Read: The Baroque Cycle, by Neal Stephenson

This was a long project. It was one for the poet, and now it was my pleasure for years. The Baroque Cycle is not a short story. Mr. Stephenson makes a long story even longer -- indeed especially with this works I got the impression that he wants to make Tolkien look like a writer of abstracts. And like the Lord of the Rings this works is one book, one story, despite there being three of them; this seems to be just a matter of a physical maximum of pages in an actual printed book In the books there a description of places, especially in London. For people who are good at imagining the shape of sites get a really good picture of how the Tower of London looks like.

Anyway. The story depicted in this book is thrilling, interesting, informative. Actually there is so much information about the time when science began to shape society, and Stephenson augmented history with his fiction that it took me some effort to distinguish between what is history and what is fiction. Again and again, I asked myself questions like…

• Was the MIT founded already in the 17th century by a guy called Daniel Waterhouse? (No.)
• Sir Isaac Newton really was head of the Mint of London for many years? (Indeed.)
• By any chance, there is no patch of land called Qwghlm? (Er… no.)

And many more. The protagonist of this book is, as often in Stephenson's books, a group of people. The three main fictional characters are the close to perfect and compelling Eliza, the restless and clumsy still loveable Jack and the wise natural philosopher Daniel Waterhouse, who is close to the top-notch European science community. Stephenson makes again a great job of embedding his fiction in historic events and people, having the protagonists accompanied by Isaac Newton, Baron von Leibnitz, Le Rois Charles XIV., the Lord of Marlborough, Edward Teach and dozens of other historical figures of the English, French and German Lordships. The book embraces nearly the whole life span of the protagonists, depicting this most transformative era of Europe, when moving on from alchemy to chemistry and physics (represented by Waterhouse and his entourage), from barter trade and coins to a financial system (represented by Eliza et cetera) and from tribalism to globalism (represented by Jack and so on).

Europe is changing fast within that generation, and people start to understand the mechanics of the world so much better. Newton's "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" is referenced frequently, and its third book is called "System of the World", as is the third book of the Baroque Cycle. The former two are called "Quicksilver" and "The Confusion" respectively, adding up to 2.624 pages in my paper-back edition.

For all fans of Neal Stephenson and all who are not afraid of going to be one, don't be afraid.