The SYSTEM of the WORLD--Neal Stephenseon--For those interested in the history and life in England in the early 16th Century, this, together with with the others in the trilogy, called the Baroque Cycle, QUICKSILVER and THE CONFUSION leave few details omitted as a variety of Characters move around England, Europe, and, indeed, the world. The combined almost 3000 pages explore chanes of thought/governmental/economic systems taking place thorugh that time and involve fictional and real characters, delimas faced and solved. TIME mazaine says of the Baroque Cycle "...will defy any category, genre, precedent, or label--except genious....Stephenson has a once-in-a-generation gift: he makes complex ideas clear, and he makes them funny, heartbreaking, and thrilling." In 3000 pages (the books combined) it is an undertaking, worth it, but an undertaking.