(This review republished from my ‘main’ blog (with a few edits), VelcroCityTouristBoard.)

Neil Stephenson’s ‘Baroque Cycle’ is huge. That’s no hyperbole; three volumes, each weighing in at around 900 pages. A big story, and no mistake. But despite the immense size of this opus, one is still astonished by the sheer volume of things it contains. Namely, nigh on a hundred years of fictionalised history covering the period after the English Civil War, commonly referred to as The Enlightenment. Historical fiction (as any library worker could tell you) can be dry as ship’s biscuits, or alternatively somewhat slushy if leaning towards the romantic styles. The ‘Baroque Cycle’ blows these traditional styles right out of the water.

But what’s it about? Well, it’s a history of science, alchemy, philosophy, politics, war, money, geography, piracy, slavery, poverty, cryptography, state secrets and skulduggery. But to simply list these things does the work no justice. Stephenson has managed to combine a selection of almost geeky threads into an immense tapestry of ideas, and on this he has embroidered the tales of a diverse cast of characters, fictional and historical, noble and common. The sheer scope of it makes it virtually impossible to summarize, and to do so would fail to explain the complexity and depth of the tale, which spins from character to character and country to country in a gyre of symbols and swashbuckling adventure. Stephenson makes no bones that he modelled the style after the ‘picaroon-romances’ of the era under scrutiny. These used an authentic historical background to frame the daring and dastardly deeds of their progenitors, while encapsulating the social mores of the time in the just desserts meted out to the heroes and villains. The ‘Baroque Cycle’ does something very similar, discussing as it does a lot of subjects close to the bosom of modern society (money, cryptography and science being arguably the most relevant). These discourses are voiced through the characters with wit and verve; it is plain to see that Stephenson has really got beneath the skin of the language of the time, and the enjoyment in using it is apparent all through the trilogy, blending the verbose declamations of the noble and the chatty brogues of rogues together with a modicum of modern geek-speak to produce dialogue that sparkles, informs and entertains all at once.

To be honest though, it would be false to describe it as an easy read; the archaic language alone will be enough to deter a fair few readers. But like much of Stephenson’s output, it rewards the reader who jumps in head first and elects to swim around in the story, accepting it briefly as his medium for existence. Complex, erudite and hugely entertaining, The ‘Baroque Cycle’ is a truly unique piece of work without precedent in the world of speculative fiction. Once you’ve read it, you’ll never look at history the same way again.

(The titles of the three volumes, in order, are ‘Quicksilver’, ‘The Confusion’ and ‘The System of the World’.)

(This review republished from my ‘main’ blog (with a few edits), VelcroCityTouristBoard.)

Charles Stross has sold more than a dozen novels to publishers, but has done so in such a short period of time that less than half of them are actually in print yet. He’s a hot property whose grip on the leading edge of British (and arguably world) SF grows stronger season by season. Stross’s writings are a case study in the talent that exists in this country, and ‘Accelerando’, his latest to be published, a prime example of how invention and skill can combine in a synergistic fashion.

Technically, this tale isn’t new; it has been assembled from a sequence of short stories that saw publication in a selection of SF magazines and anthologies. The stories follow the exploits of one Manfred Macx and his future descendents over hundreds of years, from a near-contemporary Earth, then deep into a post-human future where the solar system itself is virtually unrecognisable. Macx is some kind of benevolent meme-factory; at the start of the tale he is traipsing across a pre-singularity Europe, his brain (and all the external hardware that feeds it) stewing up viable patents and business blags, then giving the rights to them away to entrepreneurs. As the story moves on in incrementally larger leaps of time, we follow the development of humanity into post-humanity, as well as the fragmentation and forking of Macx’s dysfunctional but brilliant family. Along the way we meet uploaded lobsters in space, autonomous data-based life-forms evolved from limited liability corporations, numerous incarnations of most of the main characters, and an AI in the form of a cat that knows more than it is letting on.

It’s a hard story to describe, simply because of the vast scope of it; the break-up into smaller parts, each containing a little snippet or two of narration to let you know what has been happening in the interim, helps you keep abreast of the leaps in time line. These back-story slices could easily come over as info-dump, but are handled with finesse, only letting you find stuff out when it will serve the story, though one gets the feeling that Stross could easily pontificate at great length on his vision of the universe at any point in the story. Simultaneously ‘hard’ and playful, ‘Accelerando’ is a must read for anyone who enjoys the exuberant visions of Ken McLeod, and the cheeky yet subtle humour of Ian McDonald, combined with the geek-pleasing trans-human speculations of William Gibson or Greg Egan. He doesn’t write *like* any of them, but he’s receiving some or all of the same frequencies. Also a must read for anyone who says SF has run out of new ideas; it might make you reassess that opinion.

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