The Baroque Cycle

It was time to tackle the Neal Stephenson world-hopping trio of bookstops end-to-end!

Quicksilver: What again? Yes, again. I read it last year and considered it to be one of the best books I read during that year. Enough time, however, had passed, before I started to tackle the other two volumes of The Baroque Cycle that I felt I needed a refresher. Plus, I had bought the eBook versions, and suddenly had the ability to do bookmarks, take notes and more. So away I went. Even more fun the second time around!

The Confusion: Hard on the heels of my re-read of Quicksilver, came my first time through with The Confusion. Holy smokes, what a read! Spanning from 1689 to 1702, we span the world with Jack Shaftoe, travel in smaller circles in Europe with Eliza (now Countess de la Zeur) and both in the inner circles of Europe's intellectual elite and in a general westerly direction (towards his goal of Massachusetts colony) with Daniel Waterhouse. As with Quicksilver, this is a immense and complicated book and I can see where reviewers (who go for quantity of reviews, not quality of fewer reviews) did not have the patience for it. I'll have to revisit it again. How can you not like a book with pirates, travels around the world, economics, the first hints of computers, politics, sex, romance, privateers, slavery, several fortunes made and lost, intrigue and much more?

The System of the World: Here ends The Baroque Cycle and what a long journey it has been! The final volume differs from the first two not only in its scope (it pretty much centers around England, unlike the globe-trotting plot of The Confusion) but its time frame (unlike the multi-year timelines of Quicksilver and The Confusion, this one takes place in 1714). Another wonderful mix of real and imagined characters, this one features more of Daniel Waterhouse and his friend Isaac Newton (both acting for a good part of the book like Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes tracking down Jack Shaftoe, a.k.a., "Jack the Coiner" in a Dr. Moriarty role). I'm sorry the story ended!

Addendum (November 5, 2006): This 2005 interview with Neal Stephenson just popped up in my inbox.