3.25 stars?
I found this second volume of the trilogy more engaging than the first, but I'm still underwhelmed. Stephenson indulges in so much detail. He has obviously done a pile of research and is determined that the reader knows about it. At least this volume spent more page time on my preferred characters, Eliza and Jack.
This is a real round-the-world tour, as Jack Shaftoe and his Cabal go to places as diverse as Egypt, India, the Philippines, China, Japan, and Mexico. Circumstances are never easy for Jack and he is forever having to plot and plan his way out of one scrape or another. Eliza doesn't get everything her own way either. She deals with financial schemes with élan, but must deal with smallpox, raise several children (one of whom is abducted), and convince the men around her that they should follow her advice. They are both the worse for wear when they see one another again briefly.
I had to interlibrary loan this and will have to do the same with the third volume. It will have to wait a while, but I foolishly hope to get to it before the end of the year.
Book Number 466 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project
I found this second volume of the trilogy more engaging than the first, but I'm still underwhelmed. Stephenson indulges in so much detail. He has obviously done a pile of research and is determined that the reader knows about it. At least this volume spent more page time on my preferred characters, Eliza and Jack.
This is a real round-the-world tour, as Jack Shaftoe and his Cabal go to places as diverse as Egypt, India, the Philippines, China, Japan, and Mexico. Circumstances are never easy for Jack and he is forever having to plot and plan his way out of one scrape or another. Eliza doesn't get everything her own way either. She deals with financial schemes with élan, but must deal with smallpox, raise several children (one of whom is abducted), and convince the men around her that they should follow her advice. They are both the worse for wear when they see one another again briefly.
I had to interlibrary loan this and will have to do the same with the third volume. It will have to wait a while, but I foolishly hope to get to it before the end of the year.
Book Number 466 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project
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