The System of the World
Ratings72
Average rating4.2
Wonderful book. This series is a multi-faceted jewel of historical and technological trends through the Baroque period. The combination of interesting original and historical characters draws you in and captivates you with their shared history and evolution.
I was tricked into reading this, but I'm glad because why else would I have started in on this 2700 page trilogy? Years ago Neal Stephenson intrigued and thrilled me with his cyber-punk classic "Snowcrash" so that I could see where he was going with "Diamond Age" a neo-victorian culture in an incredibly futuristic world. By the time I read "Cryptonomicon" I had enough trust in him as an author to take me through a lot of reading involving multiple characters and time periods and to know it was going to come together satisfactorily.
He goes through a lot of history and technical details in these books but the main story and the excitement is sustained all the way. I can't put it any better than the inside jacket blurb from Entertainment Weekly “...he might just have created the definitive historical-sci-fi-epic-comedy-punk love story. No easy feat that.”
I finally finished the last volume of the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. Taken as a whole, the complete trilogy is an amazing tale. I have no clue if the history illuminated by Stephenson is true and I don't really care. It was fun reading his books.
Published in hardcover by HarperCollins.