Tag Archives: Neal Stephenson

The Baroque Cycle

Posted on November 6, 2010 | Comments Off on The Baroque Cycle

I finally finished Neal Stephenson’s 3,000-page novel (in three books) and I’m still decompressing from the 17th-18th century United Kingdom. Especially the vocabulary, which he handles very well.

I was disappointed with the ending because it didn’t bring us full circle back to the beginning of the first book. I’d have liked to hear more from Enoch Root, the novel’s Methuselah, and Daniel’s young son Godfrey who, as one character says will carry his line far into the future.

Also, while I never doubted that Jack would not be shaft-o on the Treble Tree, a more artful telling of his survival could have been made. Nevertheless, it was a fine journey through the development of Western science and world commerce. I will miss not having Jack and Eliza and the Natural Philosophers to return to day after day after day.

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Posted in Library, Science/Engineering, Scribbles

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You’ve got mail!

Posted on October 16, 2010 | Comments Off on You’ve got mail!

Does anyone remember this phrase? Does any software still spew it amidst the piles of spam clogging most email accounts, including mine? AOL, I suppose.

I ran across it the other day in Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver which made me laugh, it was so out of place, being spoken by a Seventeenth century master sergeant of foot to a prisoner in the Tower of London.

Quicksilver was published in 2003 when, I believe, the phrase was, more or less, still in common usage. Only seven years. My, how time doth fly.

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Posted in Library, Scribbles

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Attention Surplus Disorder

Posted on July 9, 2009 | Comments Off on Attention Surplus Disorder

This phrase, which I found in Neal Stephenson’s Anathem (a book I gave up on reading, by the way, as just too abstruse for enjoyment) was meant to be humorous. But I think it accurately describes a little known condition which I’ve long had, sometimes to my detriment: Too many ideas, too little time.

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Posted in Library

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The Cryptonomicon

Posted on May 16, 2009 | Comments Off on The Cryptonomicon

Wow, what a sprawling book. Big enough to serve as a decent door stop in a minor gale. Characters and events galore. All tied together by the invention of the digital computer in WW2 for the Brits (using mercury) and the Americans (using vacuum tubes) and cryptology and cryptanalysis, then and  today, more or less, for the creation of an Internet data haven in a fictitious monarchy in the vicinity of Malaysia.

Along the way, there are submarines, gold bullion, Guadalcanal, Douglas MacArthur, lawsuits, computer hacking, and the harrowing creation of (and escape from) a granite crypt for the storage of stolen German and Nipponese gold. That ought to be enough to interest anyone. Although the author, Neal Stephenson, is generally considered a science fiction writer, there seems to be little enough of scifi in this tale. But it suffers not a bit for the lack thereof. Heckuva read.

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