Reading

[stoutfellow]

I've recently read a number of interesting books, which I should probably review. As far as fiction goes, they include Lois McMaster Bujold's The Sharing Knife: Beguilement, Julia Spencer-Fleming's All Mortal Flesh, and Robert Charles Wilson's Spin; I also just finished Marcus Rediker's Villains of All Nations, about the golden age of piracy ca. 1720, and am reading H. C. Erik Midelfort's Mad Princes of Renaissance Germany - which is not a mere compendium of eccentricity, but (as far as I can tell, so far) a meaty analysis of the social and political forces involved in the outburst of "mad princes" in the German states in the sixteenth century.

Unfortunately, we're in the stretch drive - two more weeks of classes and a week of finals, and because of my ill-timed sick days I'm a bit behind schedule in my calculus class - so it may be a while before I can write them up.

Comments

[msss.livejournal.com]

Oh! I liked Sprin. It was such an interesting take on Martians. How were the histories? I just read my first biography in ages (Catherine de Medici) last month and was thinking that real history was largely quite sordid.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed Spin overall; Wilson always does a good job with sensawunda, and with how the extraordinary impacts people's lives. (Have you read Darwinia or The Chronoliths?) I have some minor beefs, but I'll hold off on those until I actually review the book.

Villains of All Nations is thought-provoking. It's written from an ideological stance that I don't really agree with, but the argument is challenging. Again, I'll say more when I review it.

It's still too early for me to comment on Mad Princes, but I'm intrigued by it so far.