Book Log 2013 #18-21: Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World, all by Neal Stephenson

We moved over the summer, and as part of the unpacking I ran across these books again and decided to re-read them. It was the third or fourth time I've read Cryptonomicon, but the first time going back to the other three books, all of which I was fairly ambivalent about upon first reading. I was surprised that I'd not talked about them before, but then realized they all predate when I started logging books.

Cryptonomicon is split between the present day and the period from roughly 1935 to 1945. In both timelines, members of the Waterhouse and Shaftoe families cross paths when emerging technologies (mostly computer related) find themselves intertwined with the quest for gold. In the World War II timeline, it's the Japanese hiding of gold they've stolen/taken in from the Germans and the development of mechanical computers; in the present timeline, it's the development of a data haven and online currency, financed by that same gold.

The other three books (known collectively as the Baroque Cycle) cover a period of about 50 years in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, jumping across timelines (and around the world), and pull together changes in a wide range of disciplines. These books take a much broader approach, showing how a new breed of people - smart, often outside of the ruling class - used a growing understanding of the natural world, economics, technology, etc. to change the very way in which the world worked.

If you do read these, you really have to commit to all four. Together they total something like 3400 pages, and you easily go hundreds of pages between story lines (especially in The Confusion, which is written as if two novels are interspersed). I found the the Baroque Cycle a little disappointing at first read, but I think it was because I was reading them as they came out, which made it harder to remember what happened in previous books. Reading them straight through alleviated that, and I found I enjoyed them much more the second time around.

Part of me wonders if it would be worth reading them in chronological order rather than publication order, to catch references and Easter egg-type things in Cryptonomicon that you'd not get without reading the Cycle first.

I do recommend all four books, whichever way you choose to read them. Just give yourself plenty of time and try to read at least a little bit every day.