Stopped by the library today. I returned my Jack the Ripper books. I figure I get them again as I get closer to the con and need to bear down on my scenario writing. I also returned Songs of Earth & Power. It wasn't doing much for me. I'm not sure if it was my general annoyance at most forms of fiction or maybe the fact that it was starting to look like umpteen chapters of learn-about-this-strange-new-world-and-the-heros-secret-inner-powers. Given that this novel was over 500 pages long, that sort of crap could go on a very long time before the hero actually starts to do something.

I checked out two other books, both history books. The first is Queen Victoria's Little Wars by Byron Farwell. I figured it'd be chock full of imperialistic adventures of old. The second book I got is The Franco-Prussian War: Germany's Rise As A World Power by Irving Werstein. I'm already onto page eighty of this puppy. Its a good light read. I first got interested in the Franco-Prussian War because Martin Gilbert indicated in his book The First World War that the Franco-German animosity leading up to WWI had its roots in this earlier conflict. Interestingly enough, one of the first things mentioned in Werstein's book is that the seeds of the Franco-Prussian war were sown in the 30 Years War. Looks like I'll be needing to find a book on that war now.