December 30, 2003

  • Finished 'Quicksilver' this morning. SPOILERS FOLLOW.

    Since it's a three-volume set, and it advertises this fact prominently, it can logically be forgiven it's long descent into petering-out at the end, but dayum! I read 900+ pages, and this is the only satisfaction I get? The twin images of Eliza giving birth and Daniel having his operation was a clever (but not 'ingenious,' har!) device, but hardly enough to end on. About half way through the third section, I realized that Stephenson was getting bored with this premise, himself. He needed a break. So he wrote Eliza's story as letters to Leibniz and described a Protestant revolution in England formented by one of the main characters of the story in passing, as if Waterhouse had attended a tedious dinner party that wasn't worth describing.

    And where the hell was Jack Shaftoe for the last third of the book? Sheesh. Shaftoe's hallucinations and general unreality were the glue that held the more tedious parts of the story together, but for the last interminably tedious couple-hundred pages we don't hear a peep from him.

    Neal, next time you're bored with the project, just stop writing. Make it four 600-page books instead of three 900-page books. Capiche?

    I'm still with the Cycle, but the next book better rock my world.