The Confusion (by Neal Stephenson): Just finished, and thought it was excellent. I thought Cryptonomicon was fantastic; Quicksilver was quite good, and worth reading, but not nearly up to the level of Cryptonomicon. The Confusion was a good deal better than Quicksilver (though not quite as good as Cryptonomicon), and definitely worth the time and the money. It also makes Quicksilver work better in retrorespect; I expect that the entire trilogy — Quicksilver, The Confusion, and the forthcoming System of the World — will work much better if one reads them together (all 2500-odd pages, if one has the patience) than if one reads them separately.

     I wasn’t wild about all aspects of The Confusion — the last 100 pages or so didn’t work as well for me as the rest did, and there are a few too many reversals of fortune in Jack Shaftoe’s story to be really credible. I still like the Eliza and the Daniel Waterhouse / Leibniz / other scientists sections more than the Jack Shaftoe sections. But Jack Shaftoe sane works better for me than Jack Shaftoe crazy; and on balance the book was an excellent read.