It seems to have taken stock of Joseph de la Vega's. Where Book 1: 'Quicksilver' dealt primarily with Isaac Newton and Daniel Waterhouse, King of the Vagabonds centers around the adventures of 'Half-Cocked' Jack Shaftoe*, Doctor Leibniz, and Eliza. Stephenson continues his Quicksilver Volume with Book 2: King of the Vagabonds. These moments seemed to come to Jack every few days.' 'Jack had been presented with the opportunity to be stupid in some, way that was much more interesting than being shrewed would've been. I totally recommend this for Historical Fiction lovers everywhere. I think I might have enjoyed this one even more than the first book in the Cycle, but only in terms of pure adventure and sneakily introduced economics, medicine, and a good idea about how the REST of the world lived during these times.

This might as well be a Masters course in history if it hadn't been written so excitingly and humorously. What makes this special is not only the characters, which are a serious hoot but the amount of research and a perfect inclusion of real history and events on a scale I've never before seen. Jack doesn't really have the ear of anyone, let alone a king, but what he does have is a talent for getting into the biggest messes. Include spies, a huge political intrigue, hanging out with all the lower sorts, and enough scrapes, tosses, and near-death experiences for any taste.

Part two of the first Cycle takes a huge departure from the first book that mainly revolved around science and a richly detailed England to follow Jack, the self-styled King of the Vagabonds in this traveling adventure around all of Europe in the late sixteen-hundreds.

King of the vagabonds neal stephenson