Just about done with A Voyage Long and Strange, about the discovery of America prior to the Pilgrims; apparently the author hadn't heard of anything between Columbus and the Pilgrims, which I blame on where he grew up and his lack of an education. On the other hand, this book resulted from his effort to fix that, and it's pretty good. I'd heard, of course, of the Vikings, Columbus, and De Soto, but some of the conquistadors were new to me.
Next up we have Unearthing Ancient America and Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America, also part of a friend's belated birthday present. I think she took my interest in pre-Columbian contact and ran with it. These seem to be more, um, non-mainstream than the first book, so we'll see how that'll go. Sometimes those are fun, often not.
After those, I'll've picked up Surrender to the Will of the Night, Glen Cook's third Instrumentalities book. Those are pretty good; it's a rough late Medieval/early Renaissance-era Europe pastiche that's entering an ice age, with a pseudo-janissary as the primary viewpoint character who figured out how mortals can actually kill the small gods/spirits/demons around them. This series reminds me more of the Dread Empire books than the Black Company or Garrett books.
After that, I'm out. I need some decent paperbacks that I can tuck comfortably into my coat pocket. The current book fits, but just barely. I might go for the most recent Caiphas Cain omnibus, and I may check out Michael Stackpole's new colonial fantasy series; I didn't like his most recent series, but he's generally good.
Brad
