The Confusion - Neal Stephenson

The Confusion is volume 2 of The Baroque Cycle, containing books 4 and 5. It can't be read alone, well it could but I really wouldn't recommend it, as the cycle is one long story.

I read Quicksilver a while ago and loved it, but having been putting off reading the remaining two volumes due to their sheer size, each one is 800+ pages in hard back format.

But I've finished The Confusion relatively quickly, because I thought it was great. I think it is more focussed than Quicksilver and benefits from that. The one book is mainly about Eliza's adventures, focussed in France, the other books is Jacks amazing journey and adventure.

By now I know what the score is, I'm no longer waiting for a single coherent plot. It's bigger than that. It's like living in the 17th century, there are plots but they come and go and intertwine. It's peoples lives we are reading about, adventures, politics, science, economics. Everything that shaped our world today.

It's really quite brilliant and nearly impossible to describe.

I'm itching to read the last volume.