Ideas about currency and calculus become thrilling because of the way Stephenson incorporates them into his story... Huge in scope - rich in detail... This weird, wonderful collision of scholarship and storytelling has no peer

A rip-roaring, swashbuckling Romance with a capital R ... A blood-soaked, silver-plated depiction of 17th-century life from both ends of the economic scale, and with enough headlong, balls-to-the-wall buccaneering and Machiavellian plotting to satiate the most jaded of palates

Stephenson excels in marrying geekspeak wtih riotous action. When he describes a battle or a duel, his prose acquires thrilling panache... Jack Shaftoe is magnificent, a swashbuckling hero with a foul mouth and few morals, and his adventures are most appealing

The definitive historical-sci-fi-epic-pirate-comedy-punk-love story. No easy feat, that

One of the most widely enjoyed comic writers in Britain ... his position at the heart of British comedy is as assured as that of the seaside postcard

Our funniest living novelist

Reaches a transcendental realm of its own. I couldn't even read it at times, because I was crying and choking with laughter

Sharpe is the funniest novelist currently writing ... I sat curled up with laughter