Being the thoughts and writings of one Gustaf Erikson; father, homeowner, technologist.

This category contains capsule reviews of books I've read

Thursday, 2005-10-20


The System of the World by Neal Stephenson

Well, the trilogy is done. It was never boring, but it takes a good writer to keep the reader hooked for three thousand pages. Stephenson does a good but not stellar job.

Update: the books are frequently funny, but not often laugh-out-loud funny. The following passage made me lol though. The hero, Daniel Waterhouse, and sir Isaac Newton are meeting with an informer in the pub of the Newgate prison, called the Black Dogg:

The Black Dogg was not the sort of tavern that contained a great deal of furniture — patrons either stood, or lay on the floor. There was a bar, of course, in the literal sense of a bulwark erected between the prisoners and the gin. This was now a palisade of burning tapers. […]

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