“‘There is no time to talk,’ Arlanc said. ‘But know that the men they have sent you are very dangerous: murderers, conspiracists, phanatiques, looters of bakeries, outragers of women, and locksmiths gone bad.’” ––The Confusion, by Neal Stephenson, pg. 212 “Natural selection creates by discarding, and it doesn’t discard gently. Tennyson, in a poem […]
“‘I believe I shall write a letter to England, monsieur.’ ‘England! But we are at war with England,’ the Marquis pointed out, mock-offended. ‘What I have in mind is a Natural-Philosophic sort of discourse,’ Eliza said, ‘and Philosophy recognizes no boundaries.’” ––The Confusion, by Neal Stephenson, pg. 111 “The idea is simply to tolerate […]
“Though she would never show it, Eliza felt a sudden upwelling of affection for Rossignol. In a world full of men who only wanted to take her to bed, it was somehow comforting to know that there was one who, given the opportunity, would prefer to read through a big pile of stolen correspondence.” ––The […]
It is always painful to write a negative review of a beloved author, but less so when the book in question is as desultory and tedious as this one. Neal Stephenson is probably my favorite living author, but making it through the first volume of his Baroque Cycle (which is really three books in one) […]
“There are phases in cultural evolution that are by their nature big leaps; a technology, or a constellation of them, proves so explosive that its lucky hosts suddenly seem light-years ahead of other cultures. Those laggard cultures, indeed, look so pathetic that it is tempting to ask whether there isn’t some qualitative difference at work, […]
“‘No, Robert.’ Hooke took advantage of Daniel’s plea to jam a leather strap in his mouth. ‘You may bite down on that if you wish, or you may spit it out and scream all you like––this is Bedlam, and no one will object. Neither will anyone take heed, or show mercy. Least of all Robert […]
“The Revolution was done, it had been Glorious, and what made it glorious was that it had been an anticlimax. There’d been no Civil War this time, no massacres, no trees bent under the weight of hanged men, no slave-ships. Was Daniel flattering himself to suppose that this could be put down to his good […]
“‘It is all right for a clock to run fast or slow at times, so long as it is calibrated against the sun, and set right. The sun may come out only once in a fortnight. It is enough. A few minutes’ light around noon is all that you need to discover the error, and […]
“‘A spherical body––a planet, moon, or star––having a given quantity of matter, produces a gravitational attraction that is the same as if all of its matter were concentrated into a single geometric point at the center.’ ‘The same? You mean exactly the same?’ ‘It is a geometrical proof,’ Isaac merely said. ‘That the particles are […]
“World currency markets are rocked by the turbulent force of electronically lubricated financial speculation. Weapons of mass destruction are cultivated by rogue regimes and New Age cults. Nations seem less cohesive than before, afflicted by ethnic or religious or cultural faction. Health officials seriously discuss the prospect of a worldwide plague––the unspeakably gruesome Ebola virus, […]