Scott

A Triumph

Revisado: 07-17-09

As a small corrective to the previous reviewer - the correct title of Stephenson's book before the Baroque Cycle is Cryptonomicon. The Necronomicon is an entirely different book.

This book blew me away, both with its heady ideas, and its rip-roaring story. This may be one of the books best suited to my personality, in that it required extraordinary concentration to keep up with the philosophy, but every time it seemed likely to lose me, Stephenson would throw in a fight, a flight, a disaster, or an emotional scene to keep me invested in the characters. Even the philosophical discussions have their intrigues, their personalities, and their excitements. This books is not for those who have little patience for long digressions into philosophy and the more abstract cul-de-sacs of science, but it is for those who love their ideas and their action in equal measure. This is heady stuff, make no mistake, but the rewards are great.

As a side note, and at the risk of misleading some who don't read carefully, this book reminded me in some places of Dickens, in the writer's obvious love of detail, and of Tolkien, in the way that the author created his world, imagining it as fully and as deeply as any I've ever read. In contrast to Tolkien, however, Stephenson has populated his world with real people, struggling with real emotions and human foibles. In that, this book might be closer than either of these to Herbert's Dune, with a better sense of humor, but no less a love of ideas and politics.

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A Triumph

Revisado: 07-17-09

As a small corrective to the previous reviewer - the correct title of Stephenson's book before the Baroque Cycle is Cryptonomicon. The Necronomicon is an entirely different book.

This book blew me away, both with its heady ideas, and its rip-roaring story. This may be one of the books best suited to my personality, in that it required extraordinary concentration to keep up with the philosophy, but every time it seemed likely to lose me, Stephenson would throw in a fight, a flight, a disaster, or an emotional scene to keep me invested in the characters. Even the philosophical discussions have their intrigues, their personalities, and their excitements. This books is not for those who have little patience for long digressions into philosophy and the more abstract cul-de-sacs of science, but it is for those who love their ideas and their action in equal measure. This is heady stuff, make no mistake, but the rewards are great.

As a side note, and at the risk of misleading some who don't read carefully, this book reminded me in some places of Dickens, in the writer's obvious love of detail, and of Tolkien, in the way that the author created his world, imagining it as fully and as deeply as any I've ever read. In contrast to Tolkien, however, Stephenson has populated his world with real people, struggling with real emotions and human foibles. In that, this book might be closer than either of these to Herbert's Dune, with a better sense of humor, but no less a love of ideas and politics.

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