The Mongoliad: Book Three

For the third and final book in the Mongoliad (though not the last in the overarching Foreworld Saga, as the authors keep reminding us) I decided to splurge and buy the deluxe copy.  This comes in hard cover, has a nice map, sketches of some of the characters and the short story that they timed to come out with this book "Seer" which tells of a little adventure starring Andreas, who in retrospect, may be my favorite character in the series.

Before I talk about the story, I want to quickly discuss the deluxe edition.  It was somewhat frustrating because each of the deluxe editions has these same features.  Since they have different portraits in each book, by this one they are mostly characters who are inconsequential.  I have no problem with "Seer", it is just slightly annoying because this book references the story that came with the second deluxe edition, (that is also available separately) "Dreamer", much more.  With the greater number of references, it seems like it would make more sense to include that one.  On the map, they have the path of the journey that the main characters are going on, but they have that journey plotted to where it stands at the end of the book rather than the beginning, ruining a little of the suspense.  One final issue, is that the first two books are each ~400 pages.  This book, minus "Seer" is ~700.  I would have appreciated a slightly more balanced allocation of pages all around.

Despite all of my issues with the formatting of the deluxe edition, the story was enjoyable.  As with the previous two books in the series, the best part is the exceedingly well done sword fights.  They are done in a level of detail that is just not found in most books.  As a reader, you can tell that the authors spent a painstaking amount of time researching these.

The dual climactic battles at the end of the story work well (very well) but the politics of the cardinals did not really do that much.  Actually, the interactions between the characters in the political storyline and those in the other story lines are so few that it almost feels like you are reading two books in one: one about an election in Rome and one about the Shield Brethren.

Also, the story has hints of magic throughout.  Everything is explainable so far (and I like fantasy stories), I was just greatly enjoying the historical fiction that these stories are and I don't want magic to complicate that.

Lastly, the end of the story is so clearly a set up for more stories that it is almost painful.  Almost every surviving  character ends on some degree of cliff hanger.  Which would not be quite as big of an issue, except that I had imagined these to stand alone.

Because I had some Kindle Lending Library borrows available, I got two other of the short stories.  One about the father of one of the characters, "The Beast of Calatrava" and one about Ferronatus and Rutger as young men, "The Lion in Chains".  Of these two, the one about Ferronatus was much better partially because it filled in more backstory for characters that have already been introduced to the reader.  I am slightly worried about the future of the Foreworld Saga if they move away from the characters that have been established by their major book series and their major talent.  However, I love me a good cohesive canon and I am excited to see where the world goes.

I know I spent a lot of time on the negatives of this book.  Despite this, I did enjoy this book and it was a fun read.

Overall, I would give this book an 85%.

Some Remarks

Reading this blog, it becomes readily apparent that I am a big fan of Neal Stephenson.  I have read the majority of his books and am eagerly awaiting his next novel, whatever that may be.  I ordered his book, Some Remarks, because I thought it would make for interesting, light reading on my holiday travels.  Some Remarks, was billed as a collection of Neal Stephenson's shorter works that were generally not reprinted.  I was interested to read a series of works from him from across his career. 

The first thing that surprised me about the book was how small it was.  I am used to my Neal Stephenson books easily breaking the 500 page mark.  Coming in at just over 300 pages, this was noticably physically smaller than all of my other books by him.  However, it is a collection of short pieces and so I am not sure that he has another 200 pages of short work laying around.

Most of the pieces have been previous published in some medium or other with two exceptions. However, unless you devotedly snap up literally everything Stephenson writes, this will probably be mostly new material.  As someone who has read most of Stephenson's novels, I had a fun time seeing how he got ideas for parts of them in some of the articles.

The longest article in the book, by a wide margin, is called "Mother Earth, Mother Board".  At almost 120 pages, it takes up more than a third of the book.  This is a piece on laying an international cable from Europe to Asia and how the author went and visited various places that it went through or was in the process of going through.  This was clearly an inspiration for a lot of the modern day shenanigans in the modern part of Cryptonomicon.  However, it is really, really long for being about the subject that it is about.  Honestly, I think the book would have been improved if he had abridged it, and I am rarely for abridgement.

There are a number of other pieces in the book with topics ranging from treadmill desks to space travel.  There are also a few interviews where he discusses his opinions and also some of his works, depending on the times that the interviews took place.  Lastly, there are a couple of pieces of fiction which are interesting, one of which could be considered a connection between the end of Cryptonomicon and the beginning of Snow Crash which I enjoyed immensely because of my love of interconnected stories and cohesive canons.

While this is definitely Neal Stephenson's style, the short article or story format doesn't give him the time to set up that often makes his stories so worthwhile and good.  While the long cable laying article was interesting, undersea cable has never been one of my major interests and unfortunately that piece failed to inspire me to make it one.  That being said, the man is knowledgeable on a wide variety of topics, making this book an interesting read and, because he is such a good author, an enjoyable one as well.



Overall, I would give this book an 84%.

The Mongoliad: Book 2

The second book of the Mongoliad is an interesting read.  It definitely continues the promise of the first book with vividly realized and described combat.  The historical era that the books cover is one that is rarely discussed in mainstream history, the point after Genghis Khan died but before the Mongol tribes splintered.  I like it for that reason too, the books make a rarely discussed era of history exciting.

Even though this is a collaborative work between many authors, it works very well.  It gives each character (or group thereof) their own unique feel without each section being jarringly different like some collaboration novels (I'm looking at you, Wild Cards).

I was totally understanding of the last novel ending on a cliffhanger, however, I was vastly less understanding of this one leaving that cliffhanger open for the first 80 pages.  Plus, I am sure that the storyline that took up most of those 80 pages will eventually tie into the ones introduced in the first book, but at the end of the second book it seems pretty mysterious how it is going to do so.

Since it had been a while since I had read Book 1, it was a little difficult to be sure that I was making all the connections I was supposed to be making.  The names are also not the type of names that are easy to remember and distinguish so that didn't exactly help.

Like in Book 1, the sword fighting was excellently written.  It was taken to a basically unique level of detail.  There was a little less of it in this book, but that is because the series is headed to (I believe) a big climax with much sword fighting and that takes some non-swordfighting plot bits to be set up.

After reading this I read a couple of short stories set in the Mongoliad universe before this main series.  They are short and don't cover what I want out of Mongoliad stories: swordfighting and cool insight into that era of history.  They are more character pieces, giving the reader a bit more insight into some of the characters.  I think together the two stories might come to 150 pages, so they are pretty short but fun little reads.

Overall, I would give this book an 88%.

REAMDE

NOTE:  I know that a significant number of the books I have put up on here recently have been written at least in part by Neal Stephenson.  I have exhausted my supply of unread Neal Stephenson books so some new authors will be showing up.  Promise. 

REAMDE (a rearrangement of the letters of README), by Neal Stephenson is a whopper of a book.  The paperback edition clocks in at just over 1000 pages; many other authors would have been inclined to split this into two or even three books.  However, REAMDE is one of those books that is extremely difficult to put down, which is dangerous in a book of its magnitude.

A very simple explanation of the plot would be that it is a story about how a video game affects the world but that leaves so much out.  REAMDE is very much a character driven story and it just so happens that most of the characters are related to the video game in someway or another.  The vast majority of the book has nothing to do with video games, instead dealing with Russian gangsters, MI6 agents, Spetsnaz,  Jihadists, hackers, and Idaho gun nuts. 

What good is a character driven story with bad characters?  Not much, that's for sure.  Luckily, REAMDE has good characters in spades.  There are so many different characters that were just a pleasure to read about in this book that I am hard pressed to pick a favorite.  The book is also global in scope, from Seattle to China to the Philippines to Canada, this book sees its characters scattered all over the world and yet still manages to plausibly bring them together for the conclusion.

Speaking of the conclusion, it is basically a continuous, hundred page battle, jumping around between all the characters involved.  It is fairly predictable that the protagonists will defeat their foes, but who gets to defeat the main antagonist is a serious question right up until it happens.  It is very exciting and basically stole my Sunday afternoon.  The book is serious fun all the way through, with excitement, action, and a teeny bit of comedy.

I would recommend anyone who likes action or computer related fiction to pick up this book.  There is enough action and excitement to carry the book even if the reader does not care about the video game parts, but the experience will be improved by enjoying those.  Of all of Stephenson's books, this is probably the one that could be enjoyed by the greatest number of people.

Overall, I would give this book a 94%.

The Mongoliad: Book 1

The Mongoliad is a historical fiction novel written by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey, Cooper Moo, and E. D. deBirmingham.  This book may have more authors than anything I have read that was not a collection of short stories.  The reason this book has so many authors is that it was created by a group that Neal Stephenson rounded up after being dissatisfied with the quality of swordfighting in his Baroque Cycle (which I reviewed earlier).  These authors ended up getting together and learning a lot about swordfighting and the medieval era.  The website mongoliad.com is interesting, I recommend you check it out.

On to the book itself. It is the first part of a trilogy, and unfortunately not that long.  However, it makes up for it shortness by being packed full of action and interesting characterization.  In addition, as you would expect from a book with this creation story, the fighting scenes are all top notch.  One scene in particular shows a man with a pole arm dueling a man with a sword.  The fight alternates back and forth between their viewpoints, highlighting their individual strengths and weaknesses.  It is a great scene, in and of itself almost worth the price of admission.  With this many authors, a reader might be skeptical that it sounds like too many voices are clashing and ruining the story.  This is decidedly not the case.  There are certainly different styles, but I never felt that they were competing or hampering each other.

The only real issue that I had with this book was that it ended on a cliffhanger and the next book doesn't come out until September.  The last few series I have read, I have had the luxury of reading them all in a row and so it is somewhat frustrating to have to wait.

All in all, this is certainly worth a read, (free from the kindle lending library).  If you are a fan of swordfighting or historical fiction, I recommend you pick it up.

Overall, I would give this book a 87%.

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.