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I finished the two released books (Quicksilver, The Confusion) of Neal Stephenson's three-volume Baroque Cycle and have been of late rereading Cryptonomicon. I hadn't read C in years, so I'd cottoned onto the obvious connections (Shaftoe, Waterhouse, Enoch Root, Qwghlm) but I'm increasingly fascinated by the non-obvious ones. I don't want to spoil nothin', so I'll give a context-free list of the connections that have struck me:
- References to Leibniz & Newton (and the Leibniz-Archiv!)
- Mount Eliza and Queenah-Kootah/Kinakutah
- Foote and the White Sultans
- Avi's ancestry and Moseh's fate.
- Gomer Freakin' Bolstrood.
- And of course the central importance of mysterious gold.
It feels a lot like Stephenson had planned out a lot of the Baroque Cycle even as he was writing Cryptonomicon. Rudy von Hacklheber, when first alluding to the Leibniz-Archiv, says something along the lines of "it's a long story; it could fill a whole book." Or three.
Anyone know of any interviews out there where Stephenson talks about how much planning he did?
P.S. I was initially troubled by the Baroque Cycle, largely because I most enjoy his writing when it's in the "Randy & Avi are crazy modern guys" style. But now that the crazy web of interconnections has set down roots in my brain, I'm totally enthralled. I'll probably be wasting a lot of time on the Quicksilver Metaweb when I finish Cryptonomicon. 11:22:58 AM () 
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