The timeframe is 1660 - 1688 and Europe is transforming itself into a culture of scientific thinkers. Alchemy and imagination. Burgeoning financial complexities and modernized social developments abound. [Side note: the experiments on dogs was really hard to read. And I'm not a dog person.] Quicksilver follows real-life historical figures in real-life events. The glint in a crow's eye. The cough of a cholera-infected child. Fine grains of dirt that cling to a man's boots as he strides across a courtyard. The tremble of a drop of water as it rolls down a soot-covered windowpane. The hair of a rat as it scurries under a table. The details of Quicksilver are even finer than this; an overabundance of details. I hope you stub your toes on the sly humor that pops up in between the verbose narrative.
Additional facts about Quicksilver: it is exactly one third of the Baroque Cycle, Stephenson's trilogy. Quicksilver in and of itself is in three separate parts. The second section follows the adventures of Jack Shaftoe. The third involves a slave who ties the characters of the first two sections together. As an aside, Eliza's story had me scratching my head. I felt that Stephenson had more to say about her than he was letting on. The writing of Cryptonomicon and the reading about Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz inspired Stephenson to write Quicksilver. ( )

A very long read, and the juice ain't worth the squeeze ( )

Books 1-3 (Volume 1) of the Baroque Trilogy

Very intriguing and intensely cerebral, the novel is slightly weighed down by an overabundance of philosophical and scientific discourse. However, it is a truly satisfying read that I recommend to those interested in philosophy or those who are seeking to travel several decades in the baroque period (1660s through the early 1700s in this novel). You will certainly travel with the author as the details are not in short supply, and the descriptions quickly place you into the correct context.

Much of the books follow the real and imagined life of Isaac Newton and his fellow Natural Philosophers and Alchemists. Both Newton and his fellow Royal Society comrades are exquisitely intriguing, both for their minds as well as for the drama that follows them in their lives. Book two departs for a time to the life of Jack Shaftoe and Eliza. "Half-cock Jack" leads an entertaining life, with and without Eliza, leaving the reader wanting much more of his exciting adventures and witty conversations. Although we lose sight of Jack near the end of this volume, we do maintain contact with Eliza and the life that she has chosen to lead.

After the reader has resigned herself to the fact that these are separate stories of a single time period, the link between the seemingly thus far unrelated stories comes later in the volume. As the connection came later than I'd hoped, I was glad to remember that there were another 2000 or so pages in the trilogy. ( )

I don't even know where to begin with this one, I just have some thoughts about it:
- I struggled a lot reading this.
- I really liked it.
- I don't know why.
- For some reason I think I liked this book more because I loved Cryptonomicon. ( )

I am a very big fan of Stephenson. Coming to his work through Snowcrash and Reamde and the wonderful Cryptinomicron. This is just as great. And I get to journey a little through some fascinating history and science along the way. Really great. ( )