Neal Stephenson - Odalisque

The trials of Dr. Daniel Waterhouse and the Natural Philosophers increase one hundredfold in an England plagued by the impending war and royal insecurities -- as the beautiful and ambitious Eliza plays a most dangerous game as double agent and confidante of enemy kings.

Comment: I've "discovered" this book at my local library, not having any idea whatsoever of the author nor of the style of his books. When I checked Goodreads, it said the majority of readers who added it, did so under the labels of «fiction» and «historical fiction» so I expected something along the lines of Richard Zimler's historical books or even Ken Follett. Not in style, as I had never read this author but I did imagine the genre compared with those two.

In this book, heroine Eliza must work her abilities as a spy to uncover some schemes on going at the court of Louis XIV while in England Daniel Waterhouse keeps his work at court.

However, the future of European kingdoms is in peril while the characters make their moves as if in a chess game. 

This is the third installment in a series and I confess I felt very lost, thus such a summarized little note above. I think this book is one of those that works much better if the reader has knowledge of past events and plots of the previous books.

When I picked the book, I wasn't aware it was the 3rd volume. Still, when I started it, I imagined the plot had to follow some structure because it might happen someone would be unaware like me and a book has to be able to work independently anyway.

I think my biggest issue while reading was the goal of the whole thing. Why was this story being told? I could infer some stuff, I could follow the likely reasons of some events were happening or being addressed but the overall feel I had was one of lack of direction. The content had its appeal and interest for certain, but I wasn't certain of where the author was going with this.

I especially thought along these lines when I finished the book and thought nothing happened in terms of plot. I can understand the idea was to fictionalize the true historicals events that were used to

Portuguese cover

base this story on but apart from that, I don't think there was much to focus on. Well, personally, I would say this but I can understand why it worked for others.

When I think of historical fiction, in particular the stories based on true events or people, I keep thinking it would be quite an exercise, because we can't truly separate common or learned notions of those things from a full on fictional creation. I think I expected this story to be more on something fictional based on real people rather than the recounting of the real steps these characters did back then (whether based on real documents or on history knowledge).

I can't really have a fair comment on this without knowing things from the other books but based on the style of writing and the content, I don't feel like trying either way. In the edition I read, there's a reference to this being as well done as Name of the Rose (which I read and liked a lot) but apart from an interesting political and philosophical content, I would not compare them in any other way.

Therefore, of my own experience with this book alone, I don't grade it that high.

Grade: 4/10