One of my all time favorite books!
Bobby Shaftoe is a riot!
When he runs around screaming "Abandon SHIT, Abandon SHIT...!" after the ship he was on crashed into Norway I laughed so hard I actually came close to passing out from lack of air...
You’d probably like Stephenson’s “Quicksilver/Baroque” trilogy as well then.
The ancestors of the characters in Crypto are there except for the mysterious Root guy, who, I think is the same guy in both tales.