I've started Neal Stephenson's latest novel, Quicksilver, and will post some notes on my progress here.
First of such notes - generally, the book's an historical novel, laced with an imagination we can recognize from all sorts of counterfactuals, from sf to alternate history. We could think of others hacking the 18th century, such as Peter Greenaway's Draughtsman's Contract, Lawrence Norfolk's Lempriere's Dictionary. or John Fowles' A Maggot; some steampunk sf fits this theme. If Stephenson was trying for Pynchon in his previous novel, Cryptonomicon, he's aiming at the hidden master's Mason & Dixon in this one, riffing on the dix-huitieme to hack at our time.
The tone's a bemused mix of styles, occasionally taking a short at the long eighteenth century, sometimes reaching for puns from our age. I won't summarize the plot so far (see the below reviews, or here, later, when I'm done, if it's a good idea at the time).
High points, by around p 240: the sheer love for Restoration Britain, feeling like the copia affairs of Gormenghast or Perdido Street Station. The often patient exploration of science. A steady stream of quiet puns (Captain Hoek, ahem). A wandering, brooding structure, refusing to race ahead (so far). The pirate charades. Newtown's eyeball scene.
Disliked elements: the lack of female characters. The bizarre gaps in religious discourse, for an age conerned with religion.
Related Webbery: the wiki!
Reviews and articles: Glenn Reynolds has a short interview. Slate has a review (very grumpy about the net and cyberpunk, too), as does /..
EDITED to add the Lempriere note
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