It's even published on nice paper. But for 27.95 it had better be on nice paper. Although you can get it with a discount at many places at the moment. Now I just need to find a few days to read it.
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Neal Stephenson was giving a reading of it at my University last night and I just found out about it today!!! ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Fill me in, this is new Neal Stephenson? I'm not in the loop with him but having recently read Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon I'm anxious to devour more. The Diamond Age is next.
Posts: 2112 | Registered: Sep 1999
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Yup, it's a new book, a huge book, which will be the first in a trilogy. The buzz is good, and it's Stephenson, so it must be good.
Posts: 1855 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: Stephenson's very long historical novel, the first volume of a projected trilogy, finds Enoch Root, the Wandering Jew/alchemist from 1999's Cryptonomicon, arriving in 1713 Boston to collect Daniel Waterhouse and take him back to Europe. Waterhouse, an experimenter in early computational systems and an old pal of Isaac Newton, is needed to mediate the fight for precedence between Newton and scientist and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, both of whom independently invented the calculus. Their escalating feud threatens to revert science to pre-empirical times. Root believes Waterhouse, as a close friend to both mathematicians, has the ability to calm the neurotic Newton's nerves and make peace with Leibniz. As Waterhouse sails back to Europe (and eludes capture by the pirate Blackbeard), he reminisces about Newton and the birth of England's scientific revolution during the 1600s. While the Waterhouse story line lets readers see luminaries like Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton at work, a concurrent plot line follows vagabond Jack Shaftoe (an ancestor of a Cryptonomicon character, as is Waterhouse), on his journey across 17th-century continental Europe. Jack meets Eliza, a young English woman who has escaped from a Turkish harem, where she spent her teenage years. The resourceful Eliza eventually rises and achieves revenge against the slave merchant who sold her to the Turks. Stephenson, once best known for his techno-geek SF novel Snow Crash, skillfully reimagines empiricists Newton, Hooke and Leibniz, and creatively retells the birth of the scientific revolution. He has a strong feel for history and a knack for bringing settings to life. Expect high interest in this title, as much for its size and ambition, which make it a publishing event, as for its sales potential-which is high.
quote: The ancestors of Cryptonomicon characters cross paths with Isaac Newton and his peers against a backdrop of several continents, a couple of wars, and one fundamental change in the way humans view the world. In the context of the 1600s, Stephenson examines the nature of money, the interdependency of Europe, and the consequences of transformative scientific advances. The writing schedule is ambitious, too: The first book, Quicksilver, is out this month, and the next two will follow at six-month intervals.
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CONTINUING SPOILER... . . . . . . . . . . . I just thought he mysteriously survived... does it show him actually die?
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oh, and about Enoch, you're right TAK, they never show him really die, they just pronounce him dead, and then Rudy walks out of the same building with a man mysteriously wrapped in cloth, whose whole body is hidden, including his face.
Posts: 251 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Yeah that whole part was rather confusing. Sigh now I need to read it faster. However I do know the first chapter says that the years have been kind to Root and that he doesn't look his age. So maybe he is immortal or a time traveler. I guess I'll read the book and then speculate.
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Okay I've only managed to get 200 pages in to the book but nothing is really happening at all. *sigh* Maybe it's just not the time to read this book, especially if I have some other stuff to read.
Posts: 872 | Registered: Mar 2002
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