I finally finished reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle yesterday. Rather than being about a bike that needs mending (boom boom) it's an epic historical yarn, set in the 17th and early 18th centuries, in various locales around the world. It weighs 3.4kg and runs to around 2600 pages.
The books precede his earlier Cryptonomicon (itself a fantastic read), and features ancestors of many of the characters from that book. They also feature many real historical figures, with perhaps Newton and Leibniz having the most significant roles. And throw in many royals (of various countries) and other nobles, vagabonds, pirates, soldiers and sailors. And the odd mysterious immortal.
I shan't actually attempt to summarise what actually happens in the books, but they are a fantastic read. The prose is written in a style that's very evocative of the era it's about. Stephenson clearly has a love of language and its evolution over time.
The main problem with them though is the sheer complexity of the story, and trying to keep track of who is who. Characters often have several different names (eg dukes can be referred to by their name or by their title). This tends to be ok if you read them in long sessions, but it gets very confusing if you're just dipping in and out for a chapter before bed each night.
Having reached the end, I'd love to be able to go back to the start and read them all again - I think I'd be able to follow things a bit better :-) But don't let that put you off. Go and read and learn some history too. I suspect that I now have lots of false, made-up, history in my head now which will no doubt make me look foolish at some point in the future.
What has been nice is that even though the three volumes have taken many years to write, they have all been released in 2004, thus letting me avoid the problem I often have with multi-volume stories. Namely forgetting what happened in the first book by the time the second one comes along. Certain other writers could take note of this for their future releases...
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