Book-A-Day #24 (8/10): The Sky People by S.M. Stirling

An upcoming novel I read for the SFBC, so I shouldn't talk much about it.

It does have a neat setup: the first probes of Mars and Venus in the early '60s revealed planets remarkably like pulp SF -- planets not only inhabitable, but inhabited by humans (and, in the case of Venus, also dinosaurs and warlike Neanderthals). This has led to some interesting (if fairly predictable) alternate-historical changes, and a Cold War ranging over three planets.

This is my first Stirling novel, and I think I personally like my retro-futures a bit less straightforward and more rococo in style (like Colin Greenland's Harm's Way), but mine is a minority taste. This book is a lot of fun, and I expect it will be widely enjoyed. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this series became his most popular work (over the Draka novels and the Island in the Sea of Time trilogy) in the fullness of time; it's that appealing and adventurous and wide-open for storytelling.