Rating: 
Summary: Your patience during Quicksilver is rewarded
Review: After an uneven, but good read in Quicksilver, I entered The Confusion with high hopes and a little trepidation. As I suspected, my patience with the meandering of Quicksilver was richly rewarded with the Baroque Cycle's ripping middle installment. The Confusion is a great book and tremendously fun.
I think summarizing the plot of an 800 page novel would be futile, and better done on the novel's official website. But the return of Jack Shaftoe in Bonanza (one of the two books which comprise The Confusion) has to be one of the great seagoing adventures of all time. From the Barbary Coast, to Egypt, Hindustan, Japan, across the Pacific and beyond he is the everyman of 17th century nautical calamity. If a difficulty could be visited upon a traveler, Jack gets it. I keep thinking of examples to throw out, but the action set pieces are so well done and so riveting you will just have to take my word - Bonanza is as butt kicking an action adventure as you will find.
Jack's adventuring is interspersed chronologically with Eliza's intellectual maneuverings in The Confusion's other book - Juncto. Her political and economic ascendance undergoes horrible setbacks and personal devastation. In Quicksilver, Eliza came off as somewhat cold and manipulative and she was not entirely appealing as a heroine. The Confusion humanizes her and gets you pulling for Eliza to escape the Byzantine web of French and English politics.
The Confusion uses the same speculative fiction elements as Quicksilver - examining past technologies through a temporal lens as if they were state of the art. Instead of some retroviral nerve agent, they have phosphorus. Instead of hackers they have cryptologists. This is technologically driver fiction of the highest order - fascinating, informative and fun. You just have to use your mind (it is fiction folks) and imagine when calculus was a radical intellectual development.
The Confusion is a compelling story, deftly connecting the threads from Quicksilver and leading us to what will certainly be an exciting conclusion. Somewhat muted in The Confusion is Daniel Waterhouse and Natural Philosophy, but I suspect The System of the World will deal with both. If you had complaints about pacing and lack of action in Quicksilver, I can see your point but give The Confusion a chance anyway.
Rating:
Summary: No "Middle-Book Woes" Here
Review: After the apparent choppiness of "Quicksilver" I was a bit worried that "The Confusion" would fall prey to the same unevenness of the first book of the trilogy. I was also worried that this novel could suffer from the same fate as many middle books of trilogies. Fortunately, I found "The Confusion" to be a much more engaging read than "Quicksilver," and some of the revelations within have caused me to reevaluate my prior assessment of the former book. A lot of the cryptic occurrances in "Quicksilver" are unravelled somewhat here, and the stage is well set for the final book of the trilogy.Stephenson's style has developed a depth and density over the years, and while it is my opinion that "Cryptonomicon" is currently the novel that exemplifies the balance of depth and entertainment the best (so far), I will not be surprised if time proves this trilogy to have an even more lasting effect in the mind's eye than any of his prior works. Given the popular and critical acclaim of the aforementioned novel, that's high praise indeed!
Rating:
Summary: Confusion Rules
Review: Confusion is both the second volume in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle and also the best. It takes off right where its predecessor volume, Quicksilver, ended. Stephenson's late 17th Century setting is a most complicated place where cryptography is one of the most important endeavors. There is also a great deal of emphasis on the science of the period. In many ways, the reader feels totally immersed in the 1690's. Since this is the middle book in a projected trilogy, The Confusion does not offer any closure on the various and sundry plot strands. However, it is very well done and as such is worth the time that the reader invests in it.
Rating:
Summary: Haiku Review
Review: Dance the dance of
A thousand red flamingos.
Butter your toast well.
Rating:
Summary: Much better than Quicksilver
Review: For those of you who did not enjoy Quicksilver, try this one. I struggled to finish Quicksilver, sometimes re-reading the same paragraphs again and again, trying to focus, wondering if what I was reading was important to the story or not. However, The Confusion is a rollicking adventure mixed with wonderful historical trivia and sly references to future terminology (batna, anyone?), and I could not put it down. I laughed out loud in several places. This novel does require your full attention - it's not light reading - but the rewards are immense.
Rating:
Summary: Delivers on Quicksilver's promise
Review: I am a huge fan of Neal Stephenson's book "Cryptonomicon", which now serves as a sort of introduction to the Baroque Cycle. That being said, I was a bit disappointed in Quicksilver, Volume One of the Baroque Cycle. The tome resembled Cryptonomicon so closely (same author, same size, same character families) that I could not help but get my hopes up for another such read. Instead I found it dry and difficult to finish, where Cryptonomicon had been a fantastic page turner. Then I read The Confusion. Now I think I understand. Quicksilver is not to be compared to Cryptonomicon, but to the first third of Cryptonomicon, which (I seem to remember) was a little hard to get through. It is the beginning of the story where the author is planting the seeds for later developments. The Baroque Cycle is twelve books, or three volumes (of which The Confusion is the second), or countless stories, but it is one read. The Confusion is the part of the read where things start getting really, really good, and if I know Neal Stephenson, the satisfaction will only continue to escalate in volume three. If you have already made it through Quicksilver, then you have arrived. Treat yourself and read this book... er.. volume.
Rating: 
Summary: Big, ambitious and disappointing
Review: I am intriqued by thick books. That said this is, like the first in the proposed trilogy, terribly overwritten. Half as long and it would have been a much better reading experience. Stephenson digress to the point of becoming annoying. Much of these digressions are completely irrelevant. Part Sci-fi, part mystery, part historical - the author seemed unable to make up his mind and that ruined the experience. Bigger is just not better in this case, in fact it is to the detriment of the work. Better, more thorough editing is needed. Stephenson is trying too hard to impress with his ability to write, and write, and write - but the result is a lot of words, but not nearly enough substance. Plotting is all over the place, the characters are cardboard and pedestrian, and trying to pretend his characters are better prognosticators of future technological developments than Nostradamus is just too much to accept.
Rating:
Summary: Again, wow
Review: I dove into 'The Confusion' roughly ten minutes after finishing 'Quicksilver,' and found it to be, if anything, even better than its predecessor. I'd credit several things for this.
One, Stephenson has done a bit more to weave his assorted stories and characters together. Instead of three monolithic chunks, standing, sort of, alone, he's broken the two main stories into pieces and interwoven them. It's a stylistic choice that I approve of, and it makes it a bit easier to keep up with what's going on. Two, the book seems a bit more directed. The plot certainly meanders, but it has a bit more urgency to it. And the overarching theme of the book - i. e. many Intersting Occurences in The 17th Century - seems a bit more focused. (I'd personally make the claim that Stephenson is staring to relate all the Interesting Occurences to, possibly, information theory, but I'll hold off until the trilogy's over). Three, Stephenson's characters are incredibly compelling - another 800 pages spent with them only increases this (and for fans of 'The Cryptonomicon,' there are, I believe at least two more ancestors of characters from that work introduced here). In a nutshell, this is quite an amazing book. Like its ppredecessor, it works on a number or levels, not the least as a pageturning swashbuckler. If you enjoyed 'Quicksilver,' you'll certainly enjoy this. If you found yourself strugglinh a bit with 'Quicksilver,' give 'The Confusion' a try anyway - you might find it to be a bit easier going. I'm not sure what my final verdict on the trilogy as a whole will be - looks like an anxious 4 months for me - but, so far, it looks as if this is shaping up to be something profoundly good.
Rating:
Summary: Let's get back to the good stuff
Review: I genuinely hope Neal Reads this......
Look, it's simple, MORE SNOW CRASH.
end of comments.
Rating:
Summary: VERY GOOD BOOK AND DOOR STOP TOO
Review: I LOVE this book. SO much that I am cheating and writing this before I finish it, but that way I can't reveal the end point ? I am reading it slow, leaving it home when I go out but I want to be reading it now. It's that kinda book, you don't want it to end. But JOY ! NS is writing the third of the tri even now. For those who did not like the previous book in the series may I suggest you do not read this ? I have serious problems with your taste in books.
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