"The twenty-first century has been a time of renewed energy within Pynchon studies. Among other factors this is due to the publication of three novels, Against the Day (2006), Inherent Vice (2009), and Bleeding Edge (2013), which have each brought something distinctively new to the table. Against the Day's vast scope and range makes it Pynchon's most fully realized example of what has come to be conceived of as the "systems novel"; Inherent Vice's revisiting of the counterculture era first examined by Pynchon in The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) offers a concrete point of comparison on which to base assessments of his maturation as a writer amid changing socio-political contexts, and Bleeding Edge, Pynchon's (quasi-)9/11 novel, provides a thorough and long-anticipated thematic engagement with computer technology and digital culture. Mason & Dixon, published a little before the turn of the millennium in 1997 and one of Pynchon's most critically-acclaimed works, has also provided fertile ground for twenty-first century criticism"--