The Baroque Cycle (enormous spoiler alert)

[phantom power]

I've never enjoyed a novel more, or been more glad I'm finally finished.

What is the deal with Jack Shaftoe hanging out with the King of France at the end? He failed in his mission to debase the currency of England.

Well, he succeeded, but then Waterhouse magically "un-debased" it with the Solomonic gold.

And I must say, I was a bit disappointed that the Solomonic gold turned out to be real. The System of the World means nothing, if the principle of universality does not hold. The idea that some gold can be magic, but not all, is anathema to the foundations of science, is it not?

From a pure story-telling perspective, I couldn't help but like it. Rescuing the new System, by surrepetitiously applying the Old... how can you resist the panache?

[blindpig]

1. loved it

I know what you mean about Jack hanging with the Sun King. I read his presence at the Court as a combination of the good offices of Eliza, who no doubt had some favors to call in, and Louis's admiration/amusement of such an accomplished scoundrel. Stephenson seemed pretty comfortable with Louis XIV, more so than I might considering some of the rotten shit that he pulled, guess he liked the larger than life thing.

The Solomonic Gold deal at the end was a bit confusing. Perhaps the gold which is more than gold was a reference to the eternal unsettled state of science, there's just more to learn. Or maybe he just ran out of gas and employed a deus ex machina to tidy things up. That seems to happen to even great writers sometimes in the course of a long story, and boy was that a long one! Or maybe I don't have a clue.

I don't normally put fiction on my shelves but The Baroque Cycle will be an exception.

[phantom power]

2. I'd agree it's the "unsettled state of science" theme.

Leibnitz alluded as much, when he said (paraphrase) "Who can say, what the right combination of Monads might accomplish". Something happened to the gold, but their theories (or ours) could not yet account for it.

I have the feeling that Stephenson doesn't ever do anything he doesn't mean to.

Did you know he wrote Baroque Cycle out longhand? Then he transcribed it in TeX, and then tranlated that into the publisher's format using his own Lisp routine.

Long-hand! Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged in long-hand too, but even that was only 1/3 the size of Baroque Cycle.