Quicksilver - Finished

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson

This is the first in a trilogy of historical fiction from the author of one of my favorite books, Cryptonomicon. This Trilogy, The Baroque Cycle, seems to follow the fictional ancestors of the fictional characters of Cryptonomicon. However, it also includes many historical figures of note, including Newton, Leibntz, Hooke, and members of English and French royalty in the late 17th century. However, despite such lumiaries as Newton and Leibniz, the book does not focus on mathematics, but on the development of finance.

It's a long book, and it feels like a long book. However, there are flashes of the elegantly 'geeky' writing that I enjoyed so much from Cryptonomicon.

Updated 3/12/07
So I finished it last night. As I feared, the book was written to be the first in a trilogy. Hence, there was no real attempt to wrap up the plotlines into another even approching a conclusion. Also, many of the plotlines seem to have no impact on the characters, which begs the question, are they important? Could those sections have possibly been removed from this 900-page tome and saved a tree or two? All in all, there are quite a few other things in my To-Read list, so I doubt that I will be pciking up The Confusion, the second book in the Baroque Cycle, anytime soon.