I have just finished reading The Baroque Cycle of Neal Stephenson, and feel like giving up writing entirely.
Twitter / Warren Ellis: I have just finished reading…
And again he mentions it on his blog, with an even better quote:
Which meant I finally got to finish reading the last of Neal Stephenson´s Baroque Cycle. I´d never normally recommend you read a 3000-page work, but the Cycle is just a towering piece of work, and I think you should read it before you die. A hundred pages from the end, I got that terrible longing sadness, the one that comes when you realise youŕe near the end of something and you´ĺl never have the joy of reading this in the same way again.
I felt the same way. I both devoured and dreaded the end. It was as satisfying an ending as Stephenson has ever managed, but there was still a part of me that was made empty by reading those last few pages. I’d been reading the books as they came out so it had been a two year journey for me- the gaps heightening my anticipation and, likely, my enjoyment. To finally say good bye to Eliza, Daniel Waterhouse and, most importantly, Jack Shaftoe felt like real loss.