Baroque Cycle
by Neal Stephenson · first published 2014
51% recommend37% neutral12% critical
Why HN recommends it
Sprawling historical fiction on Newton, Leibniz, the Royal Society and the rise of finance and cryptography, with lots of researched history; suits readers who want a long, absorbing, educational immersion.
Common criticism: Very long and needs editing; some readers couldn't stay with it
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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…reading, especially the first 2/3's. My personal, quick, rough ranking of Stephenson's bibliography: * Anathem * Snow Crash * The Diamond Age * Seveneves * Cryptonomicon * The Baroque Cycle * Zodiac * Reamde * The Interface * The Big U Haven't Read * The Cobweb * The Mongoliad
on “An Interview with Neal Stephenson” ↗…think diamond age gets enough interest. It's one of my favorite books and the ending is unsatisfying but at least upbeat. Seveneves is also tons of fun. And if you know anyone who likes history, his older Baroque Cycle is pretty great I haven't heard this in an interview or anything but I think now Stephenson is older and successful enough, he just writes the books exactly how he likes. Diamond age feels like he was…
on “We are all nerds: The literary works of Neal Stephenson” ↗…Karenina. * Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (interesting how several people mention this one; I used to think it was my own private discovery). * Neal Stephenson, especially Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle And the obligatory Tolkien and Douglas Adams that I read and re-read as a teenager.
on “Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?” ↗I really loved the Baroque cycle; Is there any other author that writes similar stuff? I've liked other Stephenson novels I've read (Cryptonomicon and Diamond age), but to be honest they haven't been the mind blowing experience of the…
on “We are all nerds: The literary works of Neal Stephenson” ↗I was pleasantly surprised to see two Neal Stephenson books on the list, but why did the second have to be Anathem? I thought Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle were much better books. Anathem's plot seemed like book-nerd wish fulfillment. Of course I still read all thousand pages of Anathem in, like, four days. :)
on “The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)” ↗The Confusion - Neal Stephenson (I'm starting to tire a little of the female hero character who's in all his books, but on the whole, The Baroque Cycle, which this is the second volume of, has been very educational and always entertaining) The Visual Display of Quantative Information, Envisioning Information, Visual Explanations, and Beautiful Evidence (I…
on “Ask HN: What are you reading? What've you read lately?” ↗A lot of Neal Stephenson's work holds up to rereadings. I've gone through the Baroque Cycle + Cryptonomicon maybe three times now, and I guess I'm due for a fourth soon.
on “Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea” ↗I believe I've read all of Stephenson's books (yes, even The Big U) Seveneves is in the top 5, but only just -- the Baroque Cycle (though not sci-fi) takes up three of the first five spots. In terms of can't-put-down-once-started, Reamde tops the list, but, again, not sci-fi. People seem to want to compare the content to Anathem,…
on “The Day the Moon Blew Up” ↗My opinion on Stephenson: Cryptonomicon is fun, Baroque Cycle is great, Anathem is his best work (from a literary perspective), and Seveneves is 2/3rds awesome 1/3rd bad scifi pulp. Snow Crash is how most people first encounter him. It's a warmed over cyberpunk…
on “YC's Winter Reading List” ↗Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle has about 35 enjoyable pages on this process, if anyone's interested.
on “Wootz steel” ↗…Greg Egan -- Post-trans-humanist shenanigans. Other things of note: Neal Stephenson writes a lot of cyberpunk computer-adjacent fiction. Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon all come to mind. The Baroque Cycle is a fiction series about the beginnings of computation and cryptography. He does have a propensity to navel-gaze though. Vernor Vinge was a computer science professor. Rainbow's End and The Peace War…
Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle is set in this era. Newton, Hooke, Wren, Leibniz and many others all appear as characters. It’s a 2800 page monster, but a treat if you enjoy historical fiction and the history of ideas.
on “The event that eventually led to Newton writing and publishing the Principia” ↗Newton's obsession with counterfeiters never made sense to me until I read Neal Stephenson Baroque Cycle. He makes a good case for tying it with Newton's prior alemetical pursuits.
on “Don’t Mess with a Genius” ↗Maybe they'll just pick up the rights to Stephenson's Baroque Cycle
on “In the 17th century, Leibniz dreamed of a machine that could calculate ideas” ↗All of William Gibson and all of Neal Stephenson (especially Cryptonomicon and Baroque cycle series)
on “Ask YC: favorite books” ↗