I Read Books: 1610, A Sundial In A Grave

In (of course) 1610 duellist and agent Valentin Rochefort accidently gets the King of France assassinated. Fleeing the country in the company of his rival, who he cannot bear but to be humiliated by, they pick up a shipwrecked samurai and head for London. There they are intercepted by Robert Fludd, a philosopher and student of Giordano Bruno, who has perfected a form of mathematics than enables him to predict the future. In order to save the world Fludd requires Rochefort to kill James I, King of England (and Scotland).

Things get weird and complicated from there. Also a bit kinky.

The story weaves in and out of history, posing various strange questions – how do you find someone who can predict what you will do today? Sadly the answers are not so interesting. Instead the characters stagger from various locations to others, wearing strange clothes, doing odd things, getting in fights, making their relationships needlessly complicated, and then needfully so.

But it's still a cool book.


Read This: For a clever, strange and thought-provoking historical science fiction novel
Don’t Read This: If 17th century occultism is of no interest, or you want clear and straightforward characters or plots.