reprisal

I ended up ditching Turtledove's Legion of Videssos for a non-fiction book by Resa Aslan called No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam. I'm about half-way through the book now, and it's eye-opening. Easily the best book I've yet read about the Islamic world (and I've read The Middle East by Bernard Lewis) because of the way it's written and presented, the author is truly talented.