Baroque Cycle

[Allen]

Audible has added the complete unabridged Baroque cycle. So I may finally read it. Audible has broke it up into 8 books, so it is a lot of credits to get through. I hope it is worth it.

Any plans to review this massive work from Neal Stephenson?

[Zivan]

I read the first one in the trilogy, Quicksilver, (not broken up).

It was way to long and wasn't very good. especially the first half.

I don't think I'll be reading the rest of the series. Despite being a Stephenson fan.

[Allen]

I am about 6 hours into the first audio book and it has been tough going so far. I am going to continue (something has to happen soon right?) and hope it begin to engage me.

[Zivan]

It gets better in the second half of the original Quicksilver. I guess with Audible splitting it into 8 sections, that would be part 2.

However, as I stated it didn't get good enough for me to want to continue.

[Tom]

I found all the books of the Baroque cycle in the remainders bin at the book store for five bucks each. I am not about to pay Audible 8 credits. It is ridiculous to pay more than 2 credits for a book especially when I can get something like Pandora's Star by Peter Hamilton which is 40 hours of listening for one credit. And why are books four and five combined? It's just a weird set up all around.

[Allen]

I am also very disappointed with how Audible has broken the book up. The Baroque Cycle has always been odd in that it was sold in many different formats, and broken up into different numbers of volumes. But I have never seen it in seven volumes.

Audible has some strange history with this book. One of the first versions Audible offered was for a version labeled as "Unabridged Excerpts". What was that?

I only paid one credit each for Anathem (32 hrs) and Cryptonomicon (42 hrs) so paying 7 credits for the Baroque Cycle does seem a bit excessive. I hope this is not a sign of things to come for Audible. I would hate to see them start artificially breaking books into multiple volumes just to increase there profits.