With this enormous volume, the Baroque Cycle comes to a close. While there is the same kind of speeding up, adding new plot threads and jumping from one set-piece action scene to another that is typical of Stephenson's endings, I thought he actually succeeded at tying everything up in this one. I...
He may be over it by now (as I have not read any of his more recent work), but I’m convinced that at the time he was writing Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle (of which Quicksilver is the first volume), the first thing Neal Stephenson did every morning right after getting out of bed was to sham...
Deeper into the wordy quagmire that is Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle. As with Quicksilver, this volume contains a considerable dose of magical moments dissolved in a nearly impenetrable sea of overdone gibberish. It’s brilliant gibberish, but not brilliant enough to make this book shine the...