bought and read this even though Jordan’s characters, especially the women, don’t change and grow in response to their experiences. They’re still as prejudiced and flat as they were when they were young lads and lasses in a backwoods village.

another excellent installment in the Alternate History of These United States. This particular episode, covering 1920 or so to 1932, is rather a propos: it includes a raging stock market which crashes, and incipient fascism. Trends in this world don’t diverge too much from our own; only the details differ. So we see the rise of fascism in the Confederate States instead of Germany. Given circumstances similar to those in the Weimar Republic, the CSA follows the same path.

now available from the Science Fiction Book Club

I like it. Made me want to read some Shakespeare again. Most things I read make me want to read other things. I suppose that’s normal.

funny stuff. read this in one sitting since it’s so short. It’s billed as a children’s book for adults, or an adult’s book for children, and there are some things that some people might find objectionable, so read it first if you plan to read it to your child.

Finally bought this after reading the individual titles a long time ago, back in the hazy summers of my youth. Once I finish re-reading it, I might have an opinion on it, other than EXCELLENT.

excellent, though I would have edited out some use of the “southern accent” turn of phrase.

Picked up cheap in Beach Haven, NJ

Mr. Turtledove’s alternate history of the world, from a North American perspective, continues to be interesting. However, and this observation applies to the last book as well, the stylistic decision to jump between viewpoints while time progresses begins to drag down the story. I’m interested in all of the characters, but the shifting viewpoints disturb the flow. Or maybe it was that some of the deaths were too predictable.
(And we don’t need to know, yet again, that Sam Carsten will sunburn easily. By this point we know who, and how fair, he is.)

Makes more sense than assuming that a whole population consists only of idiots.

A readable explication of how our built environment got built the way it did—the automobile, and government subsidies in the form of tax incentives, highway funding, and cheap mortgages—and the consequences for the American soul.