
Quicksilver (Baroque Cycle Series #1)
3.9
176
5
1
Paperback(Reprint)
USD
17.09
$17.09
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780060593087 |
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Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
Publication date: | 09/21/2004 |
Series: | Baroque Cycle Series , #1 |
Edition description: | Reprint |
Pages: | 960 |
Sales rank: | 126,363 |
Product dimensions: | 5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.53(d) |
About the Author

Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Quicksilver (Baroque Cycle Series, Parts 1-3)
3.9 out of 5
based on
0 ratings.
176 reviews.
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Thusfar all the 'complaints' regarding this book are that it's too long, the dialog is too stiff, and that there's no plot. History doesn't have a plot. Life doesn't have a plot. This book is a portrait of what life was like in the 1600's. It's not a neatly packaged story with a clear beginning and ending. Think of the Baroque Cycle books as a history lesson with personality. If you don't like history, or don't care about how aspects of our lives came to pass, then this isn't the book for you. As for the 'passivity' of the characters in the story... in order to maintain the historical integrity of real world events the *fictional characters* kinda need to be passive. Daniel Waterhouse doesn't do anything of consequence because Daniel Waterhouse didn't really exist... what would you have him do? Invent something? Cure something? Kill someone? Daniel Waterhouse is the camera-man through which we can watch Neal Stephenson's retelling of real-world history. If you want pure fiction, look elsewhere. This is a masterfully disguised history lesson.
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Although this is fictional and staged during one of the greatest periods of scienctific discovery, it is not science fiction. The many historical characters act and perform as they did in their exciting times. Questioning everything, from science to religion to financial systems to governmental forms, the delightfully real and fictional characters live each day to learn, educating the reader at the same time. Lest this 1000 page volume 1 of the Baroque Trilogy sound daunting, rest assured that the creative inclusion of lovable scoundrels keep you laughing and wondering what mess is around the next corner. A sure bet for avid readers with scientific, financial, historical, or philosophical interests.
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As a Stephenson fan, I opened this book with high hopes. Alas, they were quickly dashed. He shovels up mountainous descriptions of landscapes and architecture and period costumery, religious and political and scientific intrigues, but all to no purpose in advancing the action. A second flaw is that he pastes much of this description into dialogue form, making conversations between the characters stilted and artificial. Stephenson is undeniably brilliant; but he needs to cut more and write tighter. What might have been a decent 400-page story unfortunately balloons to 900+ pages.
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this and its two sequels are the a great way to escape into a past that might have been with a touch here and there of 'hmmm' and a lot more hilarity. Go Neal Go
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I'm floored! At my age, I'm learning new vocabulary, more about the 1600's than I can believe, and can put down my Nook.
Neal Stephenson will have my attention while I read all he has written.
I recommend this book to all my friends.
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A very detailed work that accurately depicts life in 17th century Europe and North America. At times hard to follow as there seems to be no central story line other than following a variety of characters through a series of events. Regardless, Stephenson has put tremendous care and vividness to this book and time period.
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Brilliantly conveys the excitement and confusion of the birth of scientific and financial modernity. Some passages are brilliant: the work of the Royal Society, the misadventures of Jack Shaftoe and the extended pirate chase involving the aged Daniel Waterhouse. But there is so much historical detail that a plot never fully emerges - or perhaps the plot is the entire 17th century. Either way, the novel is frustrating: hard work, hard to love but still very much worth reading. Cut down to half the size it would be brilliant.
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Too much! Too big, too long, too slow, too complex. It's like Neal Stephenson took a look back at The Cryptonomicon and thought "What's wrong with this book? I know - it's not long and complicated enough!" He proceeded to remedy this 'oversight' in writing Quicksilver. The book still has many of the strengths of his writing - the humour, the fascinating digressions - but in the end, this book was just too much for me.
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Volume One of the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson is a mind-boggling novel. I don¿t know how to categorize it. Maybe an historical novel of science and politics. Whatever. This tale of 17th century Europe features appealing characters caught in historical events, illuminating them from a fascinating and humorous insider perspective. In spite of the fact that the book is enormous, it is mesmerizing. The second volume is out. I¿ll be reading it.Published in hardcover by William Morrow.
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An excellent tale, particularly of the science and scientists of the 16th century in England, and gets into the plague and great fire of London in the 17th, plus religious dissidents and royal courts of France and England. Steampunk in its sensibility, an effort to combine Baroque science with some modern language and attitudes while still retaining the feel of the era.
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Earnest readers approach new books like a relationship. They size up the heft of the tome, the thickness of spine, the cosmetics of the cover, and they think to themselves, "Should I get involved? Do I really want to commit?" After all, for three days or three weeks, they will be wedded to these pages. Maybe it will be a good marriage with staying power all the way to the final breath of the last page; or, if the book's especially bad, the reader will opt for a quick divorce, leaving the poor book wondering what it did wrong, what it could have done better. Neal Stephenson's novel, Quicksilver, requires some serious marital commitment. At more than 920 pages and weighing a few ounces shy of three pounds, Quicksilver can be a draining experience¿like having a 300-pound bride sit on your chest and demand your full attention¿and along about page 730, you're really starting to ponder those words "to have and to hold." The novel, the first of a trilogy Stephenson is calling The Baroque Cycle, is set in the late 17th and early 18th centuries and is stuffed with a museum's worth of miscellany. Cameos are made by historical and literary figures like Samuel Pepys, Mother Goose, D'Artagnan the Musketeer, Blackbeard the Pirate, William Penn and Winston Churchill (no, not that Winston, but one of his ancestors). Here in these pages, readers will also find such diverse topics as the beginnings of the stock market, French politics, metaphysics, mathematics, archeology, etymology, cryptology, metallurgy, genealogy, high-seas piracy, purloined letters, torture, the medicinal use of manure and scientific discussions involving the gravitational pull of billiard balls and the architecture of snowflakes. I'm sure I've left at least a dozen subjects off the list. Quicksilver weighs as heavy on the mind as it does the hand. The densely-packed pages are filled with characters sitting around having conversations about God, gravity and alchemy¿characters like Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke and Gottfried Leibniz, who is known for believing all knowledge could be coded and numbered. If that was true, he postulated, then determining the mysteries of the universe would be a simple matter of calculation. This appears to be one of Stephenson's chief aims as well. The novelist has built a reputation, and a devoted legion of fans, with cyberpunk literature like Snow Crash and The Diamond Age. His most recent novel, Cryptonomicon, centered around World War Two code-breaking. It, too, weighed in at more than 900 pages, which of course begs the question "Did Stephenson's editor lose his red pen?" The author is well aware of the stir his heavy-handed volume will cause and has even written in a couple of self-referential winks. Here's an excerpt from a play-within-the-novel (Quicksilver is filled with diagrams, genealogical charts, letters and plays): WATERHOUSE: Here, m'lord, fresh from Cambridge, as promised, I give you Books I and II of Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton¿have a care, some would consider it a valuable document. APTHORP: My word, is that the cornerstone of a building, or a manuscript? RAVENSCAR: Err! To judge by weight, it is the former. APTHORP: Whatever it is, it is too long, too long! WATERHOUSE: It explains the System of the World. APTHORP: Some sharp editor needs to step in and take that wretch in hand! While Quicksilver doesn't exactly explain the system of the world, it goes to great pains and lengths to show us where the basis for much of our modern scientific and philosophic thought originated: the fervid minds of the Natural Philosophers and members of the Royal Society, a men's club which puzzled over everything from dog anatomy to snowflake geometry. Stephenson masterfully shows us how raw and uncharted science was three centuries ago: "Lately, every time Mr. Hooke peers at something with his Microscope he finds that it is divided up into small compartments, each one just like its neighbors, like bricks in a wall," Wilkins confided. "W
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Lots of interesting stuff here from natural philosophy to the Restoration to the Glorious Revolution, but the tedious bits are almost overwhelming. The letters of the third book are the most tedious of all - but I'm glad I made it through to the end, it feels like quite an accomplishment to say the least. Part of me wants to jump right into the next book, The Confusion, but most of me is just too exhausted to even think about it right now.
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This was a BIG book. It is the 1st book in the Baroque Cycle and it was itself split into 3 parts. The first part I found to be slow and a little tedious, though very interesting, it bounces back and forth between the early 1700's on a ship being chased by pirates and 50 years earlier when the main character was going to school. The ship scenes I think were mostly there to give the book some action to help along the boredom of the early story. The second part was much more action packed and I found to be much more fun and faster reading. This is also where we meet Jack "Half-Cocked" Shaftoe, Vagabond extraordinaire and we follow him on his many adventures throughout Europe in his quest to collect a legacy for his twin boys. This one was much better and many places had me laughing out loud.The 3rd book was mostly back to the main character from the first book, Daniel Waterhouse, with a bit of tie-in from the second. This one slowed down again but was still better than the first part.Overall I found the book a decent though long read and very interesting. I actually learned quite a bit about 17th Century Europe and England and a few other things. Quite a few ends and hints were left for the next book in the series.
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Quicksilver is probably one of the dullest books I've read in some time. I can see that it might be interesting to someone with a deep interest in European history of the late 17th century, but perhaps not even then.Quicksilver is the first book in Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, a trilogy of historical fiction novels covering European history of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, focusing specifically on the political maneuverings of the time and the development of science as we know it today. It involves such people as Isaac Newton, Gottfried Liebnitz, Robert Hooke, Charles II, Louis XIV, and William of Orange. The main characters are, however, completely fictional: Daniel Waterhouse, Jack Shaftoe, and Eliza. (Readers of Cryptonomicon may notice the reuse of family names. Also reappearing are Enoch Root and Qwghlm.)As I mentioned above, I found the pace of the book to be exceedingly dull, despite the fact that I actually have an interest in the history of science in that period. (And no such interest in that period's politics, so the science was merely dull, while the politics were excruciatingly dull.) That's really my biggest complaint. I do feel that the book could have been more interesting if it had been edited down a lot.Still, I did gain some things from the book. For one, I have a lot clearer picture of the history of the area (and, as far as my research can tell, the history in Quicksilver is quite accurate). But I can't really bring myself to recommend it to anyone other than raving history fans. Almost everyone I know found the book very tedious, and most never managed to finish it.Steganography and ending spoilers below.The steganographic cypher that Eliza used really bugged me for most of the book. At first, I thought that the plaintext that Stephenson shows was supposed to be derived from the other visible portions of the letter. Which didn't make much sense, because the proportions of the two texts did not match at all the stated 5:1 ratio for cyphertext and plaintext. Later things implied that we were not shown the cyphertext, which is a little more believable, but runs into the problem of boundaries--sometimes the hidden text forms its own paragraphs, but sometimes Eliza appears to insert bits into otherwise cleartext sentences. Said sentences appear to flow naturally with both the hidden text and without any text, but there must be some steganographic text that is there in the undecyphered letter. The only way I could deal with the cypher, given the various problems I perceived with it, was to regard it as an unexplained author's vehicle for plot and try not to think about how it worked. I don't like having to do that with a story.And the ending. For Stephenson (with whose novel endings I've generally been displeased), it's quite good. It works very well for this particular book (as one that leads into another such) and, with minor tweaks, would do well as the closing to a standalone novel. Too bad I probably won't read the final two books in the Baroque Cycle to see how the whole thing turns out.
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As often happens with Neal Stephenson books, I had the sneaking suspicion throughout the series that I'm not quite smart enough to really understand everything that's going on, but I still had a rip-roaring great time reading this book. The characters are typical Stephenson characters (he often has the self-deprecating, adventurous, dumb-yet-geeky male and the witty, hyper-intelligent, sexy, manipulative female - I can't help but think these are two sides of Stephenson's own personality). I love the science fiction approach to historical fiction. Really amazing stuff.
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I love the idea of this book. I love the subject matter (all of it!) And I loved earlier books by Stephenson, especially "Cryptonomicon." And I could not get through this book. And that is rare.
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Judging by the first book, The Baroque Cycle is well named. Not only because that of the historical period it treats, but because it itself contains the key characteristics to such an extent. It does not come to expression so much in a particularly ornate language, but in a wealth of detail which is there, I think, not so much in order to create any sort of reality effect, but for its own sake. It could be he overdoes it a little at times, but if you are writing a Baroque Cycle I suppose you might as well write a Baroque cycle.This can be exhausting. Certainly if, like me, you reach for books to check whether these historical ``facts'' are indeed facts or just facts of the fictional variety. This is the frustrating bit. Stephenson makes no secret of his novels having a fictional element, which means that it occasionally feels like reading a text book without the added bonus of being allowed to trust the information that textbook offers. The majority of the book, however, was so well researched, I was delighted. I had to force myself to stop checking up on it all after a while, and someone really could have told me that there was an appendix containing a list of dramatis personæ in which the fictional were distinguished from the real (or as Stephenson puts it, some are historical, others might ``produce confusion, misunderstanding, severe injury, and death if relied upon by time travelers visiting the time and space in question''). He sometimes makes use of some rather stretched devices in order to include this research, and at other times he makes too much of information that is really common knowledge, but I won't quibble too much. Stephenson gets stars aplenty for his research. I have always been vaguely insulted by authors who felt it was all right to riddle their novels with inaccuracies. It suggests, or states flat out, that they believe their readers will be too ignorant to notice the difference. Checking up on obscure facts and finding they were accurate made me very happy. The real strength of the book is craftsmanship. Not just in terms of research, but also in the variety of literary styles. I am a little annoyed that this is not done in a coherent way, but the styles fit their subject so well, I have no real issue with it. He starts off playing with time, presenting the opening of the story as a series of protracted flashbacks from an old man trapped on a ship attacked by pirates, runs off into history and frolics about (there is no other word for it) with the Royal Society for a while, before changing the style completely into a semblance of the picaresque (which, of course, also has the picaresque novel as a participant). He also uses occasional bouts of drama to good effect, and large portions of the last third of the book take the epistolary form. The book is divided into three sections. The first focuses on Daniel Waterhouse (fictional), a close friend of Isaac Newton (not so fictional) and a great and lovely cast of Royal Society members like Hooke, Wilkins, Boyle, Oldenburg and that lot in 1660s and 1670s London. The second is the picaresque, mainly focused on Jack Shaftoe, a Vagabond (also fictional). I wonder to what extent it is a coincidence that the portrayal of Daniel's youth is shown in apparently objective flashbacks, whereas Jack is allowed to tell his own story to a beautiful woman, with the truth value that entails. The third and final part is not so easily connected to one character, but it is closely tied to Eliza, a former harem slave (and fictional to the extent that she comes from a fictional country) picked up by Jack in part two. Leibniz, rather than Newton, dominates the latter two halves, as the question of Leibniz and Newton and the Calculus hovers in the background throughout. Historical figures like Huygens, Rossignol, Charles II, James II, William of Orange, Louis XIV and any number of others gravitate (oh dear) around these three protagonists with va
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It is so very hard to classify this book - the first in an extremely weighty trilogy (this book alone weighs in at over 900 pages!) Is it fantasy? Is it science fiction? It is historical? It most certainly is dense, dull, delightful and dry.The book is split into three different sections. The first of these looks back on Daniel Waterhouse's early life in London and his association with the Royal Society and the pre-eminent philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers and scientists of that time, including Isaac Newton. This period of the book can be extremely difficult reading, and needs intense concentration. Even with that, I found myself struggling with the esoteric vocabulary used and the overwhelming amount of science on display. I find science and maths difficult at the best of times, and this book did nothing to ease me - often I found myself understanding only one paragraph in three and had to really persevere to get through this section. There was light relief periodically from present-day Daniel, travelling by ship back to England and being pursued by pirates. One thing I enjoyed immensely about this part of the book - science aside - was the way that Stephenson conveyed the wonder and mystery of the discoveries that were coming thick and fast, driven by certain people whose ideas have not been surpassed even now.The second part of the book dealt with Eliza and Jack Shaftoe. This section flew past in a flurry of giggles and adventure, including an amusing interlude with an ostrich and a Turkish harem. Jack is a lively character, seemingly destined to die from the French pox (syphilis), but determined to make a life for himself and generate an inheritance for his two boys. Eliza is enigmatic, alluring and tom-boyish by turns - both drawn to Jack and repelled by him. They travel together across a lot of Europe and end up in Amsterdam, where Jack leaves Eliza to make his fortune in Paris and ends up on a ship bound for deepest Africa. I loved this part of the book, and it more than made up for the dryness of the first section.The last part draws all the threads of the story together, culminating in the revolution that Waterhouse has spent his life working towards. There is intrigue, and gripping letters between Leibniz and Eliza, who, by now, is the Countess de la Zeur. James II is overthrown and Daniel suffers a spell in prison. So, all in all, a massive book with massive ideas and massive characters. It should have been unbelievable and unforgettable, but I was left feeling a little as though it were too much work. I will read the other two volumes in the trilogy for completeness, but I don't embark on them with a lightness of spirit!
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Gave up on this book. Boring and tortuous reading.
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Finally finished slogging through Neal Stephenson's 3,000-or-so-page Baroque trilogy. Took me like six months, but it was definitely worth it. Leave it to Stephenson to make history both incredibly real-seeming and utterly ridiculous at the same time. If you liked Cryptonomicon and have any interest in Enlightenment-era London, Baroque is certainly worth a read. Just make sure to leave yourself plenty of time.
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I had a hard time with the 'first book' of Quicksilver. I didn't like the characters. The story was dry/boring to me. I enjoyed the 'second book' of Quicksilver. The characters were more enjoyable. The end was horrible.The 'third book' went back to the characters from the beginning of the book. I almost got to page 700, but decided to cut my losses. The book is over 900 pages long.The book seemed like a series of events rather than a mystery/event/epic tale that I thought would eventually appear. I started to reread Cryptonomicon at the end of book one. I thought that may help me enjoy it more. Nope. Reading a chapter of Quicksilver (bopping around the late 1600's), and then a chapter of Cryptonomicon (mid to late 1900's) was challenging. The focus required is not something I can handle.
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While I was reading this, my brain was happily churning on thoughts about optics and physics and astronomy and numeric theory and history. I'd put off starting the Baroque Cycle for years as I wanted to have enough brain power to devote to it, and it was a good decision. My only quibble is that in the "present" of the story line not much happens, Daniel Waterhouse departs for England. That's it, really. The description of 1700's Boston was fascinating though. Lots and lots of historical name dropping, I liked the new take on Isaac Newton (I'd done a project on him in school). The political hijinks felt a bit opaque to me, but it was more than balanced out by the curious minds and spirit of discovery and invention that most of the Royal Society fellows displayed.
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This is my favourite book/series/author. Period. I wish Stephenson had already written a zillion more books because as soon as my husband and i had devoured this trilogy, we found everything else he'd written and read it all. I love his word choice, turns of phrase, his believable (but never treacly or predictable) characters, love how i can almost believe i understand that time period just by reading this extremely entertaining novel. I know i'm extremely prejudiced - but you know, when you finish a book and you just ache, wishing there were more? It's pretty amazing to finish three 900 page books in a row and feel that! I actually bought the hardcover books for my husband for Christmas as they are such favourites. I do wish i could bring myself to edit them so our younger children could read them (i'd just take out the hilarious and integral-to-the-plot sex scenes), but they are such masterpieces of language, ingenuity, thinking, and have such gorgeous fast pacing, that i can't bring myself to deface them... My husband is reading them again right now and keeps quoting bits out loud to me... These are wonderful books! They really epitomize the epigraph by Walpole : "The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel".
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Quicksilver was a huge undertaking of a book. At times I found it amazing, at other times drawn-out and meandering. Overall I'm happy to have read it. It really was unlike any other book I've ever read in scale, historical depth and diversity. I will eventually like to read the sequels but I'll wait a while before attempting such another long haul read like this. It still shocks me that the author wrote this and the next two books all by hand.
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I keep trying, but I just can't make it through this. Stephenson is one of my favorite authors: a brilliantly imaginative mind, a stunning facility with language. But I just can't make myself care about anything in this book: the characters, the plots, the themes...I'm doing all the work, and getting no enjoyment out of it. I thought the audiobook would help -- Simon Prebble is one of my favorite performers -- but even he isn't up to faking enthusiasm or interest in the story.
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