Stop the Surveillance Bills!
Um, make that a non-obvious reappearance
Um. Guess I'm not the Stephenson geek I thought I was.
As the estimable Professor Volokh reminds me, Enoch Root, who first appears in Cryptonomicon, also appears in Quicksilver and The Confusion (and, one presumes again, in The System of the World).
So allow me to be more specific: the reappearance I am thinking of is non-obvious, and the character does not have the same name. Further, the reappearance I am thinking of is in exactly two (no more, no less) of Neal Stephenson's books.
Of course, anyone who comes up with another instance that meets all my criteria will bepummeled brutally with a copy of The Big U warmly congratulated and have their answer also posted here.
¿Está claro? Muy bien.
As the estimable Professor Volokh reminds me, Enoch Root, who first appears in Cryptonomicon, also appears in Quicksilver and The Confusion (and, one presumes again, in The System of the World).
So allow me to be more specific: the reappearance I am thinking of is non-obvious, and the character does not have the same name. Further, the reappearance I am thinking of is in exactly two (no more, no less) of Neal Stephenson's books.
Of course, anyone who comes up with another instance that meets all my criteria will be
¿Está claro? Muy bien.
posted by Mitchell L. Silverman | 5:02 PM
1 Comments:
Jack Shaftoe appears in the 3 books of the Baroque cycle. A Jack Shaftoe, presumably a descendant, also appears in the Cryptonomicon.
One of the puzzles that has been driving me crazy has been the gold punchcard found in the submarine in Cryptonomicon. I've read the book 3 times in the past 12 months and still can't figure it out. My current theory, which I am hoping will be exposed in book 3, is that the Minerva, sheathed in gold goes to Massachusets (which we know it does), the gold sheathing is peeled off and given to Daniel Waterhouse for his knowledge indexing system. He develops the idea of punch cards and makes them up.
Somehow Leibniz gets hold of them (DH gives them to him for some reason? Perhaps as a consolation prize in the dispute over calculus?). When Rudy Hackelheber gets the Leibniz archives in Cryptonomicon, they contain the punchcard.
Of course, I could be wrong.
John Henry
john@changeover.com
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