Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson is the first volume of his series The Baroque Cycle. The second and third volumes (released in the second and third quarters of 2004 respectively), are entitled The Confusion and The System of the World. Quicksilver won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2004, and was nominated for the Locus Award that same year.
Quicksilver is set in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, mostly in England, France, and the United Provi...
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Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson is the first volume of his series The Baroque Cycle. The second and third volumes (released in the second and third quarters of 2004 respectively), are entitled The Confusion and The System of the World. Quicksilver won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2004, and was nominated for the Locus Award that same year.
Quicksilver is set in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, mostly in England, France, and the United Provinces, with sections that take place further east and in Massachusetts. The scenes from the 18th century are narrated in the third person present tense, while the scenes from the 17th century are third person past tense.
The story's focus is on Daniel Waterhouse and his exploits as a young Natural Philosopher and friend to Isaac Newton. It deals with the science, economy, and politics of that era. Ancestors of the characters of Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon appear prominently; analogously, the 20th century Cryptonomicon handbook from that...
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