After I posted this and John came home and we chatted a bit (he hasn’t finished the book yet, since he so generously allowed me to take it away with me for the weekend), so many other aspects of the book worth discussing came to mind that I felt ashamed of publishing such a slight, shallow post. So, caveat lector: the above is very incomplete and only touches upon the strongest impressions I had after finishing.

RE: the Zephyr. The Zephyr’s traditional route was through Cheyenne, Wyoming, and as I used to live there, I rode that train a few times (eastbound, to Chicago) when I was a child, before it was rerouted. The train was originally operated by the Western Pacific and Denver and Rio Grande railways, and began service in 1949. I rode it in the early Amtrak years of the 1970s, in the old dome cars and vista lounge cars that had always been part of that train. This, too, appears in the train scenes in Looking Glass.

The Reno stop was a work of fiction, by contrast.

-JRS

The train content really caught my eye because I was actually riding the California Zephyr back from Chicago at the time I read it. I’ve become a bit of a wistful fanatic about rail travel, as you can see from earlier posts. I was really digging your vision of future improvements to the system. 4 hours into Nevada! If only!

I regret that I didn’t think to include in this review how very impressed and happy I am to know that Looking Glass began life in National Novel Writing Month. I’m a vocal defender of the event, and it tickles me to no end to see a book go from NaNoWriMo draft to commercial publication.