strikeslip | (no subject)

Three books on my reading list:

Navola by Paolo Bacigalupi, which very much seems to be Renaissance Italy but Also Dragons Exist (to the point where I keep mapping cities to other cities in my head, like "Is that Milan? I think that's Milan." The map at the start of the book is not subtle.
Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer, which will give me many wild stories I expect to also recognize in Navola's Not-Medici main characters. I have been a giant Ada Palmer fan since Too Like the Lightning and I know her nonfiction is also worth reading, even if I never did make it through the word doc version of this.
The Prince by Machiavelli, which I have meant to read since playing Ada Palmer's Temptemus Papam (aka the Pope Larp), a direct line back to the Renaissance as Machiavelli had to suffer through it. Even though I only played the three day worldcon version of the Papal Election of 1492 (as opposed to the university class six week version), it has stuck with me and changed my entire view of Italy. And the book could change that again.

The question is, what order do I read these in? No matter what order I pick, each book will influence how I read the others... I'm quite excited about the idea of Bacigalupi writing fantasy after so much near-future scifi, so probably that one, but damnit, I really do need to read The Prince.