Neal Stephenson follows his highly-praised historical novels, Quicksilver and Th
e Confusion, with the extraordinary third and final volume of the Baroque Cycle.
The year is 1714. Daniel Waterhouse has returned to England, where he joins for
ces with his friend Isaac Newton to hunt down a shadowy group attempting to blow
up Natural Philosophers with 'Infernal Devices' - time bombs.
As Daniel and
Newton conspire, an increasingly vicious struggle is waged for England's Crown:
who will take control when the ailing queen dies? Tories and Whigs clash as one
faction jockeys to replace Queen Anne with 'The Pretender' James Stuart, and the
other promotes the Hanoverian dynasty of Princess Caroline. Meanwhile, a long-s
immering dispute between Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz comes to a head, w
ith potentially cataclysmic consequences. Wildly inventive, brilliantly conceive
d, The System of the World is the final volume in Neal Stephenson's hugely ambit
ious and compelling saga.
