I am reading (and finishing this time!) the Wheel of Time and I was just all Robert Jordan'd out by book six. I thought I would take a breather between six and seven and asked myself "who is the female equivalent of Robert Jordan?" For some reason Mercedes Lackey came to mind.
I think I have read two of her Elemental novels previously. As a young man I found her pacing to be frustrating and her insistence on detail tiring. I was also annoyed how most of the stories (both those read and from the jacket cover) seemed to involve her finding love in some way while she solves a problem.
Maybe I am just getting old, but I think I enjoyed this book more than I enjoyed her other two novels. I guess I am getting to that Neal Stephenson point in my life were I enjoy going down wikipedia holes when I am exposed to things that I don't recognize. I make no claims to the accuracy of any of it, but I enjoyed looking up all this Regency stuff. "upstairs" and "downstairs". The different type of maids and serving staff. The coupons or whatever they were paying as their form of treasury bonds. 3%, is that a reasonable rate, did this period not have much inflation? Coupons went down to 1/10th their previous value, how thin is this market for that big a spread? How important were calling cards in this time? Did people actually say things like "We are visiting Tuesday and Thursday, we are at home to receive guess Monday and Wednesday?" How much did social status influence business opportunity? Would their behavior (and social status) effect the sort of success that James would have? Did James need them their to cement him socially (necessary for entering business)? There were just so many fun things to kind of look up as you read this, I was genuinely entertained.
A lot of the focus was on dresses and sewing. It is a weird economy if you think about it. It seemed like materials were relatively cheap and most labor was relatively inexpensive. And yet somehow some aspect of dressmaking was expensive enough to potentially beggar some of the lesser nobs. I'm a little nebulous on exactly where the expensive parts of the dressmaking came into play. Amelia and Serena were both quite good with needle and thread, and this was seen as a great economy, but was it? Was the ability to sew and do needlework actually the important thing (a sort of mark of good breeding); maybe it wasn't the economy of being able to do it yourself so much as the distinction of being able to do it that mattered?
It all seems a little ridiculous. But I am currently living in a world where housing has absorbed a ridiculous amount of the world's capital and a Ford F150 can cost more than $60k, so who am I to judge conspicuous consumption?
Anywho, I've been rambling too long. But I enjoyed looking things up as I read this and that's good enough for me.