The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World

by Neal Stephenson

The door flew open. Out stepped a red-faced, white-haired, black-suited Nonconformist.

Here begins some seriously funny shit.

“Gentlemen,” Daniel said, “I fear we are disturbing our neighbors in Hockley-in-the-Hole.

Best. Punchline. Ever.

“Why do we stand and watch this wretch, when there are dishevelled madwomen but a few paces away?”

Sheathing ships with lead, as practic’d by the Chinese

Or copper... even, dare I say, gold?

Sir Isaac has foreseen this objection. He suggests that we adopt his practice of going into the ken disguised as members of the criminal element.”

These guys? Pulling off some deep cover? I can hear the air-quotes every time Daniel uses smuggler slang. This book started out all League of Extraordinarily Inquisitive Gentlemen and is devolving into Monty Python territory. I fucking love it, tho.

“Mind the Gap,”

Cute!

Terraqueous

But now something had gone awry: he had been presented with an opportunity to think.

Hate when that happens!

“Maybe she was,” said Caroline. “But now she’s here.”

I fully endorse the use of Minerva whenever possible. She's my waifu and I miss her.

Is he a bloody sorcerer, Daniel? And if so, is he any good at it?”

Finally someone's asking the right questions!

was barred by a furry tonsure of beeches that gripped the rougher parts of the down, indeed seemed to cover it all the way to the top—

Echoes of Watership? I wonder if there's a warren of rabbits there in a later time.

Myself, I am comfortable with the notion that we are Machines made of Meat, that there’s no more free will in us than there is in a cuckoo-clock, and that the spirit, soul, or whatever you want to call it, is a færy-tale.

One Charles White has been looking after it—

The Vital Name-Drop of Death

So he deems himself a Gentleman now, and has begun to place donations in escrow, in the hopes that he may purchase Charles White as soon as the price drops low enough.”

I <3 Dappa so hard. I could see Khary Payton in this role.

I shall weigh them all, and arrive at some judicious decision, provided that my old mate, the Imp of the Perverse, does not get the better of me.”

“Because this is England and we don’t massacre people in England!” Marlborough announces. “Or rather, we do but we are striving to turn over a new leaf.

“They call for a shrubbery!”

Ni!

This journey began with a wizard walking into his door.