Mad Times

The Hidden Family by Charles Stross

Second book in Stross's Merchant Princes series. In this volume, Miriam begins exploring another alternate world and opening it to commerce while in the other two known alternate Earths various and sundry plots thicken. Miriam continues to be hyper-competent (and hyper-lucky) to a degree that strains credulity. I suspect these books might be enjoyed more by people who are more Economics-geeky than I am. Still, Stross can spin a yarn interestingly enough to keep the pages flipping by. This volume has some nice character building for some of the minor women characters from the first book including quite a few interesting revelations about Miriam's foster mother.