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4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Great audiobook
Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2013
Verified Purchase
Love this series, and love Simon Prebble as the reader. Have already read the hard copy twice, but I really like having it read to me while I'm doing other things.
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George Gilder
5.0 out of 5 stars Stephenson genius interruptus
Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2013
Verified Purchase
This book suffers only from its truncation, leaving
suspended the final book of Stephenson's masterpiece
The Baroque Cycle, which should be packaged in a
single volume to avoid automobile accidents caused by
genius interruptus, and the driver's panicked search for
missing narrative as he cruises the snowy summits of
the Massachusetts turnpike.
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Aussie Greg
4.0 out of 5 stars In which the greatest scientist in history runs a mint!
Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2014
Stephenson's extraordinary ability to take the driest of subject matter and invest it with all the heart-pumping excitement of a thriller is again on display in this second-last book of his magisterial blending of science, philosophy, religion, politics, history, and those insights into human nature only great novelists can reveal.
I have no idea how much of Currency is historical (I suspect a great deal of it is) but it hardly seems to matter as the genius of this writer lies in making you believe these gobsmacking events actually happened. (And that you are learning a great deal about the origins of so much of the modern world in the process.)
In such a surprisingly-swashbuckling tale we actually get to learn the etymological origin of the word "swashbuckling"! Chief swashbuckler is the King of the Vagabonds, recast as Jack the Coiner, whose counterfeiting is done in the service of his love for Eliza and on the orders of the Sun King, and whose opponent in this political as much as economic game is none other than Sir Isaac Newton, recast as Master of the Mint (who is motivated by his love of alchemy).
As the Cycle hurtles towards its conclusion in The System of the World (itself the title of an at-this-stage-unpublished third book of Newton's Principia Mathematica) you have the sense of the myriad plot threads woven throughout this astonishing work being deftly drawn together.
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lbreader
5.0 out of 5 stars Narrator is great
Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2020
I've read this book before, but listening to it was awesome. The narrator is fantastic.
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