The Baroque Cycle
March 1st, 2005
The
System of the World by Neal Stephenson is the third
and final part of his Baroque Cycle of novels, and I’ve
just finished it. Since December I’ve been immersed in these books, totally
engrossed in the story of natural philosophers, vagabonds, money and
science in the era of the Enlightenment. To say I have massively enjoyed
them would be a grievous understatement.
In fact, they’re so far up my street that I’m actually a little hesitant to make a recommendation. It seems to me that if something is so finely tuned to my tastes then, QED, it is unlikely to appeal nearly so much to the notional average robotperson patron – and I’d hate to recommend something that disappointed.
Oh, hang on, actually I want people who read this to be the sort of people who would like that, so Yes! rush out and buy them, buy them all. Spend three months basking and soaking them up. I am jealous.
In the mean time I’ve been collecting Stephenson related links:
- Quicksilver Metaweb. An online glossary for the Baroque Cycle and other Stephenson works. Many contributions are by the man himself. Try the random page feature.
- Excellent
and amusing Neal Stephenson interview on Slashdot.
...telescoping Carbonite stilettos had been incorporated into Gibson’s arms. Remembering this in the nick of time, I grabbed the signing table and flipped it up between us. Of course the Carbonite stilettos pierced it as if it were cork board, but this spoiled his aim long enough for me to whip my wakizashi out from between my shoulder blades and swing at his head…
thanks to Tom for the heads-up on this. - Neal Stephenson interview on Reason
- Story of how some clever fellow solved the code on the Original Quicksilver launch site (now removed), and…
- The Original Quicksilver launch site
- NealStephenson.com