ajmaybe's review against another edition
5.0
As with the other books in the Baroque Cycle, I find it nearly impossible to review the single book outside of the context of the rest of the cycle. With Quicksilver and The Confusion, I attempted some meager separate evaluation. Here, however, this rating and review should be interpreted as really applying to the Baroque Cycle in full, rather than to The System of the World alone.
Bottom line: the three-book Baroque Cycle is definitely worth reading and, if you can get through it, *will* permanently alter your brain and enrich your perceptions and experiences of the world (that's my primary criterion for a five-star rating).
More particulars: This is great historical fiction, and a treasury of rich ideas, as well as wit, characters, and story details that manage to surprise. Unusually for me, many of the historical characters are ones about whom I know something. Not so much the kings, adventurers, and aristocrats; I suspect folks with a better head for historic detail will find more that is familiar there. These stories are also chock full of philosophers/mathematicians/scientists, at a time when these ways of knowing were not yet so separated. In many cases, these are people whose work I know reasonably well.
Stephenson manages something I value highly, though: without contradicting the known writing, he imaginatively embeds these thinkers in the very real, very messy, very disordered times and places in which they lived. He weaves their thoughts and lives together with a range of wholey fictional characters we quickly grow to know and love, making the times palpable in a way that renders the fugue of war, class, personal lives, everyday dangers, natural philosophy, and everything else feel entirely natural. And one result is that the familiar thinkers are suddenly new, removed from the received understandings and open to knew ones. In particular, they are turned around and glanced from different angles that encourage thinking about the relationships between them, their projects, their times, and the world we live in now.
Bonus for the applied ontologists, semantic technologists, information scientists, computists, etc., among us: if you have not read this cycle, you must. It is historical *fiction*, yes, but it is our history most directly -- the long, varied, differently understood history of philosophy, logic, mathematics, and engineering all coming together to try to make something with and about knowledge, with some idea that it might matter to the way the world functions, whether the rest of the world knows it or not.
Bottom line: the three-book Baroque Cycle is definitely worth reading and, if you can get through it, *will* permanently alter your brain and enrich your perceptions and experiences of the world (that's my primary criterion for a five-star rating).
More particulars: This is great historical fiction, and a treasury of rich ideas, as well as wit, characters, and story details that manage to surprise. Unusually for me, many of the historical characters are ones about whom I know something. Not so much the kings, adventurers, and aristocrats; I suspect folks with a better head for historic detail will find more that is familiar there. These stories are also chock full of philosophers/mathematicians/scientists, at a time when these ways of knowing were not yet so separated. In many cases, these are people whose work I know reasonably well.
Stephenson manages something I value highly, though: without contradicting the known writing, he imaginatively embeds these thinkers in the very real, very messy, very disordered times and places in which they lived. He weaves their thoughts and lives together with a range of wholey fictional characters we quickly grow to know and love, making the times palpable in a way that renders the fugue of war, class, personal lives, everyday dangers, natural philosophy, and everything else feel entirely natural. And one result is that the familiar thinkers are suddenly new, removed from the received understandings and open to knew ones. In particular, they are turned around and glanced from different angles that encourage thinking about the relationships between them, their projects, their times, and the world we live in now.
Bonus for the applied ontologists, semantic technologists, information scientists, computists, etc., among us: if you have not read this cycle, you must. It is historical *fiction*, yes, but it is our history most directly -- the long, varied, differently understood history of philosophy, logic, mathematics, and engineering all coming together to try to make something with and about knowledge, with some idea that it might matter to the way the world functions, whether the rest of the world knows it or not.
jammasterjamie's review against another edition
4.0
A solid ending to an extremely long and occasionally overly meandering (I'm looking at you, Volume Two) narrative, wherein it all comes together quite nicely and with a good deal of poetic justice. I don't know that I'll be racing to re-read The Baroque Cycle any time soon, but I'm glad I got to ensconce myself in that world for a while. Stephenson is a mighty talent.
catbooking's review against another edition
5.0
I would have to write a book to cover all the things I want to talk about. There are so many emotions and concepts and themes, I don't think I can ever coherently organize them. What is even worse, just thinking about aspects of the books, makes me feel mournful that I will never read about the characters again. There will be other books I will love, and other characters whose stories will sway my emotions, but these specific characters will always be in the past.
I wish I could forget this series, so I can read it all over again. I wish I could forget Daniel and Eliza and Jack, and discover their stories from the very beginning.
This series will be the exception to my rule about re-reading books I have already read. I will re-read it even before I had a chance to forget it, if only in hopes of capturing those emotions it made me feel the first time around.
This is such an incredible series. Thank you Neal Stephenson for taking me on this incredible journey!
I wish I could forget this series, so I can read it all over again. I wish I could forget Daniel and Eliza and Jack, and discover their stories from the very beginning.
This series will be the exception to my rule about re-reading books I have already read. I will re-read it even before I had a chance to forget it, if only in hopes of capturing those emotions it made me feel the first time around.
This is such an incredible series. Thank you Neal Stephenson for taking me on this incredible journey!
technomage's review against another edition
4.0
Brilliant! This is the third time I have read this and at last I feel I have done it justice and followed the cycle started with Quicksilver to its conclusion.
Don't get me wrong its not a difficult read its just that there is an awful lot of information to take in which isn't helped by the number of people called George and the various Earls, Counts Dukes etc.
We pick up the story at the end of Queen Anne's reign with whigs and tories playing power games over the succession and whether George of Hanover or Bonnie Prince Charlie becomes king.
The characters we met in Quicksilver are here, Jack Shaftoe and his brothers, Daniel Waterhouse, Issac Newton, Roger Comstock and of course Eliza.
It lacks none of the bawdy humour and historical action that have made the Baroque cycle the epic tale it is and I can heartily recommend it, just don't expect to take it all in at one sitting.
Don't get me wrong its not a difficult read its just that there is an awful lot of information to take in which isn't helped by the number of people called George and the various Earls, Counts Dukes etc.
We pick up the story at the end of Queen Anne's reign with whigs and tories playing power games over the succession and whether George of Hanover or Bonnie Prince Charlie becomes king.
The characters we met in Quicksilver are here, Jack Shaftoe and his brothers, Daniel Waterhouse, Issac Newton, Roger Comstock and of course Eliza.
It lacks none of the bawdy humour and historical action that have made the Baroque cycle the epic tale it is and I can heartily recommend it, just don't expect to take it all in at one sitting.
maitrey_d's review against another edition
5.0
The Baroque Cycle was a like a long trek, but now that you've reached the end, you come to realize how much you enjoyed the journey.
And thank goodness Stephenson does a wonderful job of tying everything up together in this book (he's notorious for bad endings), with all the major characters getting their own tiny little epilogues to wrap everything up, that leave you feeling warm and fuzzy. The Baroque world is now ready for the Enlightenment, and later, the Industrial Revolution.
At the end of the book, Daniel Waterhouse is standing in the middle of a mine that has been pumped dry by one of the new steam engines, and he reflects that a new System (in terms of science, commerce and thinking) has succeeded in displacing the old. I think I've learnt to see these systems differently too (especially the worlds of alchemy, finance, and piracy!), after finishing these books. My only disappointment is that the Logic Mill finally did not start working, I was half expecting this world to lead to Gibson and Sterling's world of the Difference Engine.
The best tribute I can pay these series is that, I will be missing having the likes of John Wilkins, Robert Hooke, Daniel Waterhouse, Eliza, Jack Shaftoe, and of course Enoch the Red in my life, but I hope to revisit them many times over the course of the years.
And thank goodness Stephenson does a wonderful job of tying everything up together in this book (he's notorious for bad endings), with all the major characters getting their own tiny little epilogues to wrap everything up, that leave you feeling warm and fuzzy. The Baroque world is now ready for the Enlightenment, and later, the Industrial Revolution.
At the end of the book, Daniel Waterhouse is standing in the middle of a mine that has been pumped dry by one of the new steam engines, and he reflects that a new System (in terms of science, commerce and thinking) has succeeded in displacing the old. I think I've learnt to see these systems differently too (especially the worlds of alchemy, finance, and piracy!), after finishing these books. My only disappointment is that the Logic Mill finally did not start working, I was half expecting this world to lead to Gibson and Sterling's world of the Difference Engine.
The best tribute I can pay these series is that, I will be missing having the likes of John Wilkins, Robert Hooke, Daniel Waterhouse, Eliza, Jack Shaftoe, and of course Enoch the Red in my life, but I hope to revisit them many times over the course of the years.
markmtz's review against another edition
5.0
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.
Published in hardcover by HarperCollins.
jugglebird's review against another edition
4.0
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.