Stephan’s Reviews > Quicksilver > Status Update

Through with the second book in the book. The writing is good, and the scenery is excellent. But I have the feeling that the purpose of the characters is mostly that of a moving camera, providing perspective, but with a rather minimal personal arc...

The first of the three books in the book is done. It's great fun, especially the combination of a essentially modern worldview with 16th century knowledge and beliefs - everything is new and fresh, every hypothesis needs to be tested.

It's full of wonderful descriptions of historical people and events, and most of it even checks out against real history. But I wonder if Stephenson is eventually getting somewhere...

It starts with an info-dump on 17th century European politics. It's well-written, of course, but I wonder how much the publisher made Stephenson add this to get the reader up tp speed ;-).