2017 read #7: The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan.

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan
515 pages
Published 2015
Read from November 17 to November 29
Rating: 4 out of 5

In the preface, Frankopan proclaims his intention to write a history re-centering the world away from Western Europe and the United States, to narrate the history of the world from its long-time axis along the Silk Roads. In practice, however, much of the book explores how Central and Southwestern Asia interacted with -- you guessed it -- Western Europe and the United States. China would seem to be a fairly prominent topic to plumb in a book exploring global history from the vantage of the Silk Roads, but it receives a mere handful of mentions and little in-depth coverage. Africa south of the Sahara gets mentioned barely two or three times. As a "new history of the world," it's somewhat lacking. Which is not to say that The Silk Roads isn't excellent at what it does cover, which is an especially topical and important subject for study, but the statement of intent set out in the preface was misleading.

That's pretty much just a minor quibble. My interests in history tend toward the ancient: I prefer Etruscans over Romans, Minoans over Classical Greeks, the Neolithic over any of those metal-themed eras. Yet Frankopan's prose, and the fascinating subject matter, kept me engrossed long past the too-brief section on late antiquity. I fully expected to check out, mentally, after Franz Ferdinand gets assassinated about three-fifths of the way through the book, but if anything I read the chapters on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries more assiduously than I did what came before, speeding through (in relative terms) the remaining chapters in just three days. The hypocrisies of post-war Western foreign policy -- hallooing about democracy and freedom while propping up tyrants and dictators around the globe -- and the way they led directly to 9/11 and America's clumsy, heedless invasions throughout the region, are explored succinctly and brilliantly. The corresponding rise in Western authoritarianism was, perhaps, not as clearly formed when this book was written; Frankopan makes no mention of it. Yet its seeds are plain in hindsight.

2017 read #6: A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab
400 pages
Published 2015
Read from September 26 to November 16
Rating: 2.5 out of 5

My attention span can sometimes still keep me hooked on a book and reading away at a reasonable pace, but far more often of late is its tendency to evaporate and leave me stranded halfway through something I had once thought interesting. I began reading A Darker Shade of Magic immediately after writing my review for The Refrigerator Monologues, and sped through its first hundred pages that same day. Shade is zippy and pulpy, rarely pausing for breath after the initial work of world-building is done, flinging its heroes pell-mell from one predicament to the next. I love the setting and atmosphere Schwab has constructed -- a strength of her writing, if one may extrapolate from two books. But the central characters -- a moody, conscientious mage; a prickly, ass-kicking rogue; a pair of sadistic evil ruler archetypes with vaguely incestuous overtones -- offer nothing new to a long-time fantasy reader, and the magical peril hunting them through the various Londons rarely feels perilous. Something always turns up, some new ability or inner strength or helpfully apathetic guard always gets them through to the next moment of peril. Mix and repeat until the page count is satisfied.

Sometimes I want nothing more than a fun, atmospheric adventure book where the good guys win and the cheeky rogue flirts with the recuperating prince before realizing her dream to sail the open sea. I would totally play as Lila Bard in a game of D&D. But sometimes such a book can become like Halloween candy: a treat at first, but the days go by and there's so much of it left and you just want a nice yummy salad instead.