The System of the World

Neal Stephenson's monumental three-volume Baroque Cycle comes to a close with this installment. In 1714, Dr. Daniel Waterhouse, a Natural Philosophy and Royal Society Fellow, travels from his home in Boston to London, at the behest of Princess Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, whom Waterhouse met when she was a child. Princess Caroline would like Waterhouse to help Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz resolve their acrimonious dispute concerning which of them was first to discover the mathematical system of calculus. Waterhouse quickly discovers that London is a seething den of intrigue, playing host to a battle over the royal succession, a scheme by the infamous Jack Shaftoe to debase England's currency, and a literally explosive plot by an unknown foe to murder all the major Natural Philosophers.

"...[C]olossal and impressive....This final volume in the cycle is another magnificent portrayal of an era, well worth the long slog it requires of Stephenson's many devoted readers." (starred review) - (Publishers Weekly, 9/13/04)

"It's been a long but exhilarating haul, and here I am at the exit door of Neal Stephenson's triple-giant 'Baroque Cycle,' and it has been so much fun that I'd gladly take on another few thousand pages....[T]he wonderfully convoluted plot is only one of the pleasures of the book. Stephenson's writing remains a sentence-by-sentence delight, overflowing with rhetorical fancies and pyrotechnics and old-fashioned page-turner profluence." - Jean Nicot (Locus, 1/1/05)

"Learned, violent, sarcastic, and profound: a glorious finish to one of the most ambitious epics of recent years." (starred review) - (Kirkus, 9/1/04)

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