Historically, if I started a book, I finished it, and I'd only read one book at a time. This led to a huge backlog of books, when I'd run into a book that I had to slog through. My wife, when we were dating, challenged that behavior, especially in view of the titanic pile of books waiting to be read, and I agreed with her. Nowadays, if I'm not enjoying a book, I just stop, because I have so many that I do enjoy that I haven't gotten to yet.

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I've often found that it's just a case of the right book at the wrong time. If I abandon a book I usually keep it around and go back to it later. Sometimes years later. Sometimes it takes two or three attempts, but then, finally, the time is right, and I whiz through the book and just love it!

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I've done that with a few books, but some of these I suspect that the time was fifteen years ago, or fifty, and the time to read it has passed. Besides, it's not like the world lacks for other reading matter!

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Marching Through Georgia was the first Stiling book that I read, and I rather liked it. Under The Yoke was a sort of brutal smack in the face, and I didn't really like The Stone Dogs, or Drakon.

The Island in the Sea of Time series was wonderful and I also really liked the related series he is writing.

But you have to like Alternate Histories to enjoy Stirling.

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See, I've liked Turtledove's alternate histories, or at least some of them, but most of the other ones I've read just stop me cold. Too many assumptions, or something too unrealistic. I don't know what it was about Marching, but it just rubbed me wrong, and I dumped it.

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