Picked up Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver over the weekend. So far (about 50 pages in) it feels like what Tim Powers would write if he just read a lot of Orson Scott Card and then decided to write in the style of Neal Stephenson. What this should tell you is that my perspective for historical fiction is rather limited. The Powers connection is unavoidable, though, taking place as it does in (so far) Restoration-era London and Colonial Boston, with supernatural overtones coming into play very quickly. It's likely that the author will pull out a mundane (if dizzyingly baroque) way to explain it, but until then he hints strongly from the get-go that something uncanny is going on with one of the characters, and tangential red herrings quickly flock thick. Or so it smells -- I don't know what the book's actual plot is, yet.
How you know you're reading a Stephenson historical fiction novel: to establish setting, the main character, in the first chapter, bumps into Ben Franklin on the street, and they spend several pages quizzing one another on recent events. Say what you will, but I love it. Alas.
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