Quicksilver
Volume One of The Baroque Cycle (Not to be confused with Quicksilver: The Baroque Cycle #1) Quicksilver is a massive, exuberant and wildly ambitious historical novel that's also Neal Stephenson's eagerly awaited prequel to Cryptonomicon--his pyrotechnic reworking of the 20th century, from World War II codebreaking and disinformation to the latest issues of Internet data privacy. Quicksilver, "Volume One of the Baroque Cycle", backtracks to another time of high intellectual ferment: the late 17th century, with the natural philosophers of England's newly formed Royal Society questioning the universe and dissecting everything that moves. One founding member, the Rev John Wilkins, really did write science fiction and a book on cryptography--but this isn't history as we know it, for here his code book is called not Mercury but Cryptonomicon. And although the key political schemers of Charles II's government still have initials spelling the word CABAL, their names are all different... While towering geniuses like Newton and Leibniz decode nature itself, bizarre adventures (merely beginning with the Great Plague and Great Fire) happen to the fictional Royal Society member Daniel Waterhouse, who knows everyone but isn't quite bright enough for cutting-edge science. Two generations of Daniel's family appear in Cryptonomicon, as does a descendant of the Shaftoes who here are soldiers and vagabonds.
Stats for nerds
13recommend
32mentions
31people
2008–2026years
41% recommend47% neutral13% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Which books did you read at least twice? Please give author, title, and how often you have read it.
For me the (probably incomplete list) is:
Connie Willis: Doomsday Book (three times)
Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon, Anathem, Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World (twice or three times)
Frank Herbert: Dune (three times)
Tolkien: Lord of the Rings (three times)
Stephen King: Salem's Lot, The Shining, It (three times each)
Stephen King & Peter Straub: The Talisman (twice)
Vernor Vinge: A Deepness in the Sky, A Fire Upon The Deep, Rainbow's End (each twice)
Tracy Kidder: The Soul of a New Machine (twice)
Larry McMurtry: Lonesome Dove (twice)
Ross Thomas: Chinaman's Chance (twice)
William Gibson: Neuromancer, The Peripheral, Agency (each twice)
- f you just want correct future predictions at a past point, then you are reading Stephenson wrong.
What if it's dated? Anything wrong with that?
You don't like the mythology of a culture being blended into a great story with futuristic tech?
I just loved that.
I see Stephenson as an unapologetic celebration of nerdy, intelligent stuff. It it definitely not the only way.
I have read Quicksilver. The way the novel portrays that time, and my Science heroes, is just fantastic. I don't care at all that it's dated.
My first book from him was Cryptonomicon. I care about History, Math, Computers, and that book blended all that in a coherent setup with proper environmental creation.
I also like the writing style. It's so clean and friendly.
- I read Wolf Hall after I finished Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver, which takes place in late 17 century post Cromwell England. You might enjoy it as well! It’s packed with history.
- > Stephenson’s “System of the World” books
Minor nit: “System of the World” is the third novel in the Baroque Cycle, after Quicksilver and The Confusion.
I really enjoyed these books for the SF world-building perspective on the emergence in the 17th Century of modern science and finance, global trade, communications, etc. Many of the normal comments on Stephenson’s writing style apply, YMMV.
- I first learned about clippers and the Great Recoinage in Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. It's a fictionalized retelling of the event but all of the added context of everything else happening to Britain's economy at the time was super helpful for wrapping your head around it.
- Thank you, that’s very kind to say.
So many good books in this thread already. I could suggest though:
Hagakure - Yamamoto Tsunetomo
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind - Shunryu Suzuk
For something lighter I like anything by William Gibson or Neal Stephenson. The Quicksilver trilogy is great as is Anatheme.
