A Certain Random Guy

A rather dull read that feels less like a mystery you are suppose to solve (or, at the very least, follow along with) than Doyle deliberately coming up with overcomplications (the poison pills, the unknowning accomplice, etc) and hiding information for the sake of it (the content of Holmes' telegrams, the detail about the cab horse). Also, cutting away from the story for a multichapter flashback to justify the killer's motives sure is... A choice.

Iron Widow is a feminist scream of rage against the patriarchy within the cockpit of a magical mecha covered in Chinese history references. That rage can for sure be cathartic if you're in the mood for it, and the things surrounding it can be equally entertaining. But I'd be hard pressed to call it amazing or even particularly profound.

A supremely boring read, 60% of it being war stories whose quality shift between mediocre and infantile and whose content is riddled with american jingoism. The remaining 40% is baby's first leadership lessons, the kind I would literally find in cartoons. 

What was at time of publishing an insightful analysis has, as many great books do, become prophetic indictment. It is an expectedly dry read. But worth it for those interested in the subject.

There is one fact about this book that perfectly encapsulates its scope, its goals and the experience of reading it: in a book about a war started in 1618, the starting point is almost a century earlier. It takes, in fact, a third of the book for us to reach the inciting incident of the war.

If all you are looking for is a simple narrative or summary, that should make it clear you must look elsewhere. But if you want a full analysis of all factors that led to, fed into and were caused by the thirty years war, this is required reading.