Missive #485 Published 24 April 2025

Beginning with Into the Darkness , Darkness Descending , and Through the Darkness , bestselling author Harry Turtledove ("The master of alternative history"- Publishers Weekly ) has been telling an epic the story of a world war, comparable to the terrible world wars of our own 20th century, in a world where magic works.

Imagine the drama and terror of the Second World War-only the bullets are beams of magical fire, the tanks are great lumbering beasts, and fighters and bombers are dragons raining fire upon their targets. Welcome to the world of the Derlavaian War, a world that is slowly but surely being conquered, mile by bloody mile, by the forces of the Algarvian empire … forces whose most terrible battle magics are powered by the slaughter of innocent people, the Kaunians, whom Algarve-like much of the world-holds in disdain.

Missive #484 Published 21 April 2025

Richard Sharpe is sent to Copenhagen to deliver a bribe to stop the Danes handing over possession of their battle fleet to the French.

It seems very easy. But nothing is easy in a Europe stirred by French ambitions. The Danes possess a battle fleet that could replace every ship the French lost at Trafalgar, and Napoleon's forces are gathering to take it. The British have to stop them, while the Danes insist on remaining neutral.

Missive #482 Published 19 April 2025

Stories depict the struggle for survival on Earth after it is devastated by war, as mutants prowl the ruins and new powers arise to challenge the survivors.

This is volume number nine in the ten book series. I'll finish the last one soon, they have all been good as short story reads.

Missive #480 Published 16 April 2025

Rome, 799 AD: Pope Leo is viciously attacked in the street by unknown assailants. Sigwulf, a Saxon prince who has been banished to the court of King Carolus in Frankia, is sent to Rome as a spy to discover who was responsible. There, he discovers a web of lies—the only clue to the attackers' identity is an intricate gold buckle, which Sigwulf links with a mysterious gold warrior flagon he finds in the home of the Pope's chamberlain.

his book was the last in the Saxon series and is the last of Severin's books that I have to read. I must say that I liked his fiction better than his nonfiction adventure books although they were very good.

Missive #479 Published 14 April 2025

In this stunning book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"—the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing.