King of the Vagabonds
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I can’t tell if this is just an extension of “while you were away” stories on Jack from the original series, or if it expands the series further in time.
I did find myself wanting MORE even after the 2700-or-so pages of the original series, so I’ll probably be snapping up this measly 400-page tome 
What the…did I forget how to make a spoiler tag? Mods?
Before you get too excited, look at this:
These are all paperbacks bearing the subtitle “The Baroque Cycle”. I’m guessing that the original hardback trilogy is being split up into several more volumes for the paperback editions, but that it’s otherwise the same “Baroque Cycle” that we’ve already read.
Having just been to B&N today to buy the first book in the Baroque Cycle, I do remember seeing both a trade paperback edition (the ones that are something like 8x10) and a smaller mass market edition of the first book. I was puzzled how they could possibly fit what was ~1000 pages in the trade paperback edition into the ~450 pages that were in the mass market. The mass market was subsubtitled “The Baroque Cycle #1” while the trade paperback was subtitled (I think) “Book 1 of The Baroque Cycle”. So there does appear to be a subdivided edition as well.
It would seem the spoiler tag is broken.
Either that or I’ve forgotten how to make them too.
Good for you. Read it all in hardcover, thought it was a downgrade from Cryptonomicon… I personally think splitting it up is a bad move because when there are only 3 books, the thing psychologically looks doable. That, and you buy the book and you are kind of committed to reading the whole thing once you plunk down $25 for it and start reading it. Not so much if you have to plunk down $12 or $15 for 6.
In some senses, it was fun, it was well researched, it was a nice departure. In many, many other ways the man needs an editor. Big time.
Man this spoiler thing not working is like the Rapture of the Church, all secrets revealed and everything, Horn of Gabriel, dogs and cats living together.
Books 4 and 5, which comprise the second volume “The Confusion”, are intertwined. Reading them separately would go against the author’s intent, and anyway I think either one would be incomprehensible on its own. I wonder what they plan to do about that.