The Baroque Cycle is a series of novels by American writerNeal Stephenson. It was published in three volumes containing eight books in 2003 and 2004. The story follows the adventures of a sizable cast of characters living amidst some of the central events of the late 17th and early 18th centuries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Central America. Despite featuring a literary treatment consistent with historical fiction, Stephenson has characterized the work asscience fiction, because of the presence of some anomalous occurrences and the work's particular emphasis on themes relating to science and technology.[1] The sciences ofcryptology andnumismatics feature heavily in the series, as they do in some of Stephenson's other works.
TheBaroque Cycle consists of several novels "lumped together into three volumes because it is more convenient from a publishing standpoint"; Stephenson felt calling the works atrilogy would be "bogus".[2]
Appearing in print in2003 and2004, the cycle contains eight books originally published in three volumes:
The books travel throughoutearly modern Europe between theRestoration of theStuart monarchy and the beginning of the 18th century. Though most of the focus is in Europe, the adventures of one character, Jack Shaftoe, do take him throughout the world, and the fledgling British colonies in North America are important to another (Daniel Waterhouse).Quicksilver takes place mainly in the years between theRestoration of theStuart monarchy in England (1660) and theGlorious Revolution of 1688.The Confusion followsQuicksilver without temporal interruption, but ranges geographically from Europe and the Mediterranean throughIndia to thePhilippines,Japan andMexico.The System of the World takes place principally inLondon in 1714, about ten years after the events ofThe Confusion.
A central theme in the series is Europe's transformation away from feudal rule and control toward the rational, scientific, and more merit-based systems of government, finance, and social development that define what is now considered "western" and "modern".
Characters include SirIsaac Newton,Gottfried Leibniz,Nicolas Fatio de Duillier,William of Orange,Louis XIV of France,Oliver Cromwell,Peter the Great,John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and many other people of note of that time. The fictional characters of Eliza, Jack and Daniel collectively cause real historic effects.
The books feature considerable sections concerningalchemy. The principal alchemist of the tale is the mysterious Enoch Root, who, along with the descendants of several characters in this series, is also featured in the Stephenson novelsCryptonomicon andFall.
Mercury provides a unifying theme, both in the form of the common name "quicksilver" for the elementMercury, long associated with alchemy and the title of the first volume of the cycle, and the Roman godMercury, especially the god's various patronages: financial gain, commerce, eloquence, messages, communication, travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery, and thieves, all of which are central themes in the plot. Astronomy is also a significant (although secondary) theme in the cycle; atransit of Mercury was notably observed in London on day of the coronation ofKing Charles II of England, whose Restoration marks, chronologically, the earliest key historical event in the cycle.
Stephenson was inspired to writeThe Baroque Cycle when, while working onCryptonomicon, he encountered a statement byGeorge Dyson inDarwin among the Machines that suggests Leibniz was "arguably the founder ofsymbolic logic and he worked with computing machines".[5] He also had heard considerable discussion of theLeibniz–Newton calculus controversy and Newton's work at the treasury during the last 30 years of his life,[5] and in particular the case against Leibniz as summed up in the Commercium Epistolicum of 1712 was a huge inspiration which went on to inform the project. He found "this information striking when [he] was already working on a book about money and a book about computers".[5] Further research into the period excited Stephenson and he embarked on writing the historical piece that becameThe Baroque Cycle.[5]
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Robert Wiersem ofThe Toronto Star calledThe Baroque Cycle a "sublime, immersive, brain-throttlingly complex marvel of a novel that will keep scholars and critics occupied for the next 100 years".[6]
Labels such as science fiction are most useful when employed for marketing purposes, i.e., to help readers find books that they are likely to enjoy reading. With that in mind, I'd say that people who know and love science fiction will recognize these books as coming out of that tradition. So the science fiction label is useful for them as a marketing term. However, non-S.F. readers are also reading and enjoying these books, and I seem to have a new crop of readers who aren't even aware that I am known as an S.F. writer. So it would be an error to be too strict or literal-minded about application of the science fiction label.