Tibet Akan Akan itibaren Matheniko, Uganda itibaren Matheniko, Uganda

I bought this at the school book store, read the first part on Commodities and Money. I read Capital on those mornings when I get up early to fish, except never make it outside, so not making much of a profit with no fish. The next best thing to making a living is reading about Capital, although the book is really a tragedy and makes me sad.

This is my favorite of the books set in the world of New Amsterdam so far. Chronologically, it takes place after New Amsterdam and before Seven for a Secret, and if you haven't read any of the books yet, I would read them in chronological order as opposed to the order in which they were published. Once of my favorite things about this series is the world in which it is set, and this book gives us a fascinating glimpse into the Russia of this world, especially Moscow and its environs. There are actually two story-lines occurring, one set after the events of New Amsterdam, and one set about six years prior (I forget the exact number, but it was before Sebastian traveled to New Amsterdam), and they are linked together. It was sometimes a bit confusing as the book jumped back and forth between them, but the fact that they were set in different seasons helped a lot. I found the descriptions of the cold of the Russian winter to be especially vivid - brrrrrr. I'm looking forward to the next story.

This was not my favorite short story collection in SF, and I found many of the stories to not really be funny at all, leaving me wondering why they were included. It has a some great names writing in it (Robert Silverberg, Harry Turtledove, David Brin, Harr Harrison, Spider Robinson, Joe Haldeman, but the choice of stories fails the title entirely.