On Recent Reading

What have I been reading?

I’ve been on a Revolutionary War kick of late. Or at least, of that era. Currently atop the desk–Redcoats and Rebels, by Christopher Hibbert, which offers a British perspective on the conflict. Also recently read, General Howe’s Dog, by Caroline Tiger, about, besides General Howe’s Dog (obviously), the battle of Germantown.

I’ve also been working my way through Ahistory, Lance Parkin’s exhaustive chronology of Doctor Who in its multimedia incarnations. Every page has at least a dozen interesting somethings about the Doctor and his universe. The book is nothing short of impressive.

And just for fun, I’ve been working on Edison’s Conquest of Mars, by Garrett P. Serviss. ECoM is the unauthorized sequel to H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, published in a Boston newspaper in 1898 (just weeks after their unauthorized serialization of Wells’ novel–copyright laws were somewhat more lax a century ago). Serviss has an interesting hook for his story–Thomas Edison reverse engineers the Martian war machines and builds a space fleet so Earth can invade Mars before the Martians can launch a second, victorious attack on Earth. It’s sluggish reading in the sense that, as a newspaper serialization, the book is incredibly repetitive, and the writing hasn’t aged particularly well. It’s interesting as a curiosity.