Quicksilver is the first installment in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, an intended trilogy, comprising Quicksilver, The Confusion and The System of The World.
For fans of his usual sci-fi output, as well as fans of his extraordinary novel, Cryptonomicon, this will seem quite a departure from his accepted norm. Neal Stephenson seems to be a man who has recently shaken of the fetters of his genre, deciding quite bravely to venture out into pastures new with a historical novel, nay a historical trilogy. At 927 pages this novel isn't for the light-hearted, delving into such arcane subjects as alchemy, natural philosophy, cryptography and astronomy .
Focussing on the adventures of several key protagonists, namely Enoch Root, Daniel Waterhouse, Eliza, Jack Shaftoe and many other factual characters, including Isaac Newton, Samuel Pepys, Gottfried Leibniz, William of Orange and many others, this novel is a masterful account of its era.
The novel gives an illuminating insight into the social mores of its time, in an often witty and intelligent fashion. Having read this book before either of the other two volumes were released, I can only assume that the ground is being set in this volume (one hell of a build-up, considering the length of the book), as the story doesn't really go anywhere, despite being very intriguing and intelligent. Nevertheless, the insight given into such events as The Great Fire of London, The Black Death and Newton's Principia Mathematica are reason enough to read this book.
Rather than being a science-fiction novel, it's more like a science-fiction novel for the 17th Century. A great read, and a great precursor to what promises to be an epic trilogy.