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Following the group read of Cryptonomicon, we're now beginning a group read of The Baroque Cycle, beginning with Quicksilver. The novel features the ancestors of the main characters of Crytonomicon, but the series was published after that.

It'll be another long, long read, but hopefully not as tough as Cryptonomicon!

*sigh*, I only just remember that we were supposed to start this today. I spent the whole day finishing a book for the PP challenge, so not sure if I'll be able to read anything for this, but I'll see.

Does anybody want a reading schedule?

I will start to read a few chapters and if they hold my interest I'll read along. :)

Don't worry, I haven't started yet either.

Normally I am all for a schedule, but now I don't really want one. I work in shifts and that means that some days I just don't have the energy to keep to a schedule while other days I will want to read more than the schedule. So let's just read and keep each other informed of where we are in the book.

I read the first chapter this morning. There are already several characters introduced with connections to Cryptonomicon and people we know from history. So far it is interesting and it is easy to read, but experience learns us that that may change with the coming chapters. But I am optimistic thus far.

I read a few Reviews of this, and they all seem to mention that it is a similar style to Crypt... (my spell check really hates that title and I can never remember it). I think I will skip it. There are too many books I really want to read! Enjoy...

Bloody hell, I keep forgetting to read this! Sorry Barbara; I will make a sign or something...

Don't worry. I am only on page 76. I have other books I want to read more so I only picked it up 3 times to read 25 pages myself. You can still catch up. :)

Finally started. Made it to page 29 according to my Kindle, which has shows a total page count of 1207 (haven't checked for an appendix yet). What's the page count in your book Barbara?

So, do you think Enoch is immortal is it his ancestor?

My book has 927 pages. I am planning to read to page 95 today.

I don't know, could be either. I can't remember what he looked like in Cryptonomicon.

Right now they are starting to talk about geometry and calculus and stuff and I am getting the same feeling as in Cryptonomicon when they talked about tech stuff.

I read the first paragraph of the Enoch Root entry in the Baroque Cycle Wiki:
(We should probably make use of that wiki too...)

It seems to be ambiguous, but with a strong suggestion that he is immortal.

I guess, then, that he looks the same as he did in Cryptonomicon - grey hair, red beard. I do recall Randy saying he looked like he could be between 50 and 90, which is a weirdly wide range. I don't recall the description from when we first see him in WW2, but I don't think he was particularly young, which makes it weird that he's not dead or very frail in Randy's story.

That paragraph is no help whatsoever. I guess we will just have to pay attention to the details and figure it out for themselves.
But I am leaning more and more to the immortal thing.

I just finished an annoying chapter, where Stephenson either uses a literary tool or my book doesn't have all the lines.

Well, I didn't want to read further in case of spoilers.

I refer the immortal idea, although I like the ambiguity.

Hmm, will compare when I get there. What chapter is it?

I did read a bit more bit it didn't clear anything up.

I like immortals in stories but I am not sure I like it in this one. The rest seems like stuff that can actually happen. Having an immortal in the story nmakes it loose its realism.

The chapter is called Minerva, off the Coast of New England November 1713.
I think it is the literay tool thing, but things like that always make me wonder.

I'll have to see how it goes, but in theory I like that bit of weirdness. It adds an uncertain element among all the science, something they can't figure out yet.

Will make a note about that chapter.

I actually suspected that the science might be as tough as Crytonomicon. I mean people at the time were studying and building things that I still don't understand simply because I don't need to know how it all works. And I'm not enough of a geek to find out. But *shrug*. I made it through Crytonomicon without understanding most of the science; the story and characters were enough. I can do it again.

The science wasn't that hard yet. We covered that stuff in high school, but I didn't find it interesting then and I didn't find it interesting now and I felt my attention started to drift to other places. :)

I expext the next chapter will make up for it. I can't wait to read it tomorrow.

Ok that next chapter wasn't as interesting as I hoped. But I am reading on.

Just wanted to say that that genealogy of the House of Orange Nassau is a big lie. There are only two people on that page that belong to that house. I know because it is the ruling house of my country.

I think I came across the chapter you didn't like - was it a very short one where nothing happens except that Daniel gets up off the deck of the ship and goes to sleep in a cabin? And then the chapter ends with an image of the ship's steering wheel and the next chapter opens with a sundial.

What were you hoping for with the chapter that wasn't that interesting?

Crap, I can't remember if I read the Nassau bit. I do remember skipping over some long list, but that might have been the words Daniel was cataloguing for Wilkins.

I'm 9% in, and Daniel has just brought in a nest of ants so they can study it and explain to the king why ant eggs are bigger than ants.

You mean the chapter with the calculus and stuff? The short chapter didn't bother me that much.

I don't have those pictures in my book. I have other pictures.

For the chapter that wasn't that interesting I was hoping for more detail. It is called the Plague Year and I love reading about the plague. It just didn't have the information I was hoping for. Which I thought was weird because Stephenson gives so much detail about other stuff and not about this.

If you're 9 % in then you haven't yet read the Nassau bit. But if you skipped the lists with words you're almost there and you're not 9 % in. Which chapter are you

If you're 9% then you are near the chapter that ends with the literary trick or where I am missing some text.

I remember the ants just can't find that passage again.

Oh, when I said image I meant a described image, not a picture.

I'm at 18%, a long way into a chapter called Charing Cross 1670. Daniel is chatting with Sir Winston Churchhill.

I looked up the weird chapter you were talking about (which I must already have read when I did my last post) and I don't think you have any text missing. I think the sentence begins at the end of the chapter and then ends with the title of the next chapter so that it reads "and all of a sudden it's the Plague Year". Daniel's current meal reminds him of a past one, and the transition is similar to the description of the steering wheel at the end of one chapter being matched by the sundial at the beginning of the next.

My greatest knowledge of the plague comes from Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, which had some pretty graphic descriptions of buboes. Without having read that book I don't think I would have taken much notice of the plague in this novel because it didn't seem especially serious.

I don't recall the Nassau bit...

I have to say though - I'm pretty bored. I neglected this book for almost a month, and then last week I sat down and committed myself to reading as much as I could. If this was a shorter book, I'd shrug off the boredom, but with so much more to go and very little to interest me, I think I'm going to give up. I love Stephenson's snarky writing, but the characters aren't as interesting as in Cryptonomicon. I like seeing the sciences in their early incarnations, but it's still mostly lost on me. And I really don't feel like slogging through five hundred pages before I get an inkling of where the plot is going, and then another five hundred to see how it turns out. So I'm sorry, I might read a few more chapters and reconsider, but chances are I'm just going to stop.

Don't keep reading on my account. I will finish the book and series but that is just the way I am. I haven't read anything in this book lately because I have been reading for the Mishmash challenge. I will respond to your comments more later when I am behind a real computerm :)