The System of the World: Book Eight of The Baroque Cycle

When I try to tell my friends and family about this book and The Baroque Cycle in general they often look at me like I have 3 heads. Then ask me, "Yeah, what's it all about though?" And I say, "Money, finance, social and political events of the Baroque era, technology, etc. But more importantly it's about a few people who had some very advanced ideas during that time. And it's about gold." And they often say, "But how can you read 3,000 pages of that? Doesn't it get boring?" And... like any fan of this book with tell you, yes, yes, it does. But like every long journey, when you get to the end, it is more than worth it. I started reading The Baroque Cycle, well, a very long time ago. Longer than I'd like to admit. I got halfway through Quicksilver, put it down, then restarted it. I did the same with The Confusion. The System of the World I couldn't put down.Please note that I read Quicksilver in hardback, The Confusion I started in hardback then started over after I quit halfway and read it on my iPad along with the Audible audiobook and the same with The System of the World. I HIGHLY recommend downloading and listening to the audiobook while you read along. I know it costs more money and you might think, why bother, but it truly makes a difference. For me, it was a matter of time. I simply did not have the time to get through 2,700 pages and 1.3 million words. So I'd read when I could, then I'd listen to the audiobook when I was running, etc. You'll get through it much faster this way.The System of the World is my favorite in the series. For the first time throughout the whole series we see all of the main characters in the same country and all dealing with each other in person, instead of by letters, which Quicksilver and The Confusion had plenty. Try reading a 10 page letter from Eliza to Daniel and you'll understand why it can get tedious at times. The chapters go quickly and the book builds on itself until the very end. Something that the two previous books did not do. They just added more plot, more story and above all, more characters to remember.I had heard that there were many people disappointed with the way The System and The Cycle on a whole ended. I don't know what they're talking about. I loved it!! Without giving away any spoilers I can just say that it ended, in what I believe to be, the perfect way. The Cycle is wrapped up. There's nothing more to be said.The System of the World and The Baroque Cycle was a close friend of mine for a few years. I loved this series. I was difficult, I had to look up many words in the dictionary and look up many historical people and places on Wikipedia, but in the end, I feel like I have a PhD in Baroque history and I am all the better for sticking with these books and finishing them.If you've read the other two, there really is no reason why you shouldn't read this. Hang in there. All the lengthy dialogue and erudite discourse on coin making, monads, engines, boats, currency, fashion, language and culture is worth it.I promise you!

Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy/Series is considered one of the great science-fiction collections ever written, forming the basis of countless derivative and inspired works over the past fifty years. The Baroque Cycle will not, unfortunately, inspire fifty years of copycats, for a unique reason: it would be far too difficult to undertake with even moderate effort. This is a nine-book/ three-volume masterpiece of historical fiction that really has no peer in my experience (and please comment if you find any!)As an aside, I could, at length, review each of the nine books and prattle on endlessly about this or that, but that's far too many reviews for what I intend to say about the Cycle as a whole. My comments apply to all books equally.The cycle begins in the mid 17th century and spans the adulthood of one Daniel Waterhouse, a fictional contemporary of Isaac Newton. Of course, it also traces the life of one Jack Shaftoe, a fictional hero with his roots in every pirate story ever written or filmed. And then there's the mysterious Enoch Root, popping up again from the Cryptonomicon to move things along as the deux ex machina of certain story elements.The number of interleaved story lines would be an impressive enough feat of writing, but the historical references were simply amazing. The sheer amount of research Mr. Stephenson invested for the Cycle must have been enormous. In short, Mr. Stephenson describes London before, during, and after the Great Fire of 1666 politically, sociologically, geographically, architecturally, and economically; he performs the same rigor of place-setting with Hanover and present-day Germany, Paris and present-day France, diverse parts of Egypt, Algeria, India, Mexico, South America, and Boston. This is the kind of book series that would inspire high-school students to PAY ATTENTION. For, if the students really do their homework and have a teacher partnered with them to put the book details into their proper context, you could quite possible craft an entire school year around the nine books, such is the depth and breadth of scholastic research involved in putting together such a series. It's no small achievement or idle boast: Mr. Stephenson has in some way taken his education and put it to its greatest use, as an inspiration to students.All of this would be for naught if the stories weren't truly excellent at their core, and they are. You could boil down the Shaftoe story line to "pirate story" but that sells it short after the first book -- and there are eight more to go. What starts as a pirate story quickly become something of a precursor to spycraft and terrorism/counter-terrorism in the 17th and 18th centuries: currency manipulation, political scandals, and assassinations. I haven't even mentioned Isaac Newton versus Gottfried Leibniz in the battle for Calculus, or Isaac Newton's Alchemy, the reconstruction of London post-fire, the gold trade, the silver trade, piracy in the Atlantic and Pacific, the timber economy, the commodities exchange of northern Europe, the court at Versailles, and so on. I'm astonished as I write this.This is well-worth the time invested to read, as a Cycle. If Mr. Stephenson ever posted his complete bibliography, or if some doctoral student ever decided to craft that two-semester, eight-course class tracing the book's scholarship, I would be among the first to delve deeply into it and re-learn my forgotten history, mathematics, and economics. Simply, this is one of the finest fiction series ever written.-Fred

I am not one for long reviews and this may seem back to front as I have just completed all three books.However, at first glance one can be forgiven for passing this book bye unless you know the author (not personally) as it does come across as a rather strange title and content.The books are long, detailed, at times confusing but I can assure you that if you persevere and allow yourself to be drawn into the story and characters, you will not be disappointed. In fact the trilogy becomes totally absorbing, the characters from history real, the smells of Baroque Europe disgusting and a plot that weaves and turns on a sixpence - or is it a guinea?Stephenson is, in my view, up with the best of authors of any genre

“Quicksilver” wanders round much of Europe and has a timespan of decades. “The Confusion” takes us around the world, and covers several years. Both have three or four main viewers (Jack, Bob and Eliza plus Daniel). “The System…” in contrast has a much narrower focus. Beyond a brief excursion to Hanover, the action is entirely in England (and almost entirely in or near London). The viewer is mostly Daniel until near the end when he shares the role with Jack. And the timescale is months. But this literary transition from picaresque to formalism acts as a counterpoint to what was happening in the arts at the time when the book is set – the transition from Baroque formalism to Rococo playfulness, and I can’t imagine this is accidental.The move from entropy to order also “informs” an important theme in the book – the beginnings of Information Theory. And I loved the conceit of bringing Newcomen into the story. The idea of a steam powered computer is surely a nod to Sterling and Gibson’s “The Difference Engine”.The whole trilogy is a triumph, and I hope Stephenson revisits his world at various times between the Baroque and the Second World War/Turing parts of “Cryptonomicon”

This is the conclusion of a very remarkable trilogy. Neal Stephenson has obviously done a heroic amount of research into an enormous number of arcane subjects relating to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; he tells a very interesting tale (or in fact, many tales); his characters are rounded and believable and undergo a lot of development; he can be very funny; his digressions on all sorts of themes are very interesting in themselves and outstandingly well written - the explanation of Leibnitz's monad theory for example; he shows a very wide range of emotions very convincingly, so his writing is far more humane than much speculative fiction; his prose style seems impeccably English - quite different from the style of his US-based stories, and even with the (often very witty) anachronisms is believably that of the period - in my experience the only other writer who makes such a good job of period feeling in his prose is Patrick O'Brian. Of course the book is long and discursive, so if you want a short sharp story, don't bother. But I think it's a masterpiece.

I cannot do justice to the baroque cycle books in this review, suffice to say I have been kept thoroughly entertained, stimulated, piqued, and tickled for the past 3 months. The books are hard work but rewarding, equal parts brilliant quicksilver and tempered steel, sometimes slow but never tedious, and always beautifully crafted. On a par in scope and scale as Tolkien's ring trilogy, with the focal point being the creation of the modern system of the world we still experience today, born from the ashes of late mediaeval Europe. Awesome read, look forward to rereading at some future juncture.

Well written and well researched but overly long. Gives a great sense of the era but while characterisation is good the plot is thin and gets lost amongst the description. Bit of a shaggy dog story. By the third book i just wanted it to be over. Cryptonomicon is his great read.