Epic doesn’t begin to describe it. The Confusion’s story-line literally circles the globe!

The Confusion is the second of three volumes in Stephenson’s Baroque Trilogy. I wrote about the first volume, Quicksilver almost a year ago. The final volume in my 3,000 page adventure is The System of the World.

This second volume contains Book 4: Bonanza which details Half-Cocked Jack Shaftoe’s exploits as well as Book 5: The Juncto which follows Eliza. In the interest of making the plot less confusing, Stephenson con-fused book 4 and 5 so they followed the same chronology. It worked. The moment when these two books first cross paths was electrifying!

As with Quicksilver, the number of topics covered was very broad. The most interesting idea for me was the shift from a society where money equals the value of the gold or silver the ruler’s face is stamped on to a system where something of lesser value can stand in place of a greater amount. Today we take it for granted—the polymer $10 Canadian bill in my wallet is worth less than a cent in raw material, but it’s much more valuable. Imagine living in the generation that made that transition—this is precisely what Stephenson does.

The Confusion was less confusing and a good deal more compelling than Quicksilver. I eagerly await the final three books in The System of the World.

—Neal Stephenson, The Confusion (New York: Harper Perennial, 2004).