Stephenson's Baroque Cycle was published in three volumes containing eight books. Audible has divided them into the individual books. I listened to the first two quite awhile ago and just resumed with Odalisque. This book takes place mainly in England, Holland, and France during the late 17th century and includes the War of the English Succession. It follows the activities of the character Daniel Waterhouse, a natural philosopher and English Dissenter who opposed the church's involvement in nonreligious things while not joining the Pilgrims or other dissenting denominations. The other character who plays a prominent role in the story is Eliza, a spy for William of Orange who masquerades as an aristocrat. Many of the other characters portrayed are historical figures, e.g. Isaac Newton, King James II, King Louis XIV, William of Orange, Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke, John Churchill (1st Duke of Marlborough) among many others. The story improves as it goes on and the narration by Simon Prebble, Katherine Kellgren, and Kevin Pariseau is well done but I am as yet undecided whether I will invest the time needed to continue with the other volumes.
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