Month 51: Alternate alternate history

Month 51 of 260 (19.62 percent)

Size of list: 91,167 pages (17.22 percent above start)

Pages read: 25,976 (28.49 percent)

H-list: 7,391/23,922 (30.9 percent)

N-list: 10,031/37,308 (26.89 percent)
O-list: 8,554/29,937 (28.57 percent)
Reading: A Fire Upon the Deep
Added: This Is How You Lose the Time War  
Finished: A Crown of Swords, The Man in the High Castle

Look, when one thing is inside another is inside another, that's not Inception. That's not what the movie meant by Inception. It's meta, or it's nesting. But the movie Inception was clear that the word inception is about the creation of an idea, and that the target had to be fooled into thinking the idea was his. 

I bring this up because The Man in the High Castle is an alternate history in which the United States lost World War II, but it features an alternate history in which the United States won World War II. It's not as trippy as you might hope, but it is interesting. It takes place mainly in Japanese-controlled San Francisco and what's left of independent United States around Denver. It's entertaining, and leaves enough unresolved that I can see how a TV series was made out of it.

A Crown of Swords was more entertaining than the last couple Wheel of Time books, but had so many pages that were just skimmable. Seriously, it could have been cut down to like a third of what it is with no real loss. It focused on two groups of characters. The young Aes Sedai searched for a magical bowl, and Rand ... I dunno, conquered some places, I guess. My plan was to read two of these books a year, but I couldn't bring myself to read any until too late in the year to read more than one. I will finish! Seven down, seven to go!

Month 50: Rivoluzione

Month 50 of 260 (19.23 percent)

Size of list: 90,624 pages (16.52 percent above start)

Pages read: 25,293 (27.91 percent)

H-list: 7,157/23,922 (29.92 percent)

N-list: 9,777/36,960 (26.45 percent)
O-list: 8,359/29,742 (28.11 percent)
Reading: A Crown of Swords
Finished: Tigana

The setting of Tigana is unmistakably fantasy Italy. It's rotated upside-down, it's called the Palm instead of the boot, and it has nothing in common with the real Italy of the 1400s except that it's divided into various principalities. One of those principalities fought against an invader, lost, and was punished. Tigana is about the survivors of that punishment, and their fight for their land. It's an unusual fantasy, in that there's no claim to be fighting for the king, only for the country, and it becomes literally for the identity of the country, since the invading army's leader, a powerful sorcerer, uses his magic to erase the country's name.
For all that, the story is really about the characters, from the band of rebels to the rival sorcerers occupying the Palm. Their personalities are vivid, drawn through dialogue, inner thoughts and choices under pressure. It's hard not to cheer for them, and that helps make the novel compelling. I highly recommend it, and I look forward to reading some more Guy Gavriel Kay.