How long does it take to read Quicksilver?
Volume One of The Baroque Cycle
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson takes about 17 hours to read at 250 words a minute.
Book 1 of The Baroque Cycle
Next: The Confusion
About 17 hours
A long haul
First published 2003. 927 pages, about 254,925 words.
34 days (about 5 weeks) at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 28 hours 20 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 17 hours |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 10 hours 37 minutes |
The page count is the median across 18 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Volume One of The Baroque Cycle (Not to be confused with Quicksilver: The Baroque Cycle #1) Quicksilver is a massive, exuberant and wildly ambitious historical novel that's also Neal Stephenson's eagerly awaited prequel to Cryptonomicon--his pyrotechnic reworking of the 20th century, from World War II codebreaking and disinformation to the latest issues of Internet data privacy. Quicksilver, "Volume One of the Baroque Cycle", backtracks to another time of high intellectual ferment: the late 17th century, with the natural philosophers of England's newly formed Royal Society questioning the universe and dissecting everything that moves. One founding member, the Rev John Wilkins, really did write science fiction and a book on cryptography--but this isn't history as we know it, for here his code book is called not Mercury but Cryptonomicon. And although the key political schemers of Charles II's government still have initials spelling the word CABAL, their names are all different... While towering geniuses like Newton and Leibniz decode nature itself, bizarre adventures (merely beginning with the Great Plague and Great Fire) happen to the fictional Royal Society member Daniel Waterhouse, who knows everyone but isn't quite bright enough for cutting-edge science. Two generations of Daniel's family appear in Cryptonomicon, as does a descendant of the Shaftoes who here are soldiers and vagabonds. Other links include the island realm of Qwghlm with its impossible language and the mysterious, seemingly ageless alchemist Enoch Root. As the reign of Charles II gives way to that of James II and then William of Orange, Stephenson traces the complex lines of finance and power that form the 17th-century Internet. Gold and silver, lead and (repeatedly) mercury or quicksilver flow in glittering patterns between centres of marketing and intrigue in England, Germany, France and Holland. Paper flows as well: stocks, shares, scams and letters holding layers of concealed code messages…
Subjects: Scientists, Fiction, Adventure stories, Alchemists, Puritans, Adventure and adventurers
