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-The next to last sentence of this trilogy (on the fourth page of the acknowledgments) begins "Which is a roundabout way of saying . . . " That neatly sums up the trilogy, which goes a-round-a-bout 17th and 18th century religion, politics, science, philosophy, and, indeed, the planet, as it tells us the story of the tail end of medievalism and the whisker beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Stephenson has been accused of putting his research notes into his books, undigested. This is a fair cop. I happen to find most of the info thus presented fascinating, but your mileage may vary.
-Because of Stephenson's diligent effort to get the era right, I think this trilogy might even qualify as an Important Work. While the book has obviously been fictionalized in spots, it is generally considered to be pretty accurate, and I ended up learning a lot I didn't know about the era. I also ended up learning a lot about the different mindset of the era, a period of time when many of the things we regard as second nature were, in fact, just getting invented. Like, the word "Europe" (to distinguish Old World "Christendom" from New World "Christendom"), or the idea that money doesn't necessarily have to be made up of precious metals, or the myriad ways people tried to reconcile free will with what was becoming an increasingly mechanized cosmos.
(I maintain, by the way, that while these books might edge into the genre of fantasy (judged by content), they ain't science fiction. The fiction in them isn't science, and the science in them isn't fiction. They do explore the theme of the impact of science on society, a common one in SF, but then, Call of the Wild is about people dealing with hostile environments, and Ben Hur is about a conflict between alien cultures, and they don't get to call themselves SF just 'cause those ideas get explored in SF a lot.)
-Anyway, if you're willing to read nigh-on 3,000 pages of historical fiction, I highly, highly recommend these books. (They're currently being re-released in smaller chunks, dicing an unweildy trilogy into a six-to-nine-book series.) Epic, adventurous, entertaining, educational, and the hardcovers can stun a horse.
-Because of Stephenson's diligent effort to get the era right, I think this trilogy might even qualify as an Important Work. While the book has obviously been fictionalized in spots, it is generally considered to be pretty accurate, and I ended up learning a lot I didn't know about the era. I also ended up learning a lot about the different mindset of the era, a period of time when many of the things we regard as second nature were, in fact, just getting invented. Like, the word "Europe" (to distinguish Old World "Christendom" from New World "Christendom"), or the idea that money doesn't necessarily have to be made up of precious metals, or the myriad ways people tried to reconcile free will with what was becoming an increasingly mechanized cosmos.
(I maintain, by the way, that while these books might edge into the genre of fantasy (judged by content), they ain't science fiction. The fiction in them isn't science, and the science in them isn't fiction. They do explore the theme of the impact of science on society, a common one in SF, but then, Call of the Wild is about people dealing with hostile environments, and Ben Hur is about a conflict between alien cultures, and they don't get to call themselves SF just 'cause those ideas get explored in SF a lot.)
-Anyway, if you're willing to read nigh-on 3,000 pages of historical fiction, I highly, highly recommend these books. (They're currently being re-released in smaller chunks, dicing an unweildy trilogy into a six-to-nine-book series.) Epic, adventurous, entertaining, educational, and the hardcovers can stun a horse.
