The System Of The World: Volume Three of the Baroque Cycle [Paperback]

In 1714, Daniel Waterhouse finishes his long trip from America to England. He is prepared to mediate a vicious argument between Newton and Leibniz about who invented calculus first. But he is quickly caught up in diverse adventures: building a logic mill, sleuthing out a bomb maker, playing shell games with gold, and planning jailbreaks. Jack Shaftoe pops in here and there sowing mayhem and counterfeit coins. Eliza, the Countess de la Zeur by way of being "Good with Money", continues her behind-the-scenes royal intrigues and her efforts to end slavery.

Conflicts galore weave together into a complex tapestry: the power struggle between the Whigs and the Tories, the battle between Newton the Minter and Jack the Coiner, the feuding calculus inventors, and the clash between alchemy and science. In the end it all boils down to this: will the new system of the world be based on free markets and science? Or feudalism and alchemy?

The third and final book in the Baroque Cycle is just as weighty as the first two. It features a quick synopsis of Quicksilver and The Confusion for those who need a refresher. Even with the summary, I wouldn't advise starting with the third book. Each of the books in the series has its own character. Quicksilver was all about set-up, so while it was rich in detail and characters, it could be slow and a bit disjointed at times. The Confusion was full of madcap adventures and the pieces just flew around the board. The System of the World wraps all of the previous threads together, and strikes a nice balance between philosophy, intrigue, and action.

Stephenson keeps up the expected torrent of words, but as with the other two books, he keeps your attention with an iron fist of plot in a velvet glove of delightful prose. Stephenson manages to seamlessly combine serious discussions, obscure trivia, and profound silliness. As a reader, you have to pay the same attention to all, because you never know what small detail the plot is going to hang on next.

Daniel Waterhouse is the driving character for most of this book. If you loved The Confusion because it centered on Jack and Eliza, you might be disappointed in the smaller roles they play in the third book. But if you can get past that disappointment, you will find that Daniel has evolved into a more interesting and active character than he was in Quicksilver.

The Baroque Cycle requires a substantial investment of time and attention, but it is well worth the effort. The System of the World is a satisfying end to a great series. With Stephenson, as in life, the journey is more important than the destination, and he definitely gives you a lot of journey in the 3000-or-so page trilogy.

The Baroque Cycle as a whole is one the most wholly remarkable series of books written by any author that we are aware of. It is an important read for anyone willing and able to change their thinking about how things work, how societies come to be, and how one should go about living theirs. Its scholarship is breathtaking. Its point supremely important and accurate. The Baroque Cycle will not have so much an effect on the genre of speculative fiction as it will on the fiction as a whole and answering the question of why do people bother to read? It is to read things like The Baroque Cycle that we read: to discover things about ourselves and the world around us. It will be interesting to see if, in 10 or 15 years, other authors dare to extend their concept of science fiction in to the past as Stephenson has done.

WHO SHOULD READ THIS:

Anyone who is reading this review has probably already invested a substantial amount of time in reading Quicksilver and The Confusion. It is unthinkable that, after reading those books, that they will not attempt System of the World. We will not deter them--they should run forth and purchase because it is refreshing to see such a work of astonishing scope come to a sort of satisfactory conclusion. The Baroque Cycle as a whole we feel will ultimately become a defining work in literature marking the early 21st century. The only thing that may hold it back is its length, which is daunting but wholly necessary.

WHO SHOULD PASS:

There may be a certain segment reading this series only for Jack Shaftoe and his exploits. While he is here in this book, he is not the focus and he seems somehow diminished in his age. We can't imagine anyone continuing to read these books only for adventure narrative but, if that was your main draw, it is largely absent in System and is much more focused on philosophy, economics, and politics.

READ THE ENTIRE REVIEW AT INCHOATUS.COM

My five stars are specifically for The System of the World, not the entire series.

In the acknowledgements, Stephenson refers to a mid-course correction with regards to his writing approach. He does not describe what it is, but I think I know. In the first book, there are many passages that are so oblique, tangential, and orthogonal only to style that I found it difficult to stay with the program the whole way through. This tendency lessened in The Confusion and nearly disappears here in System. Good for him, good for us.

My only real complaint for this book is Mr. Stephenson's need to provide painfully detailed driving directions of old London. I appreciate his descriptive powers (I really do!) but describing what street flows into which, where, and whether to turn left or right, &c. [ ;-) ] is a bit irritating. His map on the inside cover is not detailed enough for following along, assuming that you accept such embellishment is necessary for advancing the story. E.g., one of the two climaxes is at Tyburn, the streets around which are described for PARAGRAPHS. Go ahead and try to find it on the map.

Why am I bitching? I have no idea. I loved the characters, loved this book, enjoyed the Confusion and had faith through Quicksilver. Maybe I'm put off because he's SO CLOSE to being a true literary genius of my generation, but he's not QUITE there yet. Hey, there seems to be a 200 year gap for him to work with now...