The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle,
Vol. 2) by Neal Stephenson
Every Bit As Good As The First Book
In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves -- including one Jack
Shaftoe, aka King of the Vagabonds, aka Half-Cocked Jack -- devises a
daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues -- a
perilous race for an enormous prize of silver ... nay, gold ... nay, legendary
gold.
In Europe, the exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, is
stripped of her immense personal fortune by Frances 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.
Meanwhile, Newton and Leibniz continue to propound their grand theories
as their infamous rivalry intensifies, stubborn alchemy does battle with the
natural sciences, dastardly plots are set in motion ... and Daniel

Waterhouse seeks passage to the Massachusetts colony in hopes of
escaping the madness into which his world has descended.
This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book,
including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
Personal Review: The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 2) by
Neal Stephenson
Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy/Series is considered one of the great
science-fiction collections ever written, forming the basis of countless
derivative and inspired works over the past fifty years. The Baroque Cycle
will not, unfortunately, inspire fifty years of copycats, for a unique reason: it
would be far too difficult to undertake with even moderate effort. This is a
nine-book/ three-volume masterpiece of historical fiction that really has no
peer in my experience (and please comment if you find any!)
As an aside, I could, at length, review each of the nine books and prattle
on endlessly about this or that, but that's far too many reviews for what I
intend to say about the Cycle as a whole. My comments apply to all books
equally.
The cycle begins in the mid 17th century and spans the adulthood of one
Daniel Waterhouse, a fictional contemporary of Isaac Newton. Of course, it
also traces the life of one Jack Shaftoe, a fictional hero with his roots in
every pirate story ever written or filmed. And then there's the mysterious
Enoch Root, popping up again from the Cryptonomicon to move things
along as the deux ex machina of certain story elements.
The number of interleaved story lines would be an impressive enough feat
of writing, but the historical references were simply amazing. The sheer
amount of research Mr. Stephenson invested for the Cycle must have
been enormous. In short, Mr. Stephenson describes London before,
during, and after the Great Fire of 1666 politically, sociologically,
geographically, architecturally, and economically; he performs the same
rigor of place-setting with Hanover and present-day Germany, Paris and
present-day France, diverse parts of Egypt, Algeria, India, Mexico, South
America, and Boston. This is the kind of book series that would inspire
high-school students to PAY ATTENTION. For, if the students really do
their homework and have a teacher partnered with them to put the book
details into their proper context, you could quite possible craft an entire
school year around the nine books, such is the depth and breadth of
scholastic research involved in putting together such a series. It's no small
achievement or idle boast: Mr. Stephenson has in some way taken his
education and put it to its greatest use, as an inspiration to students.
All of this would be for naught if the stories weren't truly excellent at their
core, and they are. You could boil down the Shaftoe story line to "pirate
story" but that sells it short after the first book -- and there are eight more
to go. What starts as a pirate story quickly become something of a

precursor to spycraft and terrorism/counter-terrorism in the 17th and 18th
centuries: currency manipulation, political scandals, and assassinations. I
haven't even mentioned Isaac Newton versus Gottfried Leibniz in the battle
for Calculus, or Isaac Newton's Alchemy, the reconstruction of London
post-fire, the gold trade, the silver trade, piracy in the Atlantic and Pacific,
the timber economy, the commodities exchange of northern Europe, the
court at Versailles, and so on. I'm astonished as I write this.
This is well-worth the time invested to read, as a Cycle. If Mr. Stephenson
ever posted his complete bibliography, or if some doctoral student ever
decided to craft that two-semester, eight-course class tracing the book's
scholarship, I would be among the first to delve deeply into it and re-learn
my forgotten history, mathematics, and economics. Simply, this is one of
the finest fiction series ever written.
-Fred
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