Yep. All of the stuff about being the roommate and the referee and the Royal Society’s mascot kind of thing is all MacGuffin because Daniel has to be around all the action in the England portion of the narrative for most of the trilogy. He’s our only eye on London and Oxford. So the reasons he’s there are completely irrelevant…they only exist to put him in certain places at certain times.
So are there instances where authors are split? I’m thinking of a guy like John Crowley - miles and miles of critical acclaim in SF/fantasy, less well known in mainstream fiction. He’s written a couple of mainstream novels of late, so I wonder where they would sell best. On the SF bookshelves: Good for his fanbase but probably terrible for John Average SF fan who isn’t shopping for a mainstream novel. Or on the general fiction shelves, good for passing trade but maybe won’t get the fantasy fans who recognise his name.
It’s a battleground out there! I always thought Iain Banks splitting his oevre between Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks was a sort of artistic gesture, not a canny marketing move.
Not even a canny marketing move as much as a form of self-defense to keep his mainstream works from being tagged as sf. That makes them infinitely harder to get any reviews in many mainsteam publications.
Hello Again, oh sure there are many authors who are “open” about it and a very few top sellers, Nora Roberts as J.D. Robb the leading example, where both names are on the cover. My point is that except for those very few examples, the customer has to do the work of going to the website or reading romance publications or getting insider information in some other way. The publishers work hard to disguise the fact. Fake biographies are given, references to other series are left out, catalogs separate the two.
It’s possible that the increased ease and availability of information via the net is causing this trend to slowly fade away, but I don’t think we’re far enough into the change yet to be certain.
I don’t think this is a fair assessment of Daniel’s character, though I do think he is the Enlightenment English Everyman and reader’s proxy. To say he’s a Macguffin implies that he’s just an object that serves as a plot point. I’d say he’s the opposite: he does not drive the plot or motivate the other characters, but follows the action and is placed in interesting situations with fascinating characters so that we can watch from the inside. He provides quite a contrast to Jack and Eliza, who create plot wherever they go. He’s more of a passive observer, often moved by events, but sometimes also a subtle director of events.
I didn’t mean that Daniel was the MacGuffin. I meant that all of those excuses for him to be placed in the middle of the events (Newton’s roommate, Royal Society’s “mascot”, Round-head’s son) are the MacGuffins…those relationships exist only to place him where he’s needed. Daniel DOES have a personality. He’s not a cipher. But it’s a subtler personality than the shining lights surrounding him. And frankly, in Newton’s case at least, an infinitely more likeable personality than those giants.
Heh - I’m on page 120 right now. I’m wondering the same thing.
There’s a huge amount of words so far, he hasn’t really done any storytelling yet as far as I can see.
I’ll quibble that Daniel Waterhouse isn’t so much an everyman as an everynerd. He’s supposed to be a stand-in for the audience, yes, but the audience is presumed to be the kind of person that would pick a Neal Stepanson book, and hence a nerd. You know—the kind of person who would use “hence” unironically. Daniel is there to allow us access to the Royal Society, and so as a fictional character he can’t be one of the leading lights, he’s got to be a well-connected and ubiquitous second-stringer.
And the books are science fictional in the sense that they are written with a science fictional point of view, despite being historical fiction. They are about new technology, new ways of thinking, new frontiers, except set 300 some-odd years ago.
And I also agree that the books aren’t so much about plot or characters as they are about setting and ideas and details. The second book contains a literal trip around the world, just to show the world of the 17th century to the reader. And if that isn’t interesting, then it’s pretty likely that you won’t find the books rewarding. I ate them up like chocolate ice cream myself.
Holy cow, that’s a fairly shocking percentage.
I agree with this, and I’m a big fan of the Baroque Cycle and the Cryptonomicon. But I don’t mind it, as I consider them to be “journey” books, in the sense that they’re all about the journey, not the destination. In other words, they’re meant to be enjoyed for the sake of the reading, not for what they deliver at the end. That kind of thing isn’t always to my taste and I can easily see how it might never be to anyone else’s.
Another example of a “journey” book, for me, would be Gravity’s Rainbow. In that case, though, it hasn’t worked for me (so far - I plan to give it another go sometime soon).
Interesting, I hadn’t thought of it in that way. Okay, I’ll buy that. Categorization can be limiting, anyway.
I don’t think the series is really plot driven. It’s idea driven. It’s a look at how people adapt to rapid technological change and what happens when our way of looking at the world changes.
Hmmmm… I’ve seen precious little of that, so far. Mostly, Daniel is either dismayed, bemused or astounded at various breakthroughs shown him. He is a bit irksome.
I like character driven novels* and so far, the main character (Daniel) is ok. Jack, the one I’m learning about now (while really being told in great detail how skirmishes were fought on the continent in the late 17th century) is still an unknown.
Belrix: I am sorry to say that even at page 361, I am still waiting. Shall we share the thread? Post some of your observations–I promise not to spoil anything for you.
I have to work tomorrow, but should be able to read this evening. I think I’m good for another 100 pages today.
I also enjoy books wherein the character goes about his or her business in relation to the plot and the era they are in provides background. This seems to me to be mostly era and not so much character. That’s ok, but I’m not much in the mood. I’ll stick it out through this book–not sure if I want to read the other two (so far).
Eliza and Jack are more entertaining than Daniel (go figure. <— sarcasm)
It’s gone from tedious to implausible–Jack is well developed and believable, but Eliza, as much as I like her, is straight out of bodice ripper. No matter–I am enjoying their time spent with Dr Leibniz.
The pace has certainly quickened. Methinks Neal needed an editor to tighten up the first bit.
I’m plodding compared to you. I’m trying to get used to new bifocals, my first pair, and I’m just not reading like I can sometimes. Right now it’s really just a “bathroom book”, although a pretty thick one for that purpose.
My, that could take you quite some time! Let me know what you think, regardless.
I like the Baroque Cycle okay, but I think Cryptonomicon is a more enjoyable long work by Stephenson.
-Kris
I’m confused by this thread. How is The Baroque Cycle (and Cryptonomicon ftm) not an example of science fiction?
It’s fiction that explores the effect of scientific advancement on the human condition. It’s fiction a main point of which is to philosophize about technology.
Aren’t these the major identifiying characteristics of science fiction? (Well, that’s what I learned way back in high school but have things changed? Or was I misinformed?)
-FrL-
No, you’re quite right. SF is about ideas, not spaceships.
“What is science fiction?” might be both the most discussed the and least relevant question in all of geekdom.
I try not to care about the answer. I try real hard. But just like so many other people (including many science fiction writers), the topic keeps pulling me back, in part because a good personal definition of SF (or sci-fi, or skiffy, or whatever) helps to unlock what we like about these stories in the first place.
The problem comes in, I think, when we get so invested in our personal definitions that we forget that others will draw the line in different places, especially the publishers that care only about how many books they sell. They are entirely unconcerned about consistent definitions of genres. I think that purely mercenary attitude toward labeling is disturbingly contrary to the average nerd’s fastidious desire for an orderly world.
According to my own arbitrary standards, neither The Baroque Cycle nor Cryptonomicon make the cut. It’s a close call, but they’re just not science fiction books for me. I understand why Stephenson and the publishers decided as they did, and I even understand that I enjoy them for largely the same reasons that I enjoy “normal” SF stories. But I just can’t accept the label for them.
Weird, but there you go.
True, dat. But also I’d say it’s atypical for sci-fi. It seems to not have the theme of man vs machine or advanced society, but to be more historical in nature with a few made up (fantastical–oops, I should say phant’ical) elements (so far). I have seen precious little struggle of man vs technology or even how man adapts to tech in this book so far. I’ve learned a lot about 17th century England, though, along with religion, philosophy, cultural mores and politics. That doesn’t sound like sci-fi to me.
OR
What Kendall said (mostly). 
(Emphasis added.)
It sounds like you might not count Dune as science fiction, or at least, you would put it out on the edge of the genre. For the plot has little to do with, as I put it, “the effect of technology on society” (though it does contain descriptions of future techs of course) and much more about the kinds of things you listed above.
Would I be correct to think you don’t count Dune as a particularly central case of science fiction? Or am I misreading you?
(I don’t mean to argue over semantics, but it is at least interesting to discuss which things can usefully be grouped with which other things for what purposes… 
)
-FrL-