| | The System of the World (Baroque Cycle, Number 3) |  | Author: Neal Stephenson
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Category: Book
Buy New: $128.00
New (1) Used (1) from $78.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  65 reviews
Sales Rank: 4880364
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 892
ISBN: 0641731620
ASIN: 0641731620
Publication Date: 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: NEW. Hardcover edition. Minor shelf wear
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Product Description
The year is 1714. Daniel Waterhouse has returned to England, where he joins forces with his friend Isaac Newton to hunt down a criminal gang attempting to blow up Natural Philosophers with "Infernal Devices," or time bombs. Unbeknownst to Daniel, however, Newton has an ulterior motive: to wrest the Solomonic Gold from the control of his arch-enemy, the master counterfeiter Jack the Coiner, a.k.a Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds. As Daniel and Newton machinate and maneuver, an increasingly vicious struggle rises for control of the Bristish Crown: Who will take control when the queen dies? Tories and Whigs are set against each other as people jockey to replace Queen Anne with the Hanoverian dynasty of Princess Caroline, with whom the multi-talented Eliza has become closely associated.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 60 more reviews...
 Word Alchemy December 21, 2004
28 out of 30 found this review helpful
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.
 Entertaining, but not satisfying October 1, 2004
23 out of 34 found this review helpful
I cannot help but feel a little cheated, in the end, by this final chapter of a glorious series of novels.
It has been the complaint of many reviewers, both professional and casual, that Mr. Stephenson has a marked talent in setting up a story and investing said reader in the lives and cares of his, admittedly, wonderfully written characters, and in the end leaving that same reader feeling as though he had waded through a mile of quicksand only to find another endless vista of wet, muddy sand.
Not to say that I did not enjoy this book.
Taken by itself, as a independent work of fiction, it is easily the weakest of the Baroque Cycle novels.
Many issues, which to me were the most important, are not resolved.
I won't go into specifics, this novel deserves to be read. If only to read the final chapter in a work of fiction involved in one of the most fascinating periods of human thought.
But...
I walked away feeling as though more should have been said, more should have been resolved, more should have been...
Put to right.
A good book, in sum. You must read it if you have read the previous two, but not the triumphant epiphany you sought.
Mr. Stephenson is, to me, a helluva writer, with a deft take on the human condition, and a rare talent when it comes to humor, character creation, and sheer verve.
But deficient when it comes to that most essential element.
Story.
3/5 and no better.
 Baroque-an Promise. December 2, 2004
19 out of 29 found this review helpful
It is difficult to express how much I was looking forward to Quicksilver after Snowcrash, Diamond Age, and the wonderful Cryptonomicon. In my library, the books of the Baroque Cycle may find a permanent place as doorstops -- or maybe I'll just chuck 'em to free up space for a whole slew of books manifesting equal incompetence, say by Clive Cussler or Dan Brown. No need to be concise in this review...if you finished this literary tumescence, you have demonstrably high tolerance for periphrastis. But, to cut to the chase (note to Neal: sometimes it helps to get to the point) I was extremely disappointed in Quicksilver, found The Confusion only slightly more readable, and am just relieved to be done with the whole mess after finishing The System of the World.
What made Cryptonomicon great was Stephenson's deft blend of scientific exposition, characterization, and narrative drive. O Muse, where hast thou flown? I found myself laughing about the title of this series: what IS Baroque about these books? Well, they ARE bizarre, convoluted, over-elaborate, excessively embellished, extravagant, flamboyant, florid, grotesque, highly ornamented, overdecorated, and just flat-out overlong. 3000 pages? Neal, fire your editor. Prolixity is not a virtue unto itself. Sadly, in this trilogy the characters are drawn inconsistently and are uncompelling, there is little or no conceptual unity, and the plot barely sputters forward to carry us through all the bombastic discursion. We all should pine for what might have been; the anticipation we felt makes the disappointment so much keener.
Other reviewers have written of the exhaustive research evidenced in the writing of these books. Pshaw. If readers want to read superior renaissance historical fiction with fascinating characters, great plots, and a wealth of accurate detail on the ideas, people, politics, economics, society, and conflicts of this period (and relish myriad obscure references), look no further than Dorothy Dunnett... she remains the once and future queen of writers of this genre. Her books are Romances in the sense of Sir Walter Scott -- and so much more (they are most certainly not in the bodice-ripper category that have unfortunately usurped the more general meaning of romance). Check out the Niccolo series or the Lymond of Crawford series. These are books you can spend the summer with, and read again and again over the years. They are long and dense, but avoid the tedium foisted upon us in The Baroque Cycle. With Dunnett, it does help -- especially with Lymond -- if you know a little obsolete French (and Scots, Arabic, Turkish, etc.) but these books are recondite because of scholarship -- not merely to add apparent gravitas to a misconceived and poorly executed work. I envy anyone who has not yet had the opportunity to read Dunnett. A great experience awaits you.
I sure hope that Stephenson's next book reaffirms his fans' earlier faith in his writing. These books could muster no more than a scant whelm for us, and it was almost fraudulent to imply that these were to be the intellectual successors to Cryptonomicon...Stephenson's opus magnus so far. I and everyone I have spoken to that were lured by the ignis fatuus of Quicksilver's hype resent the significant investment in time and money associated with their consumption.
He turns this one into gold... November 3, 2004
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
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...
A disappointing end to a decent series June 4, 2006
11 out of 17 found this review helpful
Wow, am I going against the grain here. I can't understand why this book received such great reviews. The first and second books of the series, sure, but the third? It is so dry and even more long winded, if that can be imagined, than the other two.
The book starts off focusing solely on Daniel. You don't see Eliza or Jack or any of the more colorful characters until well into the book. This is why this was hard for me because they were what made the series fun, they were what made me continue reading. So to find 150 or so pages in that they aren't even mentioned, and instead focuses on Daniel, a not so colorful character, makes me not want to read it. So I skimmed well ahead, skipping most of the book. That being said, perhaps it did pick up somewhere along the line and I missed it. But who cares? With a book this wordy and long winded you have to breathe life into it. If you don't you are stuck with something that is almost painful to read through.
So yes, this is a very long winded and wordy book that goes nowhere fast. The first and second books of the series were also long winded and wordy, but they at least had color and flavor that made it enjoyable. Very disappointed with this one. Huge fan of Stephenson. Fan of the Baroque series, don't care for the third book at all though. If you have the time and the patience, push on. Otherwise, you will be disappointed as well.
2.5 stars.
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