New York: Morrow (imprint of Harper Collins), (2004.) dj. Hardcover first edition - An epic novel, set in the 1689 in Barbary, France and England, a combination of "history, adventure, science, truth, invention, sex, absurdity, piracy, madness, death and alchemy." The second book in The Baroque Cycle which provides part of the deep backstory to the characters and events featured in Cryptonomicon. Set in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the novels feature ancestors of several characters in Cryptonomicon, as well as events and objects which affect the action in that book. Map endpapers. 813 pp. ISBN: 0-06-0733357.