The Age of Unreason

This article is about the historical fantasy series. For another book, see Charles Handy. For the Bad Religion album, see Age of Unreason (album).

The Age of Unreason is a series of four novels written by Gregory Keyes:

• Newton's Cannon (1998), ISBN 1-56865-829-X
• A Calculus of Angels (1999), ISBN 0-7394-0260-9
• Empire of Unreason (2000), ISBN 0-345-40609-5
• The Shadows of God (2001), ISBN 0-345-43904-X

Its title is a reference to Thomas Paine's treatise The Age of Reason. The story spans the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, with the action moving between England and France, later involving Russia, Austria, the Republic of Venice, and North America. The author makes use of pseudosciences (scientific alchemy instead of our physics) that were popular at the time: using affinity and aether, for example. Some historical characters appear in important roles: Isaac Newton, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Cotton Mather, King Louis XIV of France, Emperor Peter the Great of Russia, King Charles XII of Sweden, and Edward Teach, better known as the pirate Blackbeard.

External links

• Age of Unreason series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database