The System of the World

Warning: While this post contains only minor spoilers for The System of the World, it does have more major spoilers for Quicksilver and The Confusion, the previous books in the series.

After the finish of The Confusion (which I reviewed here), I was excited to see where the series was going to go.  However, the series jumped forward a decade or two to the point after the prologue of the Quicksilver.  For the most part, the author just uses this time span to ensconce the characters in the positions that the reader saw them in at the end of the second book.

Basically, most of this book was build up interspersed with all the confrontations that readers have been waiting to see, some since book one.  A great many of these are fantastic, some highlights are a duel fought with cannons and a man being killed with a cello.  Unfortunately, a couple fall flat.  The great philosophical debate, between Newton and Leibniz, that has been foreshadowed from the first pages of Quicksilver, is unfortunately the most blatant of these.  While it does offer some interesting views into their philosophical ideas, it does not really work as a showdown.

As pervades all of his books, The System of the World is full of Neal Stephenson's sense of humor while not being a silly book by any means.  However, there is a fantastic scene that is somewhat complicated to explain but it suffices to say that one of the protagonists pretends to only be able parrot speech to great comedic effect.

Like the other books in the Baroque Cycle, The System of the World is divided into three smaller books.  Each of these have their high points and their low points.

• The climax of the first part was slightly difficult to figure out because it seemed the author was introducing extra characters needlessly (and perhaps he was)
• Jack (who was probably my favorite character of the overall series) was not a major player until the end of the first part and then was in the background for most of second part as well.
• The climaxes of the second and third part were fantastic.
• Caroline of Hanover was an excellent character, I almost wish the series would continue simply so that I could see more of Stephenson's portrayal of her.
• The epilogues that wrapped up the individual characters were all great and gave a good sense of closure to everyone (or at least almost everyone).

The one other beef that I have with book is with an issue that I completely understand why it occurred, I just do not really like.  The series covers more than 50 years, with basically the same characters throughout.  This means that by this book, they are all very old.  It is not a terrible thing, but I don't think I have ever before read a book where the main protagonist was 70 years old and many of the other characters are not far behind him. 

Overall, this was a fun book and series.  Was it fun enough to be worth reading ~2000 pages?  I will not presume to be able to dictate that for everyone, but I certainly enjoyed it.  I do like history and I do like Neal Stephenson's style of writing and storytelling.  Also, not knowing a great deal about 17th and 18th century Europe, the series was somewhat educational (though the author took some liberties with history in several places).  This series has some parts that will appeal to everyone: adventure, science, economics, politics, detective work, and humor.

Overall, I would give this book an 87%.

The Confusion

Warning: While this post contains only minor spoilers for The Confusion, it does have more major spoilers for Quicksilver, the previous book in the series.

Last month, I posted a review of the first book in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, Quicksilver.  As I mentioned before, this is an eight book series collected into three books.  The Confusion contains books 4 and 5, named Bonanza and Juncto respectively.  However, like George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, books 4 and 5 take place at the same time.  Because of this, the book alternates back and forth between the two rather than displaying them in sequence, so the two books can be read as one ordered story.  While it did make the book a little confusing at first glance, I loved it.  It is exactly the sort of thing I would have endeavored to do anyway (and will endeavor to do with Martin's books when I read them again).

Bonanza brings back my favorite character from Quicksilver: Jack Shaftoe, the vagabond.  I was slightly worried that his disappearance in half way through Quicksilver meant that he was only meant to move some other characters to certain positions.  Luckily, that was not the case.  Bonanza contains a great gunfight in 18th century Cairo and generally hops around the globe, showing the reader interesting places as it goes.

Juncto is basically the dumping ground for every character in the series other than Jack and his companions.  There were a few things that made me laugh out loud, such as Jack's brother's commanding officer's (enough apostrophes?) tendency to refer to everything as a training exercise and the introduction of Tsar Peter the Great.  The book also does a good job of explaining how economics worked in the early 18th century.  While Juncto is certainly not as action packed as Bonanza, it is still interesting and entertaining.

I did notice, especially near the end of the book, if you were reading the entirety of Bonanza, followed by the entirety of Juncto, it could get a bit confusing.  Luckily that confusion is completely ameliorated by the construction of The Confusion.

This is a better book than Quicksilver but to find it so, you must put in the effort to read Quicksilver.  This is certainly not a series that allows you to skip around between books. I would definitely recommend this book, it is entertaining and educational.

Overall, I would give this book an 87%.

Quicksilver

I am a big fan of Neal Stephenson.  I am well on my way to having read everything that he has ever written.  My most recent read in his bibliography is Quicksilver, which is the first book in his Baroque Cycle, a historical fiction series.  The Baroque Cycle is a trilogy in eight parts (to paraphrase the Hitchhiker's Guide series) and as a whole spans from the 1660's to the 1710's, chock full of enlightenment era goodness.  Quicksilver contains the first three books of the eight: Quicksilver, The King of the Vagabonds, and Odalisque.  Of these three, I would say that the middle one is clearly the best.  It pains me to say so because I do enjoy mathematics and physics and much of the first and third books deal with a young Issac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz they did drag somewhat.  In contrast with that, most of the second book is told from the third person limited point of view of a vagabond.  The story flows better and is more entertaining for sure.

Like all Stephenson books, this has tidbits of humor sprinkled throughout, really lightening the mood and causing occasional chuckles (there is one part in The King of the Vagabonds involving cuckoo clocks that made me laugh riotously).  In addition, the characters are well formed and the setting is incredibly well executed.  The author uses some enlightenment era jargon ("phant'sy" instead of fantasy for example) and takes every opportunity to explain the origin of words and ideas.  While this novel does play a little fast and loose with the exact players, the historical events portrayed mostly accurate and shape the development of the characters.  Someone who doesn't know much about 17th century European history can still find the story engaging (and perhaps educational too) and those who do know about it will still be left guessing about how the events will shape and affect the characters in the story.

Overall, while the first part was lackluster (compared to Stephenson's other works at least) it was good enough to encourage me to persevere on to the second and that was a good story that was continued into the third.  I am currently reading the second book in the trilogy and do not yet regret my decision to give up on Quicksilver.  It is a large book but an enjoyable one.

While I would not normally divide a book into sections like this, the disparity between the first part and the rest of the book is significant.  I would give the first part a 65%, the second part an 85%, and the third part an 80%.

If you have not read anything by Neal Stephenson, I highly recommend Snow Crash and Anathem.  They are both exceedingly good books.

Snow Crash was written in the early 1990's and predicted many aspects of the internet fairly accurately.  Despite being written so long ago, the book holds up pretty well as a futuristic story.  The book is a fun read, being smart and humorous (the main character is named Hiro Protagonist), and I would recommend it regardless of your technological savvy.

Anathem was, without a doubt, the best book I read last year.  It is a really strange blending of the fantasy and science fiction genres but it is great.  About three quarters of the way through the book I looked back on the journey that brought me from the beginning to that point and was amazed.  I really cannot say enough good things about this book.  The one problem some readers might have is that the book has its own slang and titles (sort of like Clockwork Orange) and it takes 100 pages or so to get used to that.  That would be a bigger issue in a shorter book but Anathem clocks in at just over 900 pages, making it just a minor bump in the beginning.