I'm sick of writing this one", ties 'em all together in a bundle, and whacks 'em all of in about four pages and the book ends.

If you're into SF, he's definitely a worthy read, just be aware that his books don't end as strongly as they start.

(and be aware that this is coming from a guy who's only read two of his books, so hey).

[nKoan]

No, I agree. I've read a fair amount of Stephenson, and he really can't seem to write an ending.

My friends and I joked the only reason the Baroque Cycle is so long is because he is doing his best to procrastinate writing the ending.

[Tyjenks]

Stephenson should just do like Fantasy writers often do and stretch the story into an infinite amount of volumes so he will never have to wind up but a few of his plotlines. :)

That said, I have not read any...Snowcrash is his best work?

[Qwijybo]

I tried starting Cryptonomicon a month or two ago. I think I fell asleep every time I tried to read it - I maybe made it through the first hundred pages. Is it worth attempting again at all? And are Snowcrash and Diamond Age more readable?

[Talisker]

I've tried reading Cryptonomicon a couple times as well with the same results, Qwijybo.

As for which Stephenson to start with, I'd definitely go with Snow Crash, unless you REALLY dig nanotech, in which case Diamond Age is very, very cool.

[Rollory]

Diamond Age doesn't have an ending. Diamond Age is going full throttle and then all of a sudden just stops. It's like someone took a meat cleaver and chopped off the rest of what was the original book. You know the Bugs Bunny thing of hiding an anvil behind a curtain,and the bull comes charging along, head down, and WHAM!, flattened bull? That's what Diamond Age feels like at the stopping point.

Snow Crash is definitely his best work. Some will tell you Cryptonomicon is, but they're wrong, and probably English Lit types to boot. Cryptonomicon is readable, and not a bad story in retrospect, but I don't see anything to rave over in it.

Zodiac is an excellent work, with a real ending, though it's one I haven't seen discussed much. It's an eco-thriller, but a sensible one.

[Kyle Wilson]

Originally Posted by Rollory

Diamond Age doesn't have an ending.

None of his books have endings. Despite what you say about Zodiac. :) I always thought that Stephenson needed a co-author who could channel his fearsome torrent of ideas into a credible narrative arc. But then I read the stuff he co-wrote with his uncle under the pseudonym Stephen Bury, and it reads exactly the same. So I guess he's just beyond literary salvation. Fortunately, he's imaginitive enough to be worth reading anyway.

[nKoan]

Yes,

He's a great storyteller, he just can't write an ending. I've learned to expect shoddy endings, and just started to enjoy the stories for the content (even if the ending always feels rushed).

His books are a journey, not a destination :p

[Kevin Grey]

Count me in that small minority of people who loved Quicksilver. Sure it didn't really have a coherent plot the the writing was so colorful and fascinating that I could care less. I even loved the Waterhouse parts.

I loved Cryptonomicon too but didn't care too much for Snow Crash (blasphemy I know). Was a little too over the top for my tastes. Then again, I read it six years ago so my tastes may have changed since then.

[dgallina]

The Confusion is far more coherent than Quicksilver IMHO. Thought it was a much better (and more entertaining) book.

How it all ends is up in the air until the next volume, of course. We'll see if Stephenson succeeds with an ending this time :-)

Diego

[Drastic]

The Eliza sequences are an enormous improvement over Quicksilver's thus far--I'm about two-thirds of the way through Confusion.

What makes the difference, near's I can articulate it, is that there's a much more sane balance between the bits of Eliza's letter-writing, and actual scenes in prose. The last half or so of Quicksilver felt more like quicksand due to almost all of Eliza's stuff being in longwinded epistles telling what adventures have happened instead of actually showing them.

In Confusion, she's actually become an interesting character.

[Woolen Horde]

I enjoyed Quicksilver, though I must admit that the first 1/3 of the book is brutal, particiularly if you're new to Stephenson.

That said, having wrapped up Confusion, I'm rereading Quicksilver and find myself enjoying the first 1/3 so much more.

Everything really comes together in Confusion; the Jack and Eliza storylines just take off. Jack goes around the world the long way, and he's a tornado chewing up everything in his path. And like a butterfly flapping its wings in China and causing a tornado to happen in America, the repurcsions of Jack's adventures travel back to Europe, and cause a continent already in the midst of enormous revolution to tip over.

But what really got me were the ties to both Quicksilver and Cryptonomicon. There are several, including one that made me put the book down and just smile, because there's a sentence in Cryptonomicon that I always assumed was a Snow Crash in-joke and it turns out to tie directly to Confusion.

Then I started flipping through Quicksilver and realized that the first third of the book ties fully into the events of Confusion. And I find the Waterhouse storyline making more sense, now that I understand his relationship to Newton and Liebnez.

Definately can't wait for Book 3. Book 2 ends not quite on a cliffhanger, but everything's in motion and I'm dying to know how it comes together.

[ydejin]

I agree 100% with Rollory and Andrew Myers. I absolutely loved Diamond Age, thought it was going to be one of my all-time favorite books, then at about 4/5ths of the way through the book, it all started falling apart, and I was left thinking, what the hell just happened. I thought the ending was horrible, especially compared to how wonderful most of the book was.

[Ben]

I really like Cryptonomicron because of the cool ideas, but man, he really needs focus. Just like how Martin wastes my time with all those non-Jon/Tyrion characters, did anyone like the present-day Waterhouse subplot? With it's misundering of macroeconomics and just general boringness? The WW2 Waterhouse stuff was decent in that it was about interesting stuff and quirky, the Shaftoe stuff was ridiculous but also awesome, the Japanese guy was OK but even more ridiculous, and then there was the setup for a bad Crichton book that never developed.

[scharmers]

What we're not getting here is that Stephenson is one of those "idea writers" -- he's a guy that is stuffed just chock-a-block full of groovy ideas and just has to get them out there before he explodes. (This is opposed to the good writers with NO ideas -- guys who can churn out thick, readable books with absolutely no caloric value whatsoever...) Naturally, sometimes his stories tend to fall apart once he's expounded those wonderful ideas. It's the curse of the c-punk era of good writers. The idea guys in the New Wave of SF [dating myself] like Phil K. Dick, Ballard, et.al. had just these awesome ideas, but buried them in New Wave incoherence. The good c-punk guys (like Stephenson and Sterling, NOT Gibson, who rapidly dropped off the face of the earth IMHO) tend to spray their ideas at the outset, then get bored or something and forget basic storytelling. I think that all of Stephenson's work is brilliant, but yes boy do I agree the ends leave with a "that's it? all that, and that's IT?" feeling.

--scharmers

[Woolen Horde]

Originally Posted by ydejin

I agree 100% with Rollory and Andrew Myers. I absolutely loved Diamond Age, thought it was going to be one of my all-time favorite books, then at about 4/5ths of the way through the book, it all started falling apart, and I was left thinking, what the hell just happened. I thought the ending was horrible, especially compared to how wonderful most of the book was.

I started (and ended) a thread earlier about The Big U, which was Stephenson's first book. Absolutely fuckin' brilliant in the first half--I imagine a lot of Qt3'ers would relate to the many events and characters. But it just explodes in the second half into an insane, over-the-top-over-the-top satire. And then it just ends suddenly. Still worth reading, though.

(You guys will just love the wargaming club passages.)