Tag: the black chamber

S.M. Stirling’s DAGGERS IN DARKNESS now available!

Go here for the e-book, here for the paperback. I have already read SM Stirling’s DAGGERS IN DARKNESS – in fact, I was one of the first readers for the book, and that was one of the top ten things that I got to do last year* – and if you like the ‘Is this whole thing gonna slide into an Orwellian nightmare?’ alt-history that is the Black Chamber series you will find this latest tale quite diverting. I look forward to future books, even if I don’t get to be a first reader again.

Moe Lane

*It was a tougher contest than normal. I mean, I also self-published four books last year. That’s gonna skew the results.

Book of the Week: The Black Chamber.

It is difficult to write anything about the background to SM Stirling’s The Black Chamber without casually breaking my own rules about not discussing certain topics.  Suffice it to say that, as an introductory book to an action series, it is quite good; plenty of fights and derring-do and super-tech (for 1916) gadgetry and whatnot.  It is also made reasonably clear that this alternate history (Teddy Roosevelt wins in 1912 after Howard Taft has a heart attack) is not quite the Progressive (note capitalization) Earthly Utopia that the heroine thinks that it is; quite a few rather ominous things and societal trends are lightly alluded to, in a way that allows the reader to raise an eyebrow at the implications. I look forward to some interest as to how the next few books in the series turn out, because there are some indications that it’s going to be set in an altogether pleasant world.

Book of the Week: The Black Chamber.

SM Stirling’s The Black Chamber is coming out in a couple of weeks: it’s an alternate history where President Taft suffered a fatal heart attack at just the right moment in 1912 to ensure that Woodrow Wilson would lose ignominiously to Teddy Roosevelt in the Presidential election.  From what I’ve read so far on Stirling’s site, the results from that are going to make a lot of people’s teeth grind. But there are fights on zeppelins and spying against perfidious Imperial Germans and high tech (by 1916 AD standards) and whatnot, so it’s all going to be good, hopefully. I’m looking forward to reading it.