Terminal Compromise vs Leviathan
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
700words between them — 3 min of it
Terminal Compromise is longer — 212,967 words against 212,267 for Leviathan, a difference of 700 words or about 3 min of extra reading. Leviathan is the harder read, at grade 16.3 against 6.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| Terminal Compromise | Leviathan | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Schwartau, Winn | Hobbes, Thomas |
| Words | 212,967 | 212,267 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 14h 12m | 14h 09m |
| Unique words | 16,074 | 9,658 |
| Sentences | 18,118 | 5,576 |
| Average sentence length | 11.8 words | 38.1 words |
| Reading grade | 6 | 16.3 |
| Reading ease | 73.1 | 45.8 |
| Long words | 10.5% | 12% |
Highlighted cells are the larger figure — except reading ease, where higher means easier.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions, same counting rule·REVIEWED JUL 2026
How this is worked out
- Both texts are counted the same way, from the same source, with Gutenberg's header and licence footer struck first.
- The gap is stated in words and then in time at 250 words a minute — the rate is printed because a duration without one cannot be checked.
- Difficulty is compared on Flesch–Kincaid grade, which reads sentence and word length only. It cannot see irony or dialect, so treat it as a measure of surface, not of effort.
gap = |212,967 − 212,267| = 700 words 700 ÷ 250 wpm = 3 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, Terminal Compromise or Leviathan?
Terminal Compromise is longer — 212,967 words against 212,267 for Leviathan, a difference of 700 words or about 3 min of extra reading. Leviathan is the harder read, at grade 16.3 against 6.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 79 and no. 3207 — and from no other source. Neither book’s text is set on this site.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·US public domain·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Word counts and reading levels are computed from a specific public-domain edition and will differ from other editions and from other counting methods — see the method page.
