Odalisque: The Baroque Cycle #3

Contrary to the conspiracy-minded people below, this wasn't released this way as a cheap marketing trick. Mass market paperbacks are always more pages than their hardcover versions. Unfortunately, the hardcover version of the Baroque Cycle is already 1000 pages long. That would have made the mass market paperback version too thick to usefully sell - probably in the 1500 page range. That wouldn't be a convenient sized book, and so they had to break the series into smaller volumes. Notably, it doesn't seem to have been that big a success, since they haven't released anything past Odalisque in this format. Regardless, the Baroque Cycle is a great series of books, and I highly recommend it to anybody who likes historical fiction and/or sci-fi. And this edition is much more beach-reading sized, if, you know, you're into that kind of thing.

Here's the complete list to help people avoid buying something they already have: Quicksilver, Vol. I of the Baroque Cycle Book 1 - Quicksilver Book 2 - The King of the Vagabonds Book 3 - Odalisque The Confusion, Vol. II of the Baroque Cycle Book 4 - Bonanza Book 5 - The Juncto The System of the World, Vol. III of the Baroque Cycle Book 6 - Solomon's Gold Book 7 - Currency Book 8 - The System of the World

I never owned the hardcover of Quicksilver and thus did not share the same outrage as all of the other reveiwers of this book. I thouroghly enjoyed all three "sub" books of the Quiksilver saga independantly. If you read the inside cover of the book it lists not three novels of te Boroque cycle, but eight or nine independant novels. So for those of you with any of the big three, be warned, there are many more releases of this cycle coming, apparrenlty none of which are actually new. I think I will have to jump ahead and buy the Confusion and the System of the World.

Like many of the other reviewers out there, I saw this on the shelves and wondered if it was something new. But it only took a minute to realize it was one of the parts of the previously published first volume: if you look at the table of contents of the first volume, "Odalisque" is the name of the third book in that volume; I could understand some of the complaints of the other reviewers if they had actually changed the titles, but "Odalisque" really is the third part of the Baroque Cycle (and Stephenson wrote in an interview that he deliberately did not call this the Baroque Trilogy). Rather than consider this a cheap marketing gimmick, one might consider that this is the way it would have been published first time around for most books and most publishers. The Baroque Cycle really was written as 9 separate but linked novels. Stephenson said in an interview attached to the paperback version of "System of the World" volume that it could have been published as 9 separate books or as one huge book and they opted to originally publish it as three roughly 1000 page volumes, each containing three distinct books (with the difference that in the "Confusion" volume, these books are not separated but entwined, since they take place along the same timeline but with different characters in different places). But some readers who would be intimidated by a 1000 page volume would have no problem picking up a shorter novel and then reading the next one if they liked the first. If you happen to enjoy bulky novels, that is no reason to be offended by the fact that it's not everyone's cup of tea. Note that this is not a paid advertisement or apology. I just happen to really like the cycle as a whole and I'm happy to have Stephenson's publishers market it any way they can to be sure he gets compensated well and can continue writing. It only keeps getting better (and bigger!) with each new work -- but at the same time there is no denying that his works have gotten more intimidating as well. My impression is that there is a relatively smaller crowd of people who were able to make the commitment to finish the third volume of this series, than those who read his previous novels like Snowcrash or Cryptonomicon. If breaking it down increases its readership, I'm all for it.

i should have read the reveiw below before buying this! I hope they will take it back! I saw it on the new paperback shelf and did not even read beyond the name. When I got it home and looked at it I realized this was already included in the complete book sitting on my shelf. This must be for those with weaker arms?