The Baroque Cycle consists of several novels "lumped together into three volumes because it is more convenient from a publishing standpoint"; Stephenson felt calling the works a trilogy would be "bogus". See more

The books travel throughout early modern Europe between the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy and the beginning of the 18th century. Though most of the focus is in Europe, the … See more

Stephenson was inspired to write The Baroque Cycle when, while working on Cryptonomicon, he encountered a statement by George Dyson in Darwin among the Machines that suggests Leibniz was "arguably the founder of symbolic logic and … See more

A central theme in the series is Europe's transformation away from feudal rule and control toward the rational, scientific, and more merit-based … See more

Robert Wiersem of The Toronto Star called The Baroque Cycle a "sublime, immersive, brain-throttlingly complex marvel of a novel that will keep scholars and critics occupied for the next 100 years". See more

• 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 See more