SO I FINISHED STEVE STIRLING’S Black Chamber (A Novel of an Alternate World War) recently, and I quite enjoyed it. It’s alt-history, where the difference is that Taft dies in office of a heart attack — not a stretch — and winds up replaced by Teddy Roosevelt, as we head into World War One. As you might expect, Teddy is more forceful than Woodrow Wilson, among other things.

I agree with this from the Wall Street Journal review: “As a spy thriller, ‘Black Chamber’ stacks up with the old classics of Kipling and John Buchan. As sci-fi, it comes off as terribly plausible, with Tom Clancy-like mastery of old weapons and potential ones.” If I have a complaint, it’s that the world he’s created was interesting enough that I would have liked to see more of it. But that’s what sequels are for.

Speaking of which, I’d still like to see a sequel to Conquistador, which I recently reread and enjoyed.