This would be a delightful book of short stories (- and they are not only delightful but also quite short, suitable for the person who began a whole discussion on the site asking for good literature that was "not wordy" -) but for the faux pas towards the end when in two separate stories Archer mixes up names heedless of the very separate places or people they belong to, something akin to say mention of a Champs Elysée in Washington D.C. or a Vladimir Carnegie running for senator in Texas; the only reason he does not think twice about this stupid set of mistakes is that it involves communities his set thinks quite mistakenly as their past owned people and nations they think they created - which in one instance they did, too, in one of the two cases; which by now they ought to repent with all theirs. Unless they are still in the bushy mindset or mode of pretending instead of thinking, seeing, realising.
A name like Vladimir Carnegie might survive in US albeit with a good many jeers in school and a suitable change effectively shielding the poor bloke in college; it won't win a senatorship from Texas, certainly; but the equivalent stupid mistake of a name could get the guy murdered or worse in the country in fact created by Archer's nation, and in the more ancient land he might survive if no fatwa is taken out against him. That name could only live without danger in Mongolia, in fact.
Why all this fuss is due to a clear indication that such carelessness of anyone of the ex ruler nation involves a deeply ingrained racism and an assumption, an attitude that takes it for granted that this is of no consequence, and not only the nations he respects more but also those that he made a mistake of names related to won't result in consequences for him, not even a loss of possible remuneration - and yet he has spoken out appreciating his over a million fans in the country (which amounts to a million books sold in a poor country which translates into a readership of several times that many).
In short when one is sure no one shall whack one where it hurts one is free to make stupid mistakes. And in fact he is in all probability quite certain no one will take it seriously, since an ex ruled population is likely to go overboard appreciating he is taking notice of them at all.
No one is as surprised as a despot thrown off the throne when finally asked to begin to pay up for the atrocities, at that.
There are other inexplicable mistakes - for instance one would think a fence would know not to deceive a Belmarsh inmate for a couple of years of relative freedom, and such others.
Still - something one may use very well to pass time in, say, waiting for a plane or a doctor's appointment or whatever.
These are some of the books I read during last half a century or so, and some of the thoughts, questions, reactions and insights, emotions - and so forth -, evoked on reading them, either then or later sometime during the interim years and decades, or even thinking over now, that are summed up here while trying to record my impressions about what I read.
Serene, Reflecting
Life Recedes