I was disappointed in myself because I loved Cryptonomicon so much, but the second half of Quicksilver was brutal. - Alex Scrivener

I've never finished it. The scene changes were too difficult to follow at the time. I'd like to finish it, though. - ha3rvey (likes fritos)

Stephenson does that a lot. It very often sets up the action that comes later on. - Vicarbott

The Confusion starts out with Jack as a Barbary galley slave, and he becomes part of a cabal to steal a ship load of silver. Which goes more or less wrong. But at least it is not chapter after chapter of coded letters. - Alex Scrivener

Keep going, it gets much much better! - Vicarbott

I am already to the part with Jack making a living letting bugs drink his blood. - Alex Scrivener

LOL. I'll say no more. I would hate to spoil your fun. - Vicarbott

I never made it past Quicksilver, either. I should go back and start it again. Diamond Age/Cryptonomicon/Snow Crash are among my favorite books ever. Especially Snow Crash. - Jandy

Honestly, I recommend skimming the end of Quicksilver. Once it becomes nothing but deciphered letters, you can just skim along without missing much. I didn't, but having read it all now, I feel that most of it is recapped sufficiently in far less space in The Confusion. - Alex Scrivener

Well, I don't recommend any kind of skimming, and I recomend this books to everyone. Genius. - Marcos Marado

"To a merchant, England was a necklace of sea-ports surrounding a howling impoverished waste. As with a burning log on a hearth, all the warmth, color and heat lay in the outer encrustation of ruby-red coals. The interior was cold, damp, dark, and dead. The sea served the same purpose for the commerce of England as the atmosphere did for combustion of a log. Any place that the sea could not reach was of no account, save in the vastly inferior sense that it sort of held everything together structurally." - Alex Scrivener

Systems of The World is not grabbing me so far. - Alex Scrivener

I want to read it again, but I'm not sure I want to dedicate the time to reading 2700 pages again. I just finished Cryptonomicon for the third time, which at 900 pages is itself quite a commitment. - Andy Bakun

Yay for trying again! I've read the whole series 3 times now and just the other day, I had the urge to start them again. - Anika

"Buildings on London Bridge tended to be made by trial and error. Starting with a scheme that was more or less sane, in the broad sense that it had not fallen down yet, proprietors would enlarge their holdings by reaching out over the water with cantilevered add-ons, buttressed with diagonal braces. This was the trial phase. In the next, or error phase, the additions would topple into the Thames and wash up days later in Flanders, sometimes with furniture and dead people in them. Those that did not fall into the river were occupied, and eventually used to support further enhancements. Countless such iterations, spread thick over centuries, had made the Bridge as built-up as the laws of God and the ingenuity of Man would allow." - Alex Scrivener