Background and Development
During the period in which he wrote Cryptonomicon, Stephenson read George Dyson's Darwin Amongst the Machines, which led him to Gottfried Leibniz's interest in a computing machine, the Leibniz–Newton feud, and Newton's work at the Royal Treasury. He became inspired to write about the period, and he explains, he considered "this information striking when was already working on a book about money and a book about computers". Originally intended to be included in Cryptonomicon, Stephenson instead used the material as the foundation for Quicksilver, the first volume of the Baroque Cycle. The research for the sprawling historical novel created what Stephenson called "data management problems", and he explains in an interview that he resorted to a system of notebooks to record research, track characters, and find material during the writing process.
Read more about this topic: Quicksilver (novel)
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