The Confusion is Captain Jack to Quicksilver's Old Jack. This is adventure, much more in the mould of Wilbur Smith - heaps of fun (as my Aussie relatives say!). It's still got that twisty-turny rambling-Stephenson plot, that's as much of a world-tour as it is a narrative arc, but where I thought Quicksilver was utterly fascinating, I thought The Confusion was truly enjoyable - both get 5-stars, but surprisingly different books!

I have 40+ books sitting on my 'review-soon' shelf that I just don't have time to write proper reviews for, so I'm going to bash out as many of these mini-reviews as I can before Christmas :-)

After this I read: Rivers of London

Why are there three significant characters names Sophie? Which country is Eliza a duchess of? Which one was Van Hoek again? I kept wishing for a character glossary. The series’s long length and extreme list of characters is hard to follow. I’m certain the author did this intentionally, the book is titled Confusion, after all. You can also see this in the nobles not particularly caring who is currently king or how the war is going.

Yet each actual episode is a joy to read. I’d better read the concluding volume before I forget who Isaac Newton is too.

Much like with the first one, I felt like I should love this, with its epic, world-spanning scale and protagonists I should find interesting, but... once again, I was bored. So, so bored. Intriguing settings, entertaining plot elements, but good grief did the pace drag.
Oh well. Guess I'll have to read the last one now anyway, just for the sake of completion.

Continues the epic scientific, political, and picaresque wanderings of about 7000 characters through the 17th and 18th centuries.

Getting more out of the series this time through, by taking it more slowly. Doing a better job pacing myself, pretending Goodreads stats do not matter to me, not succumbing to temptation to start skimming to reduce the time commitment for this behemoth series. This one took six weeks and, my guy, that is OK. You have to enjoy the ride and not worry about the destination.

This one is lighter on the historical infodumps (that's good!) but lighter on the Royal Society (that's bad!). It's two "books" interspersed together:

*Bonanza is just amazing--peak Neal Stephenson--tracking Jack's cabal traveling all around the world, encountering all manner of adventure, as he spends time as a king, a prisoner, a pirate, a sailor, the world's most famous vagabond, and enduring a job as food for blood-ingesting insects.
*The Juncto is not quite there, but certainly has its high points. It's still a little history infodump-y tracking every detail of the high-level European politics of the time, but Eliza's cleverness keeps it interesting.

There are dozens and dozens of great micro-stories here as Neal threads historical nuggets into the general proceedings, and that's what you're ultimately reading for, e.g., the challenge of getting timber to Dunkirk using late 17th-centure logistics. Now you just hire a truck or a boat. Then, there's a crazy trade system, different currencies, brigands, and all travel requires some sort of mass animal management.

The Royal Society is not wholly absent, but usually working the margins in this one. I loved a bit where Jack's ship is aiming to leave Japan, and Enoch Root is able to suss out an ambush based on the sloshing of mercury-filled flasks in the ship's hull. He re-balances them to be in tune with the tidal frequency, so the ship moves unexpectedly fast and they can escape. Please tell me any author other than Neal Stephenson who is going to write about that.

First read 2011; re-read 2024.

This book caters to me in such specific ways. How am I ever meant to read another series after I’m done with this one.

It’s a perfect combo of being literal schlock while indulging in a stupid amount of historical detail

I’m hooked baybe. Gonna try and detox with another book then come back around for part 3. I could probably read these forever.

Yes, well there aren't as many memorable quotes in "The Confusion" as there were in "Quicksilver" but by golly it's still a brilliant read and a jolly adventure to boot!
This is really two stories intertwined; that of Eliza, Duchess of some unpronounceable place that I can't spell either, and of Jack Shaftoe. Eliza has fallen on hard times but she has the brains and a body that can sort all that out in a jiffy. jack is a galley-slave who is surrounded by a group of... well, geniuses, I can't think of a better word, and together they have come up with a cunning plan. And so the tale begins and takes us round the world and through an amazing era in World history.
I never set out to be educated when I'm reading literature... I want to be enthralled and entertained. Well, Neal Stephenson does it all... entertained, enthralled and educated all at the same time.
This is wonderful stuff... the Baroque Cycle is wonderful stuff. If you haven't started reading it you just don't know what you are missing!

Oh my god if I read any more tedious exposition I'm going to find you and throw this book at you. And it's big, it'll hurt. It'd be a lot smaller if you just told the story. Oh, and now you skip the part of the story with the action just so you can tell me what happened in more tedious exposition? Fuck You Neal Stephenson, I used to like you!

The rare trilogy where the middle volume is the best! Spanning the years 1689-1702, Stephenson takes us all over the world, with plenty of intrigue, pirate attacks, daring rescues, and philosophical discussions between Newton and Leibniz. One of this author's very best.

Wow, I can't even remember when I started this book, 800+ pages as the second book in the 2400+ page The Baroque Cycle trilogy. I feel like a water-skier being pulled by a boat--sections have pulled me along thrillingly with wake-jumping stunts and all. The last couple of hundred pages moved like this. Other parts could not hold my interest, as if the boat didn't have enough power to pull me up out of the water--I have put this one down for months at a time and had to consciously make efforts to pick it back up.

I am floored by the scope of these novels. I have grown insanely curious about the next book Stephenson may or may not be writing, wondering what could possibly follow. Tada! His Wikipedia page says it is named "Anathem" and said to be a "space opera". I can't wait, but I still have System of the World to go.

Stephenson is able to simply relate, often something like a Socratic dialogue, descriptions of complicated material, glossing over just enough detail to not lose you but including enough that the uninitiated still understand important concepts--encryption in Cryptonomicon; the workings of computers in most of his novels; markets, trade, and financial mechanisms in this trilogy. Surprising me was the explanation of Liebniz' monadology. I studied Liebniz' philosophies somewhat extensively in college, but now I feel as if I missed the entire point. More likely is that my viewpoint has changed--most likely I was put off by Liebniz' pious lexicon, or perhaps one of the courses was biased toward him being overshadowed by Kant. I now have the desire to reread some of his work. I have a renewed interest in history as well--I read with a vague sense of familiarity, but I wish I retained more from high school European history. Some Wikipedia surfing is in my future--I am especially curious what parts of the novel are history and what parts are artistic license. On to The System of the World.

“Papa says I am confused sometimes.”
“As are we all,” said Eliza. “For confusion is a kind of bewitchment—a moment when what we supposed we understood loses its form and runs together and becomes one with other things that, though they might have had different outward forms, shared the same inward nature.”

Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle consists of a total of 8 books, which were later released as a trilogy. The Confusion is the second part of this trilogy and contains books four and five, respectively Bonanza and The Juncto. Since both books cover the same time period, the chapters of the books are told alternately.

Bonanza follows the adventures of Jack, while The Juncto covers the rise of Eliza. Where Bonanza is primarily an "over the top" adventure novel, The Juncto delves into the rise of the modern banking system, the founding of the Bank of England, and the emergence of the modern economy. Quicksilver, the first volume in the trilogy, was about the origins of modern science, and in this book, Stephenson shows that the outcomes of what was then called natural philosophy (science) can also be applied to finance and economics. The scene in which Eliza explains to her party guests how to transfer money from one country to another is brilliant.

Meanwhile, in Bonanza, Jack is captured as a slave. Together with others, the Cabal, they plan to escape while simultaneously plotting to hijack a ship full of silver. This throws Jack and the Cabal into a series of adventures where nothing goes as planned. Occasionally, Stephenson allows these two stories to intersect in ingenious ways. Gradually, the trilogy also shifts from historical fiction to historical fiction with fantastic elements.

As you could expect from Stephenson, this book is not always easy. Although this one is a more straightforward novel then the previous one (despite the alternating stories) Stephenson expects the reader to keep up with the story instead of spoon feeding the narrative. But if you are willing to be carried away on the late 17th century it is a fascinating journey.

Although this book is thematically less dense than Quicksilver, it is once again a tour de force by Stephenson.

5 stars.

It feels like  Quicksilver, the first book in this series, was just an (extended!) prologue, establishing the setting and characters, as we finally start getting some plot in this one. This one interleaves the stories of Jack Shaftoe, last seen being taken as a slave on the high seas, and Eliza, the woman he rescued, ironically enough, from slavery. After Jack somehow gets better from syphilis, he joins with a diverse group of fellow slaves, escapes, steals a vast horde of treasure and goes on the lam. Eliza, meanwhile, loses and regains her own fortune, becomes a duchess twice over, has a child kidnapped, gets her revenge, takes several lovers, as well as helping free a young woman from slavery (and the scene with Bob and Abigail is among my highlights of the book).

We occasionally drop in on Daniel Waterhouse and other characters from the first book, but not very often or for very long. This is very much Jack and Eliza's book. I've always liked Eliza, right from the moment we met her in the last volume, and nothing here changes that. She continues to show the strength of character and flexibility of mind that's a joy to read. I was never hugely fond of Jack, meanwhile, in the last book, but he's grown on me here. He still makes awful decisions, but he's charming and genuinely wants to do the right thing, when he can.

Stephenson still piles in the words. He gleefully discusses, in great detail, various complex financial machinations and how they can be used for mischief, most of which I still don't understand, and don't think it's worth the hours of my life to go back and reread in greater detail. But for all that, it's remarkably readable. Although part of me wonders how much that's through being inured to it by reading Quicksilver first.

I definitely want to know where the story is going next, but I think I'll take a break and read something a bit lighter (and shorter) before tackling the conclusion to the series. I still don't think it's science fiction though.

Why not blog this one too?

*****

In a discussion of being political/diplomatic:
"It is precisely because it is true, that you must not come out and state it."
"Very well then, monsieur, I vow not to say anything true for the remainder of this conversation" (p. 69).

Simple little joke, but it cracked me up. The coversation goes on for some time afterwords, and I haven't yet decided if the second character broke the vow...

*****

Ok, so apparently I didn't end up blogging this one live as I read it. Apologies. I did mark a bunch of stuff that I wanted to share with you all though, that I thoroughly enjoyed:

***

Here's a slightly predictable but still enjoyable little exchange:

"You shall amass some sort of capital, and lend out money... I can only perceive two drawbacks to what is otherwise an excellent plan, my lord..."
"Don't say it. We have no capital... and no money."
"Just so, my lord."
(p.486)

***

The Elector Johann Georg IV belonged to a sort of fraternity whose members were to be found in every country in the world, and among every class of society: Men Who Had Been Hit on the Head as Boys. As MWHBHHB went, Johan Georg was a beauty (p. 527).

Tell me that isn't genius.

***

______'s chief source of discomfort, the, was a feeling well known to soldiers of low rank, to doctors' patients, and to people getting their hair cut; namely, that he was utterly in the power of an incompetent (p. 801-2).

This last one comes as the character in question (name blanked to prevent spoilerization) finds himself a prisoner, and theoretical torture victim of a character who is not very good at the whole torture thing.

***

I am still absolutely loving the Baroque Cycle. I want to note again, in case you didn't see it in my Quicksilver review, that this is not a "series" of books. It's one long book broken into three. Neither of the first two end in anything remotely resembling a satisfying resolution, and this one essentially drops you right back in there. Many sequels give you lots of sort of recapping, but this one really doesn't do much of that, and couldn't stand alone. Start with Quicksilver.

This book continues following the three main characters of Daniel (who admittedly takes a backseat), Eliza, and Jack. These latter two, certainly the focal points of The Confusion, are difficult to follow, as their adventurers take them all over the place. Again, as in Quicksilver, this book contains much delightful encountering of historically significant people and events. A short list would include The Spanish Inquisition, King Louis XIV, The Shogun in Japan, Barbary Corsairs, Jacobite Rebellions, Leibniz and Newton, and the founding of the Bank of England.

Of course, this isn't merely a history book, and includes much in the ways of fanciful and entertaining fiction. More so than Quicksilver, The Confusion has a rather epic adventure vibe to it. It also features some of the most satisfying death scenes I've encountered in a long time. Actually, I could have left the word "death" out of the preceding sentence, and it would have been just as applicable to a host of other scenes as well. Stephenson does an excellent job of setting up smaller narratives within the bigger picture, and the mini climaxes and denouements that accompany these are beyond satisfying.

I can't wait to see how this wraps up in System of the World.