In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves -- including one Jack Shaftoe, a.k.a. King of the Vagabonds, a.k.a. Half-Cocked Jack, lately and miraculously cured of the pox -- devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues, rife with battles, chases, hairbreadth escapes, swashbuckling, bloodletting, and danger -- a perilous race for an enormous prize of silver ... nay, gold ... nay, legendary gold that will place the intrepid band at odds with the mighty and the mad, with alchemists, Jesuits, great navies, pirate queens, and vengeful despots across vast oceans and around the globe.
Meanwhile, back in Europe ...
The exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, master of markets, pawn and confidante of enemy kings, onetime Turkish harem virgin, is stripped of her immense personal fortune by France's most dashing privateer. Penniless and at risk from those who desire either her or her head (or both), she is caught up in a web of international intrigue, even as she desperately seeks the return of her most precious possession -- her child.
While ...
Newton and Leibniz continue to propound their grand theories as their infamous rivalry intensifies, stubborn alchemy does battle with the natural sciences, nobles are beheaded, dastardly plots are set in motion, coins are newly minted (or not) in enemy strongholds, father and sons reunite in faraway lands, priests rise from the dead ... and Daniel Waterhouse seeks passage to the Massachusetts colony in hopes of escaping the madness into which his world has descended.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - a must for Stephenson fans
Excellent. This continuation of the Baroque Cycle Saga is even more enthralling than Quicksilver. Stephenson maintains his storytelling style of exquisite detail, interspersed with quirky, ribald humor and intellectual subtleties. Expanding the domain of action beyond Europe to North Africa and the meso-American colonies, The Confusion surely sets the stage for a resounding conclusion in System of the World. A masterpiece of intertwined storylines, unexpected developments, and personal struggles. ... Read More
Rating: - Watch out for the binding
Maybe I'm quibbling, but I feel like I should warn prospective buyers that the binding on the hardcover version of this book is totally insufficient for its size and length. I'm only 200 pages in (so my rating isn't wholly meaningful, but it's required in order to post a review), and the binding is cracking and the book feels as if it's ready to fall apart. The content is great so far, but the prospective buyer should be forewarned.
Rating: - Confusion in the timeline too
Even Amazon is confused about the numbering in the series. Timeline-wise, Confusion isn't volume 2; it's volume 4. Its characters' lives pick up right after the end of Odalisque, which followed King of the Vagabonds, which followed Quicksilver.
Having said that, the first three books were a good read, as was Cryptonomicon. I look forward to Confusion.
Confused yet?
Rating: - Read the first? Don't give up yet!
So you've read the first, and you can't help noticing that many people quit on the Baroque trilogy at that point. Should you keep going?
I guess it depends. This is a trilogy that is after enormous ideas. Where a straight history would focus on finance or economics or science or math or transportation or politics or power or even the human heart as the driving force behind history, only a novelist could demonstrate dramatically how all of these forces are related and combined and intertwined. ... Read More
Rating: - Confusion
Not as consistent as Quicksilver as I recall the latter. When it was good (as it often was) it was very good, otherwise it was just so so.
- a must for Stephenson fans
- Watch out for the binding
- Confusion
