Review: A Short History of Europe (by Simon Jenkins)

This book was  gift, and one I was very interested to read. How did it do, covering the history of a continent within just 300 pages?

Very well, in short.

There are some obvious drawbacks. By necessity, such an undertaking has to skimp on details, but this is compensated for by placing in a broader context various events and adding depth through this method rather than by a closer focus.

There are some minor errors or areas of contention (such as describing Aachen as Charlemagne’s capital) but these do not alter the meaning or fundamentally change anything. 

As might be expected due to both proximity and the greater amount of information available there is more page space devoted to more recent events while those of the dim past are quickly covered. By page 100 (a third in) we’re already up to the Renaissance. Much the contents were familiar to me, but quite a lot was new, and the writing style made the history effortless to read and (as happens occasionally) I did deliberately slow down so as to not just blast through it. 

Necessarily, modern politics is contentious and the book (published four years ago) includes the ever so slightly polarising topic of the UK leaving the EU. I was pleased to find the author took what I found to be an objective stance on this, raising both the advantages and disadvantages of how Europe sought to cope after WWII, and the great problem (as I also see it) of a lack of democratic consensus which needs addressing one way or another.

The nature of the beast is such that the pace must be swift and the historical events covered in broad strokes but I nevertheless found it a highly engaging book and well worth reading.

 

Thaddeus

Returning to Tales of the Ketty Jay (four book series), by Chris Wooding

I did an individual ‘returning’ blog of the first entry (Retribution Falls) to see whether that book lived up to my lofty memories, and was delighted it did so.

While also reading other things at the same, I opted to finish off the entire four part series, and it’s fantastic to renew my acquaintance with a story that remains every bit as engaging and fun as it was the first time I read it.

Although this is a series review I’ll do my best to minimise spoilers and just give an overall picture.

The story follows Darian Frey, captain of the Ketty Jay, and his crew of freebooters and misfits. A spot of drunkenness, a dash of drug abuse, and a few very dark secrets pepper the plot. Some of these are critical for personal character stories (every crew member gets at least a little development) or affect the plot itself. There’s a plausible realism to the needling between various characters (poor old Harkins gets teased a lot, and the idiot Pinn is routinely mocked). 

Because the series is only four books there’s enough space for developing the cast and moving along the world (the crew are involved in some pretty significant events) but not so much it ever gets bloated. The story moves along quickly for the most part but isn’t afraid to take its time when called for, and while I wished there had been more to read that’s a sign the author made a smart call rather than returning to the well until it ran dry.

The setting is a fictional, steampunk world in which airships have two engines, one using aerium for lift and another set burning standard fuel for propulsion. The war between Vardia and Samarla ended recently, with the ‘Sammies’ lacking much aerium but otherwise a menacing threat. We learn stuff from inference and plot-relevant conversation which helps paint a much broader world, though details are not info-dumped. Frey and company are mostly Vardians, but his engineer is the taciturn Silo, a former slave from Samarla.

There’s a fair amount of violence, and while there’s frisky time that’s mostly implied and forms a hazy watercolour rather than being explicit. There’s a lot of humour throughout which works very well indeed, sometimes in direct jokes between characters, sometimes by shifting the perspective to an imbecile and offering a moron’s view of the world. All the characters have their flaws, and their talents, and it both humanises them and makes for better interactions and storytelling.

 

In short, I had very fond memories of Tales of the Ketty Jay and the series more than lived up to them. I can’t recommend them enough.

 

I’ve got the four books in physical form but upon checking you can buy the series as a single e-book from Amazon. I’d advocate downloading the sample for that (which should be sizeable) just to check it’s up your street, and then buying it. The last book is just shy of 500 pages, the first is around 450, so the whole lot is around 2,000 pages.

 

Thaddeus