The Confusion
By John DeNardo |
Monday, April 5th, 2004 at
3:41 pm
For those who trodded through Quicksilver, SciFiWeekly has posted a B+ review of Neal Stephenson’s second book in the Baroque Cycle: The Confusion.
Filed under: Books
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That’s a pretty short review for such a long book. I’ll have to wait for what’s-her-name to give it her stamp of approval.
(Also, middle volumes of trilogies are traditionally the weakest ones to read…)
Anyhow, if you are working your way through the books, you might want to cast your peepers towards:
http:www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page
…for an interesting website that Stephenson contributes to…
My prediction: Harriet Klausner;s review shows up on the day of the book’s release (April 13) and will be rated 4 or 5 stars.This is a safe bet since this describes about…oh…100% of her reviews! But don’t get me started.
Fred,
From what I’ve read (and from what Stephenson said at his book signing), this series of books is really one giant book, with 3 interweaving story lines. I’m not sure how that uis different from a normal trilogy, other then normal trilogies have more stand-alone books for each installment.
True, it’s “one book”, but JRRT wrote “The Lord of the Rings” as one book and was forced by the publisher to split it (I remember reading JRRT’s suggestions for the titles and they were better for 2 & 3 than “Two Towers” and “Return of the King”; I’ll have to see if I can find that source again). And, if you read LotR, I think you’ll find the stuff in “Towers” to be the weakest sections (or slowest moving).
Even a novel has a bit of slack usually in the middle. Trilogy or long book, you’ve got the introduction, setting the plot, and other stuff to “hook” you in the beginning. Then you’ve got the long narrative drive to the climax. Sometimes the middle keeps you going, sometimes not so much.
It’s called ‘the curse of the second act’ and is common in plays, literature, and films. The second, or middle, of the 3 act play / book series / film often appears weak because you’ve gotten past the introduction of the characters and yet you can’t get to the ‘good stuff’ that will happen in the final portion – so you’re stuck sort of marking time.
What is noticable are those 2nd acts that break that mold and really push the story to new levels – I’d argue that Empire Strikes Back is an example of such a work, but then I’d be accused of being a fanboy =P.
Oh, as if “Star Wars Enthusiast” is somehow more acceptable than “fanboy”.
Fanboy.
We really should accept the term “fanboy” with the poise and aplomb worthy of the title. Let’s face it, any way you slice it, we’re all geeks — plain and simple. We spend our time discussing the minutiae of science fiction with the enthusiasm of apocalyptic proportions.
Lix score
Great – somebody got a freakin thesaurus and a word of the day calendar for christmas.
And I just don’t see how being a “fanboy” can be construed as a bad thing. Call it enthusiast or some other colorful word – but at the end of the day you are what you are…
And discussing minutiae of Sci-Fi does not make one a geek, any more than discussing the minutiae of any other literary topic. Makes us fanboys
I’ll have you know that the only use I had for a dictionary in that posting is for the spelling for words that I already know. Using a thesaurus is for posers.
Well, getting back to the middle acts…I’ll throw in my illustrious (trying to raise that score, although my blog isn’t doing much better!!!) opinion that “The Empire Strikes Back” is the most scintillating of the three “authentic” SW movies…
I think the fanboys among us will agree with you Fred! Its got it all. Drama, romance, aliens, spaceship sucking creatures, bounty hunters, corbomite, and hand lopping. Oh, and Lucas’ trademark sparkling (ebullient, epigrammatic, etc) dialog!