quick silver.. baroque cycle, do i get hooked?

[popflos]

has anyone read this series by Neal Stephenson, recommended to me and have read the kindle sample, its a bit of a stuggle, not sure whether to take the plunge, there are about 9 more after this one i think!

My DH got a kindle so he could read his novels without having to hold an enormous book. We've been hooked for ages.

I'm just finishing Quicksilver for the second time. It's the first of a vast-ranging trilogy called The System of the World. I believe the US version is printed in several smaller books so that's probably what is available on kindle.

You'll either love his books or hate them. They make me laugh, teach me a lot and make me cry too.

Quicksilver starts in 1713 when Daniel Waterhouse agrees to sail back to England from Massachusetts where has founded an Institute of Technological Arts and is struggling to build a computing machine.
Then the story takes you back to Daniel's early life through the 1660s up to the the Glorious Revolution in 1688. The reason for his journey becomes clearer in the other two books but Daniel has an important role to play in the ending of the Stuart dynasty - if the ship can shake off a pirate fleet and get him to England in time to settle the dispute between Isaac Newton and Leibnitz, protege of the Hanoverian Princess Caroline. Only Daniel knows both men and understands their work well enough to do this and prevent the scientific community of Europe tearing itself to pieces.

Believe it or not, a lot of this will make you laugh out loud!

Sorry - it is called The Baroque Cycle. The final book is called The System of the World.

I absolutely loved them - would recommend to anyone who is prepared to spend a bit of time on a book (the three volumes make up a very hefty tome). But they are great. Will go home and start re-reading now idea is there!

enochroot indeed!! i might just have to follow you blindly. thanks for the shove.

There's only the 3 volumes - quicksilver, confusion, system of the world. The US market couldn't cope with 500-page vols so split them further.

Definitely read!

SWLondonmum have you read Cryptonomicon?
I think you 'get' the BC more readily if you've already read that one but maybe I think that because I read Crypto first and so recognised Enoch straightaway when he rides into Boston and tells truanting Ben Franklin to go back into school and 'get used to' being ahead of all the other kids.
I feel like quoting that in G&T!
Stephenson makes nerdiness cool and I love his brainy, socially inept heroes.

I also really liked Anathem and, more recently, Reamde.

so i need to read cryptonomicon first? i like on the kindle the way you dont notice how fat a book is, you just keep reading..
exploring this a bit more i see a few people saying crypto is the best one

There are merits in reading Crypto first. It's shorter for a start and the BC contains running jokes from Crypto. You'll die laughing when Jack first meets Eliza at the Seige of Vienna in Quicksilver if you've read Crypto.
On the other hand, the erotic effect of Bulstrode furniture in Crypto is funnier if you've already met the Puritan Bulstrodes in Quicksilver...... so take your pick.

The Waterhouse family and the Shaftoe family are in Crypto as well as the mysterious Enoch. It's also possible to identify descendants of other characters from the BC such as Avi and Rudi.

It's another time-jumper in that the modern Waterhouse nerd gets involved in decrypting a Japanese code that his grandfather decrypted in WW2 so we follow both Waterhouses as they blunder around the world doing brilliant things while interacting with various Shaftoes.

sounds like a long weekend on the sofa for me! thanks for all your help, could spend all weekend on MN reading tips on reading and never read a book!

I hope you come back and say how you get on with whichever you choose.

I loved the Quicksilver (in fact recommended it on a recent thread) but have yet to read the next two. I shall go and face up to my library fines today and order the things in, as I suspect the local library will not be where they are held.

finally got stuck into this, Enoch just made his appearance as a chaplain in the butchers freezer.. had to laugh and come on line!

I am a big fan of Neal Stephenson but I have to say that Quicksilver wasn't great and never read its two sequels. Newton vs Liebnitz stuff is great but Stephenson isn't great when writing romance/comedy and the pirate stuff was just meh. His Cryptonomicon is much better, and is again on the loose subject of historical/scientific fiction.

Anathem is just brilliant and forcing myself to understand everything in it made my brain hurt (in a very satisfying way ) - great book! Reamde is not at all of the same intellectual calibre, but more of an action adventure.

Out of all his books, my top recommendations would be Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon.