The System of the World

Warning: While this post contains only minor spoilers for The System of the World, it does have more major spoilers for Quicksilver and The Confusion, the previous books in the series.

After the finish of The Confusion (which I reviewed here), I was excited to see where the series was going to go.  However, the series jumped forward a decade or two to the point after the prologue of the Quicksilver.  For the most part, the author just uses this time span to ensconce the characters in the positions that the reader saw them in at the end of the second book.

Basically, most of this book was build up interspersed with all the confrontations that readers have been waiting to see, some since book one.  A great many of these are fantastic, some highlights are a duel fought with cannons and a man being killed with a cello.  Unfortunately, a couple fall flat.  The great philosophical debate, between Newton and Leibniz, that has been foreshadowed from the first pages of Quicksilver, is unfortunately the most blatant of these.  While it does offer some interesting views into their philosophical ideas, it does not really work as a showdown.

As pervades all of his books, The System of the World is full of Neal Stephenson's sense of humor while not being a silly book by any means.  However, there is a fantastic scene that is somewhat complicated to explain but it suffices to say that one of the protagonists pretends to only be able parrot speech to great comedic effect.

Like the other books in the Baroque Cycle, The System of the World is divided into three smaller books.  Each of these have their high points and their low points.

• The climax of the first part was slightly difficult to figure out because it seemed the author was introducing extra characters needlessly (and perhaps he was)
• Jack (who was probably my favorite character of the overall series) was not a major player until the end of the first part and then was in the background for most of second part as well.
• The climaxes of the second and third part were fantastic.
• Caroline of Hanover was an excellent character, I almost wish the series would continue simply so that I could see more of Stephenson's portrayal of her.
• The epilogues that wrapped up the individual characters were all great and gave a good sense of closure to everyone (or at least almost everyone).

The one other beef that I have with book is with an issue that I completely understand why it occurred, I just do not really like.  The series covers more than 50 years, with basically the same characters throughout.  This means that by this book, they are all very old.  It is not a terrible thing, but I don't think I have ever before read a book where the main protagonist was 70 years old and many of the other characters are not far behind him. 

Overall, this was a fun book and series.  Was it fun enough to be worth reading ~2000 pages?  I will not presume to be able to dictate that for everyone, but I certainly enjoyed it.  I do like history and I do like Neal Stephenson's style of writing and storytelling.  Also, not knowing a great deal about 17th and 18th century Europe, the series was somewhat educational (though the author took some liberties with history in several places).  This series has some parts that will appeal to everyone: adventure, science, economics, politics, detective work, and humor.

Overall, I would give this book an 87%.