What's happening? *Another* book I chose not to finish!
Category Book Reviews
When I come up against *two* books in less than a week that I choose not to finish, that is bizarre. At least for me...
This time, it was Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. This is a HUGE book (900+ pages) that goes back to the age of enlightenment, when people like Ben Franklin and Issac Newton were young and revolutionizing modern science. I got about 75 pages into this, and just couldn't get interested. That time period isn't one that normally interests me anyway, and I couldn't see devoting that much time to a book that I wasn't enjoying. Perhaps if it were 200 - 300 pages, I might have tried to stick it out. Not at 900 pages.
And for those who would ask how could I *not* like Stephensen... I actually do like his stuff. I thought Snow Crash was an outstanding book (read it twice, in fact).
When I come up against *two* books in less than a week that I choose not to finish, that is bizarre. At least for me...
This time, it was Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. This is a HUGE book (900+ pages) that goes back to the age of enlightenment, when people like Ben Franklin and Issac Newton were young and revolutionizing modern science. I got about 75 pages into this, and just couldn't get interested. That time period isn't one that normally interests me anyway, and I couldn't see devoting that much time to a book that I wasn't enjoying. Perhaps if it were 200 - 300 pages, I might have tried to stick it out. Not at 900 pages.
And for those who would ask how could I *not* like Stephensen... I actually do like his stuff. I thought Snow Crash was an outstanding book (read it twice, in fact).
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Comments
I'm a huge Neal Stephenson fan, and even I had to put the book down and walk away from it a while ago. I'll be back to finish it at some point, but MAN is it dragging on. And I can only imagine how painful it is for people who haven't read Cryptonomicon, and who are missing all the character references.
I'm going to try again after Lotusphere though. I WILL finish this book.
- Julian
Posted by Julian Robichaux At 18:10:06 On 12/01/2004 | - Website - |
Tom, is it not a possibility that you simply have finished all the good books on the planet and are now only left with the b-grade stuff?
Posted by Colin Pretorius At 11:29:57 On 12/01/2004 | - Website - |
Nathan... I think that the book probably does get more interesting as you go, but I didn't want to spend a week or two trying to test that hypothesis...
Posted by Thomas Duff At 11:46:54 On 12/01/2004 | - Website - |
Posted by Thomas Duff At 09:34:51 On 12/01/2004 | - Website - |
Posted by Steve Chrysostom At 09:27:11 On 12/01/2004 | - Website - |
Now, if you want to talk books with heavy investment for low payoff, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series takes the cake. The latest novel was 800 pages in which ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENED.
Posted by Nathan T. Freeman At 11:34:48 On 12/01/2004 | - Website - |