It almost goes without saying that Quicksilver weighs as heavily on the mind as it does the hand. I'm sure I've left at least a dozen subjects off the list. Here in these pages, readers will also find such diverse topics as the beginnings of the stock market, French politics, metaphysics, mathematics, archeology, etymology, cryptology, metallurgy, genealogy, high-seas piracy, purloined letters, torture, the medicinal use of manure and scientific discussions involving the gravitational pull of billiard balls and the architecture of snowflakes. Cameos are made by historical and literary figures like Samuel Pepys, Mother Goose, D'Artagnan the Musketeer, Blackbeard the Pirate, William Penn and Winston Churchill (no, not that Winston, but one of his ancestors).

The novel, the first of a trilogy Stephenson is calling The Baroque Cycle, is set in the late 17th and early 18th centuries and is stuffed with a museum's worth of miscellany. Neal Stephenson's new novel, Quicksilver, requires some serious marital commitment.Īt more than 920 pages and weighing a few ounces shy of three pounds, Quicksilver can be a draining experience - like having a 300-pound bride sit on your chest and demand your full attention - and along about page 730, you're really starting to ponder those words 'to have and to hold.' Maybe it will be a good marriage with staying power all the way to the final breath of the last page or, if the book's especially bad, the reader will opt for a quick divorce, leaving the poor book wondering what it did wrong, what it could have done better.

They think to themselves, 'Should I get involved? Do I really want to commit?' After all, for three days or three weeks, they will be wedded to these pages. They size up the heft of the tome, the thickness of spine, the cosmetics of the cover. Earnest readers approach new books like a relationship.

Quicksilver neal stephenson review