Neal Stephenson

The Baroque Cycle was the next product of Neal Stephenson, beginning with the first book of the series, Quicksilver, which was published in 2003. The second book, or more properly the next volume of the cycle was published in 2004, named The Confusion. And the final book of the cycle, called The System of the World, was published in 2005. Stephenson has commented that putting the book into a trilogy, or referring to them as a trilogy, would not be accurate based on the content of the books, although it was done because it was more convenient to publish as such. Further, some have considered Cryptonomicon the fourth book of the Baroque Cycle, as the idea of the cycle is supposed to have come out of the writing process for Cryptonomicon.