Book Review: The System of the World

Today's book review is The System of the World  by Neal Stephenson.  This is the conclusion of Stephenson's enormous Baroque Cycle; I don't recommend reading it without having previously read Quicksilver and The Confusion.

Like the previous two volumes, this was highly entertaining reading and very engaging, and he actually ties things up somewhat for the major characters at the end, achieving an ending in some sense.  But the ending is less than satisfying, because while the character's individual lives seem reasonably well wound up, he leaves us with some real ambiguity about issues in the wider world.  And frankly, the more I sit here thinking about what I should say about the book and the whole experience of reading it, the less satisfied I am with how it ended.

So, if you read Cryptonomicon and loved it, you probably do want to read this series.  It's enlightening, engrossing, and sidesplittingly funny.  It's also insanely long, and one step below Stephenson's best work, so don't read it until you've read his other books and he's left you wanting more.  And if you do read Quicksilver and The Confusion, you certainly will want to read The System of the World; in spite of what I said about the ending, it's still enjoyable reading.

8 out of 10.

Book Review: Very Bad Deaths

Today's book review is Very Bad Deaths by Spider Robinson.

I am pleased to report that Spider has managed to avoid any use of time travel in this book, which means that I am spared the desire to smack him around that most of his books give me.  It's short and light (which I was looking for after having finished wading through The System of the World).  It starts with a major premise for which I'm more than willing to suspend disbelief, adds a minor premise for which I unfortunately don't need to suspend disbelief at all, and spins a somewhat unlikely, but not (at least while you're reading it) ridiculous story with a breathless enough pace and enough surprises to keep me going.  Along the way it manages to throw in a few insights on the human condition.  It's surprisingly devoid of puns, though it does have a couple of humorous bits.  And we get the distinct impression that Mr. Robinson has a very low opinion of and bad attitude towards the police.

I can't say anything more without a minor spoiler.  If you don't want to be clued in on something fairly early in the book that you might not see coming if you were just reading the story and not trying to figure it out, then don't read behind this cut tag.

( Minor spoiler )

A word of warning:  The bad guy in this book is *really* bad.  Somebody so bad that imagining him and what he does makes the whole book uncomfortable.  I think this limited my enjoyment of the book.  Him being this bad is vital to the plot; it's not gratuitous.  And unlike some over-the-top villains I've read, I can actually believe that somebody might think this way -- which doesn't make it better.  But if you don't want to think about the schemes someone who was genuinely trying to produce maximum suffering might hatch, you might not want to read this book.

Overall, it was worth reading, and brought up points worth thinking about.  It wasn't perfect, and it was unpleasant in places, but it was good.  8 out of 10.