This is a combination historical fiction, thriller, and science geek novel. In 1868 the fledgling Massachusetts Institute of Technology is struggling to survive against those who want to see it shut down. The opposition includes many professors and students at Harvard who believe a "classical" education is the only "proper" college education and that one based on science and technology is not worthy of the name college. Others who oppose MIT are the unions who fear scientific innovations will take away their jobs, the upper class who resent the fact that working class charity students and a (gasp!) woman are allowed to attend the school, and those who fear science and technology as evil. This conflict takes a bit of a back seat to the more serious problem of who or what is causing odd disasters in Boston. First the compasses on all the vessels in Boston Harbor go haywire causing mass destruction as they crash into each other and the piers in the fog. Then, in the business district the truly strange occurs when all the glass in the buildings suddenly turns to liquid and oozes out of the windows causing injury and death to those engulfed by the molten silicon. A small group of MIT students dub themselves "The Technologists" and set about to solve the mystery and put a stop to the person causing the disasters. In the mean time, the police have consulted an anti-MIT Harvard professor named Agassiz to assist in their investigation. Agassiz would love nothing better than to wipe MIT off the map. What could have been a fast moving, nail biter gets bogged down in the back stories of the characters, the repeated battle of the classes and sexes, and unnecessary details. Pearl took a great idea and wrote it to death.
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