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The Baroque Cycle is a series of novels written by Neal Stephenson.

Appearing in print in 2003 and 2004, the cycle contains eight novels originally published in three volumes:

• Quicksilver, Vol. I of the Baroque Cycle
  • Book 1 - Quicksilver
  • Book 2 - The King of the Vagabonds
  • Book 3 - Odalisque
• The Confusion, Vol. II of the Baroque Cycle
  • Book 4 - Bonanza
  • Book 5 - The Juncto
• The System of the World, Vol. III of the Baroque Cycle
  • Book 6 - Solomon's Gold
  • Book 7 - Currency
  • Book 8 - The System of the World

The story follows the adventures of a sizeable cast of characters living amidst some of the central events of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in Europe. Despite featuring a literary treatment consistent with historical fiction, Stephenson has characterized the work as science fiction, due to the presence of some anomalous occurrences and the work's particular emphasis on themes relating to science and technology.^[1] The sciences of cryptology and numismatics feature heavily in the series.

Quicksilver takes place mainly in the years between the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in England (1660) and the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

The Confusion follows Quicksilver without temporal interruption, but ranges geographically from Europe and the Mediterranean through India to Manila, Japan, and Mexico.

The System of the World takes place principally in London in 1714, about ten years after the events of The Confusion.

The books feature considerable sections concerning alchemy, with characters including Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, Nicolas Fatio de Duillier and sundry other Europeans of note during late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. 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 novel Cryptonomicon.

Why Baroque? Because it is set in the Baroque, and it is baroque. Why Cycle? Because I am trying to avoid the T-word ("trilogy"). In my mind this work is something like 7 or 8 connected novels. These have been lumped together into three volumes because it is more convenient from a publishing standpoint, but they could just as well have been put all together in a single immense volume or separated into 7 or 8 separate volumes. So to slap the word "trilogy" on it would be to saddle it with a designation that is essentially bogus. Having said that, I know everyone's going to call it a trilogy anyway.

—Neal Stephenson

Contents 1 Main characters 1.1 Families 2 Other characters 3 Historical figures who appear as characters in the novel 4 Deviations from real history 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Main characters

• Daniel Waterhouse, an English natural philosopher and Dissenter.
• Jack Shaftoe, an illiterate adventurer of great resourcefulness and charisma.
• Eliza, a Qwghlmian girl abducted into slavery, and later freed, who becomes a spy and a financier.
• Enoch Root, a mysterious personage who flickers about Europe and who never ages.
• Bob Shaftoe, a soldier in the service of John Churchill, and brother of Jack Shaftoe.

[edit] Families

Below is a list of families appearing in both Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle. In cases where multiple members of the family appear (example: Wait Still Waterhouse), only the primary member(s) are listed.

	The Baroque Cycle	Cryptonomicon 1940s	Cryptonomicon 1990s
Waterhouse	Daniel Waterhouse	Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse	Randy Waterhouse
Shaftoe	Jack & Bob Shaftoe	Bobby & "Uncle Jack" Shaftoe	America & Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe
Hacklheber	Eliza, Johann von Hacklheber	Rudolf von Hacklheber
Goto	Gabriel Goto	Goto Dengo	Goto Dengo, Goto Furudenendo
(Crypto-Jews)	Moseh de la Cruz		Avi Halabi
"Silver" Comstock	John Comstock	Major Earl Comstock	Attorney General Paul Comstock
Bolstrood	Gregory, Knott, & Gomer Bolstrood	Gomer Bolstrood Furniture	Gomer Bolstrood Furniture
Foot	Mr. Foot	Foote Mansion	Sultan of Kinakuta
Root	Enoch Root
Churchill	Winston, John Churchill	Sir Winston Churchill

[edit] Other characters

Louis Anglesey, Earl of Upnor, best swordsman in England Thomas More Anglesey, Cavalier, Duke of Gunfleet Duc d'Arcachon, French admiral who dabbles in slavery Etienne d'Arcachon, son of the duke; most polite man in France Henry Arlanc (1), Huguenot, friend of Jack Shaftoe. Henry Arlanc (2), Son of Henry Arlanc(1), porter of Royal Society Mrs. Arlanc, wife of Henry (2) Gomer Bolstrood, dissident agitator, future legendary furniture maker Clarke, English alchemist, boards young Isaac Newton Charles Comstock, son of John Comstock John Comstock, Earl of Epsom and Lord Chancellor Roger Comstock, Marquis of Ravenscar, Whig Patron of Daniel Waterhouse Will Comstock, Earl of Lostwithiel Dappa, Nigerian linguist aboard Minerva Moseh de la Cruz, galley slave, Spanish Jew Vrej Esphanian, galley slave, Armenian Trader Mr. Foot, galley slave, erstwhile bar-owner from Dunkirk Édouard de Gex, Jesuit fanatic, court priest at Versailles Gabriel Goto, galley slave, Jesuit priest from Japan Lothar von Hacklheber, German banker obsessed with alchemy

Thomas Ham, of Ham Bros Goldsmiths, half-brother-in-law of Daniel Waterhouse Otto van Hoek, galley slave, Captain of the Minerva Jeronimo, galley slave, a high-born Spaniard with tourettes Mr. Kikin, Russian diplomat in London Nyazi, galley slave, camel-trader of the Upper Nile Norman Orney, London shipbuilder and Dissenter Danny Shaftoe, son of Jack Shaftoe Jimmy Shaftoe, son of Jack Shaftoe Mr. Sluys, Dutch merchant and traitor Mr. Threader, Tory money-scrivener Drake Waterhouse, Puritan father of Daniel Waterhouse Faith Waterhouse, wife of Daniel Waterhouse Godfrey Waterhouse, son of Daniel Waterhouse Mayflower Waterhouse, half-sister of Daniel Waterhouse, wife of Thomas Ham Raleigh Waterhouse, brother of Daniel Waterhouse Sterling Waterhouse, brother of Daniel Waterhouse Charles White, Tory, Captain of the King's Messengers, who bites off people's ears Yevgeny the Raskolnik, Russian whaler and anti-tsarist rebel Peter Hoxton (Saturn), horologist Colonel Barnes, peg-legged commander of dragoons

[edit] Historical figures who appear as characters in the novel

Caroline of Ansbach Jean Bart Catherine Barton Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke Robert Boyle Charles II of England John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough D'Artagnan Nicolas Fatio de Duillier John Flamsteed Benjamin Franklin (as a young boy) Eleanor Erdmuthe Louise, widow of John Frederick George I of Great Britain George II of Great Britain, the Prince of Wales Mother Goose George Frideric Handel Robert Hooke Christiaan Huygens James Stuart, James II and the Duke of York George Jeffreys

Johann Georg IV, Elector of Saxony Jack Ketch Gottfried Leibniz Louis XIV of France Thomas Newcomen Isaac Newton Henry Oldenburg William Penn Samuel Pepys Peter the Great traveling incognito as Peter Romanov Bonaventure Rossignol, a French cryptanalyst James Scott, Duke of Monmouth John III Sobieski, King of Poland Solomon (anachronistic), traveling incognito as Solomon Kohan Sophia of Hanover Sophia Charlotte of Hanover Edward "Blackbeard" Teach John Wilkins William III of England, Prince of Orange Christopher Wren

[edit] Deviations from real history

• The nickname that Jack gives the musket he appropriates en route to the Battle of Vienna c.1683, Brown Bess, was not in common use to describe the Land Pattern Musket until almost a century later.
• The IJsselmeer did not exist in the 17th and 18th centuries: it originated only in 1932. The equivalent body of water had the name of the Zuiderzee. Note, too, the correct capitalization: it should be IJsselmeer, not Ijsselmeer.
• Port of Scheveningen did not exist until the end of the 19th century.
• Spij; a street in The Hague, is a misspelling of Het Spui. Het Spui, at the time of the story, was not a street but a feeder canal to Hofvijver. Many canals in The Hague were not filled in until the late 19th century.
• The song of the corsair galley, Havah Nagilah, is a Jewish drinking song not composed until the beginning of the 20th century. Even though the melody is ancient, the name and lyrics of Hava Nagila were not penned until around 1918.
• The yo-yo never existed as a bladed weapon, although inhabitants of the Philippines used a non-returning weapon otherwise similar in concept (but made from stone) in the 16th century.
• Blackbeard is shown aboard the "Queen Anne's Revenge" in 1713. He in fact did not take possession of that ship until 1717.
• Quicksilver begins in 1713 with the execution of a witch on Boston Common. But the last such execution in Boston took place in 1688. [1] Stephenson probably chose that scene to complete the symbolic bracketing of the cycle; it begins with a witch-hanging — a vestige of the Renaissance — and ends with Daniel inspecting a steam engine — the birth of the Industrial Revolution.
• Nicotine appears in pure form in the series, although it was first isolated in 1828.
• At Eliza's party in Paris, 1692, (II, the Confusion, p. 361) there is mention of M. Pontchartrain playing on the clavecin a "new air by Rameau". Jean-Philippe Rameau was born in 1683, and did not published his first Livre de pièces de clavecin until 1706.
• Father Édouard de Gex is stabbed in the chest by the tailpin of a violoncello in London, 1714. (III, p. 581) Until the Belgian cellist Adrien-François Servais started to propagate the tailpin in the 1830s, the instrument was clasped between knees and thighs and did not have an endpin.
• Leibniz mentions St. Petersburg (as the capital of Russia judging by the context) in his letter in 1700. The city was in fact founded in 1703 and didn't become the capital until 1712.
• Moseh de la Cruz mentions Alyeska in his conversation with Édouard de Gex (who is acting under guise of Edmund de Ath) on the board of Minerva in 1700 or 1701 ("The Confusion"). Moreover, he predicts Russian occupation of Alyeska and California. In real history Russians (and Europeans in general) did not know about Alaska's existence before 1741, and Russian settlement in California (Fort Ross) was founded only in 1812.
• "Princes learning to dance a passable Ricercar" (I, p. 144). A Ricercare cannot be danced to in this sense as it does not have a fixed meter, it being an instrumental version of ancient polyphonic styles in strict contrapuntal manner.
• "that fine golden beer from Pilsen," (I, p. 421). The beer we call Pilsener wasn't invented until the 19th century.
• Daniel Waterhouse founds a fledging "Massachusetts Bay Colony Institute of Technologickal Arts" that is strongly implied to be the ancestor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, when in fact MIT was founded in 1861.
• King Charles' Cabal Ministry consists of fictional characters, although their initials still spell "CABAL", as did those of the historic version.
• Tranquebar is referred to as an English settlement (II, p. 605); in fact it was controlled by the Danish East India company. Tranquebar did not come under British rule until 1845, when Danes sold the territory.
• A Newcomen Engine is described operating at a coal mine in Cornwall (III, p. 883). There is no coal in Cornwall, but Newcomen Engines (including probably the first engine) were used at a number of Cornish tin mines and at coal mines in the West Midlands.
• Jack christens the Minerva with "a bottle of fizzing wine from the province of Champagne", in 1697 (II, p. 609). Champagne was known for its still wines at that time, and sparkling Champagne was not used for christening ships until the 19th century.
• Many words and phrases used by the characters (for example "homosexual", "lesbian"), particularly slangy ones, are anachronistic.
• During Jack Shaftoe's stay in Paris, the Pont d'Arcole is mentioned, but this Italian village would not become famous in France before Napoléon Bonaparte went there and defeated the Austrians, in 1796.
• Oliver Cromwell had a son called Richard who succeded him - not "Roger."
• George Jeffreys did not "keep an appointment with Jack Ketch" but died from a kidney stone.
• "The Black Dogge" was not a pub in Newgate prison, but a pub in Newgate Market used to hold prisoners whilst the prison was being rebuilt between 1666 and 1672.
• Charles I is referred to as being put to the sword. Although previously some aristocrats had been executed by the sword eye witness accounts confirm that an axe was used.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Locus Magazine interview with Neal Stephenson
• The Source of the Modern World interview by Glenn Reynolds at Tech Central Station
• Back to the Baroque review by Reynolds in The Weekly Standard
• "Neal Stephenson - the interview" on Guardian Unlimited, regarding The Baroque Cycle

v • d • e Works by Neal Stephenson The Baroque Cycle Quicksilver (2003) • The Confusion (2004) • The System of the World (2004) Other novels The Big U (1984) • Zodiac (1988) • Snow Crash (1992) • Interface (1994) • The Diamond Age (1995) • The Cobweb (1996) • Cryptonomicon (1999) • Anathem (2008) Short stories "Spew" (1994) • "The Great Simoleon Caper" (1995) • "Jipi and the Paranoid Chip" (1997) Essays Smiley's people (1993) • In the Kingdom of Mao Bell (1994) • Mother Earth Mother Board (1996) • Global Neighborhood Watch (1998) • In the Beginning... was the Command Line (1999)