Stephenson:Neal:Baroque Cycle Review(Timberbee)

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

How must one tell a tale? It is not everyday that a Relatively New Author's works have the potential to enter the Ranks of the Classics; yet that appears to be what is happening here.

Within the pages, the oh-so entertaining pages, of The Baroque Cycle Big questions are poised. Not in the heated rush of The Diamond Age, Questions and Answers vying for dominance, never sure which shall come first, so like the Riddle of the Chicken and the Egg. In this three volume series there are almost as many questions and answers as there are Readers.

We are treated to an Epic Telling of a By-Gone day. The Author has chosen, not to take us to an "Alternate" Earth, a parallel reality, but to bravely, and skillfuly, weave his Enormous Story through this one, a Story Rife with the Greats, the Near Greats, and the Countless hosts of Histories Forgottens, yet, Here, they are not forgotten, it is They who are shown to be the stuff of Legends, the Stuff of History.

The tide of Man, not unlike Newton's Light, is both particle and Wave. We see the Very Nitty gritty, of life, in both the grand and the Course. Versaille was never so described, and, quite likely, never so real, as it is within these pages.

The Reader is treated to Amazing Tales of Daring Do, following adventures which Span the Globe, Characters as Deep as the Oceans they travel, as broad as the lands spanned. Scenery stretches before us, a Near Infinite Plane, which seems to want not for attention, nor for Description. We are drawn in. Con-Fused is a travelogue of Undaunted proportions.

What Does it Take to Make a Classic

Strong Characters, Gripping Story, Unrivaled Depth, timeless Symbolism, the ability to grip the Big Picture, and to ask questions which have persisted through the Centuries. There is all of this here.

Layers within Layers, not like an Onion, but Rather, a Work of Salvador Dali, where Reality must oft be checked at the door, belief suspended, second looks mandated. There is much going on within these Three Novels, What is Obvious in one glance, does not seem to exist in the next, in quite the same way. Themes stretch, flex, fray, reworked, rewoven in constant, subsequent forays. No two reads are quite alike, as time, experience, awakening Knowledge make there mark felt in the Reader, reflected in the work, much as a Parent always grows Wiser as the Child Ages.

This Humble Reader's own takes have changed considerably since the first reading of the Premeire volume, Quicksilver, and, quite likely, will continue to do so. Where as the story is penned, it shouldn't change, nothing new has been Added to It. From whence, then, comes the growth?