Mad scientist dangerous or questionable, which can make them accidental villains. The prototypical fictional mad scientist was Victor Frankenstein, creator of his eponymous monster, who made his first appearance in 1818, in the novel "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley. Though the novel's title character, Victor Frankenstein, is a sympathetic character, the critical element of conducting experiments that cross "boundaries that ought not to be crossed", heedless of the consequences, is present in Shelley's novel. Frankenstein was trained as both an alchemist and a modern scientist, which makes him the bridge between two eras of an evolving archetype. The book
The System of the World (novel) The System of the World (novel) The System of the World is a novel by Neal Stephenson and is the third and final volume in "The Baroque Cycle". The title alludes to the third volume of Isaac Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica", which bears the same name. "The System of the World" won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and the Prometheus Award in 2005, as well as a receiving a nomination for the Arthur C. Clarke Award the same year. Daniel Waterhouse returns to England from his "Technologickal College" project in Boston in order to try to