The Age of Unreason

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.