Quicksilver

Book One of The Baroque Cycle

By: Neal Stephenson

Narrated by: Neal Stephenson (introduction), Kevin Pariseau, Simon Prebble

Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

In this first volume of Neal Stephenson’s genre-defying epic, Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and courageous Puritan, pursues knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight.

The Baroque Cycle, Neal Stephenson’s award-winning series, spans the late 17th and early 18th centuries, combining history, adventure, science, invention, piracy, and alchemy into one sweeping tale. It is a gloriously rich, entertaining, and endlessly inventive historical epic populated by the likes of Isaac Newton, William of Orange, Benjamin Franklin, and King Louis XIV, along with some of the most inventive literary characters in modern fiction.

Audible’s complete and unabridged presentation of The Baroque Cycle was produced in cooperation with Neal Stephenson. Each volume includes an exclusive introduction read by the author.

Listen to more titles in the Baroque Cycle.

©2003 Neal Stephenson (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“[The “Baroque Cycle”] will defy any category, genre, precedent, or label – except genius….Stephenson has a once-in-a-generation gift: he makes complex ideas clear, and he makes them funny, heartbreaking, and thrilling.” ( Time)

“A book of immense ambition, learning, and scope, Quicksilver is often brilliant and occasionally astonishing in its evocation of a remarkable time and place.” ( Washington Post Book World)

Consider this book an intro to the plot

Wonderfully written and educational, but has little plot. It's an introduction to the other books.

Must be taken in context of the entire Baroque Cycle

Narration: Excellent. Prebble does a great job of brining an appropriate feel to the story.

Story: Quicksilver is only the first book in Volume 1 of Baroque Cycle (which is also called Quicksilver).
I've read the book before listening to the audio. It is important to know what you are getting into before starting. On its own as a story, Quicksilver does not hold up. It is mainly a (wonderful) preamble for the rest of the Baroque Cycle. As for a plot... If Stephenson were writing this review, he'd explain that the plot was an axis on a graph and as the story unfolded, it would draw a curve. He would then go on to explain that the curve would keep approaching the plot, but never quite get there.
Then he'd allude to the fact that Gottfried Liebnitz discovered the curve first.

That said, the Baroque Cycle is a fantastic tome, and I encourage scientifically-minded (and not small-souled) people to take it on.

Better to read a biography of Isaac Newton

Stephenson weaves "current" events in the fictional Daniel Waterhouse's life with his reveries on past events and on historical characters that he knew in a way that is very confusing to listen to and very boring. There is no real story arc. Daniel Waterhouse is a character for whom you feel sorry but for whom you cannot root . The only action was the pirates attack, which was reported intermittently over several chapters until it finely lost its momentum altogether. Readers would better spend their time on a good biography of Isaac Newton or King Charles II. Simon Prebble did a good job of narrating but adding the other two narrators into the mix added to the confusion and the general sense of dystopia

Quite good.

Not the best Stephenson, that's probably Snow Crash of what I've read so far, but quite interesting. Definitely gives you a different picture of the era than my high school history books, and much more interesting - but the heart of the book is the philosophical and scientific discussions, so if you're not interested then I would pick another book.

Outstanding

This is a great way to learn history. Tremendous performance and writing skill. Highly recommended!

Simon Prebble is a fantastic narrator

Any additional comments?

I had read "Quicksilver" in print form, but I enjoyed Simon Prebble's work so much in Tim Power's "Declare," that I wanted to hear more of his work He does not disappoint here. This is probably the least exciting book in the cycle, but it's a well-told tale of a little-known period.

Series of random events loosely tied together

Jack Shaftoe better show up quickly in book two and rescue this mess. It's no Cryptonomicon.

History vs. story line

I had hoped for historical info within a (good) novel and found the opposite. Especially in the first half of the book, the dialogue turns into a lesson in eg. european coinage as a prism is bought from a vendor, making for clunky dialogue. The prism turns out to be irrelevant to the story line. The second half of the book seems to turn focus to the story line in a manner I found much less constructed.

Brilliant rich historical (science?) fiction

What made the experience of listening to Quicksilver the most enjoyable?

A very generous helping of period details, this book makes sense of the Pilgrims, the crypto-Catholics, the origins of British science in the Royal Society, Newton, Leibnitz, the fourteenth Louis, Oliver Cromwell, John Churchill, Hanging Judge Jeffries; the London Black Death of 1665, and the Great Fire of 1666

What was one of the most memorable moments of Quicksilver?

The explosive extraction of phosphorous by the unbearably foul distillation of vast quantities of urine; the production of wooten steel; how an Irishman with a stick kills an armored nobleman as though he were an insect; the encampment of the Turks at the Battle of Vienna, with Jan Sobieski;

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I often cheered

Any additional comments?

This is the first volume (of 8? 11?) of The Baroque Cycle, the best thing ever written by Neal Stephenson, who is a wonderful author. This is a slow start for the Cycle; if you're not sure if you want to read the whole cycle, start instead with Book 2 (Odalisque) or Book 3, volumes that provide more early action.

Setting the stage...and what a stage

Many of the reviews here caution readers that this book is quite expository, that it's something to get through to get to the rest of the series. I have not read the rest of the series, but I can say this book is great on its own. Stephenson really sets up an amazingly idiosyncratic worldview based, apparently, on a deep understanding of the underpinnings of the day's philosophical and scientific writings alongside military and political history. It is a pastiche and clearly does not stick to a forcefully propelled narrative, but does contain fascinating history and fiction interwoven.