In my book shuffling, I made a mistake that I corrected once I started reading and my eyes crossed "Kublai Khan." "Kublai," I said to myself, with my mastery of Mongolian historical chronology and the biology of human reproduction, "came after Genghis. That's how it is with grandsons." I took a look at the second book, and sure enough, that was the book set in the time of Genghis. So even though it messed with my plan of how the tone of the reading should progress, I switched the order of the first two books. I'm not sure how much difference it is really going to make to tone, as the vampire St. Germain seems to be a good vampire. So the new reading order is
1. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Path of the Eclipse, the tale of a Chinese female Warlord and a good Europoean vampire in the context of Chinese resistance to Temujin's invading Mongolian horde.
2. Avram Davidson and his wife Grania Davis' Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty, which tells the tale of the quest that Polo must undertake for Kublai Khan before he can depart the fantasy Khanate for his Venetian home.
I am already into Yarbro's book, and I hope that its TOR Horror imprint indicates that the Halloween spirit won't be ruined by presence of a good vampire as a major character.
