I HAVEN’T FINISHED SUPERLUMINAL yet, as events have intervened. But I’m still enjoying it. When I’m done, I’m going to read The Curse of Cain, an alt-history Lincoln-assassination thriller that’s blurbed (on the advance copy they sent me) as “Civil War fiction’s The Day of the Jackal.” It looks as if it ought to be pretty good. Yes, it’s “escape reading.” But I’ve always been an escape reader.