Bridge of the Separator

Bridge of the Separator (hereinafter "Bridge"), the back story of the character Avshar of the original Videssos series, is a story Videssos fans have been waiting for. (I quickly bought the first copy I saw.) The more-or-less immortal, anagram-loving villian, known over the centuries as Avshar, Harvas Black-Robe, and Rhavas, is so compelling and larger-than-life a character that a full telling of his back story is likely to be hard to bring off satisfyingly. That's the challenge Harry Turtledove set for himself. He got the job done, telling the story competently and consistently with the hints and historical perspectives given in the Videssos, Krispos and Time of Troubles series, but I think it ultimately didn't catch lightning in a bottle. Anyone who hasn't read the other Videssos books should not start with this one. The original four-volume Videssos series, telling the story of the Empire of Videssos at a late point in its history, and from the viewpoint of a group of outsiders, provides the best way to grasp the premise. Afterward, the reader is prepared to understand and identify with the settings and characters in the subsequently written, chronologically earlier, Krispos and Time of Troubles series. The Empire of Videssos is an epic fantasy analog of the Byzantine (medieval East Roman) Empire, whose capital, Videssos the City, corresponds with Constantinople. The map of the Empire corresponds with an east-west reversed map of the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East: Makuran/Yezd corresponds with Persia, Vaspurakan corresponds with Armenia, the Land of the Thousand Cities straddling the Tib and Tutub rivers corresponds with the Fertile Crescent, the eponymous "Cattle Crossing" corresponds with the Bosphorus strait, etc., etc. Likewise, the chronological setting of the Videssos series corresponds with the era of the Battle of Manzikert, with the Princess Alypia corresponding with the Byzantine princess/historian Anna Comnena. A few centuries earlier, the peasant/emperor Krispos corresponds with the Byzantine Emperor Basil I. Before that, the Videssian Time of Troubles pits the emperor Maniakes against his predecessor Genesios in a war against Makuran, as Byzantine emperor Heraclius succeeded the murderous emperor Phocas and fought a costly, sanguinary war with Persia. (As you can see, I know just enough Byzantine history (i) to be intrigued by the Videssos premise, and (ii) to get myself into trouble trying to draw analogies. I regret any misstatements of Byzantine history or poorly thought-out analogies that may be in any of the foregoing.) But before all that, there was Rhavas the prelate of Skopentzana, a city in territory formerly Videssian, but torn from the Empire in a massive invasion by Khamorth nomads from the trackless steppes to the north and (in Videssian geography) west. The three series mention Skopentzana and Rhavas, and hint without much detail that the invasion caused Rhavas to forsake the good god

Harry Turtledove's BRIDGE OF THE SEPARATOR tells of one Rhavas, a pious and good man set to become the patriarch of an Empire when it falls into civil war and barbarians invade. Now he is in exile, evil has devoured his world, and he must re-consider his very beliefs in good and evil in this fine fantasy of epic changes.

For centuries, the Videssos Empire has grown under the power of its Avtokrator (Emperor) and its unified faith in Phos, the god of light and goodness in Phos's eternal battle with Skatos, the god of darkness and evil. It is an article of faith in Videssos that Phos is more powerful than Skatos, that good will eventually triumph. But when civil war breaks out and the two Avtokrator candidates pull troops from the frontiers and the city garrisons, barbarian nomads break through the ancient boundaries and begin to pillage--in an orgy of destruction that cuts the Empire in half. Rhavas is a priest of Phos, cousin to the legitimate Avtokrator, and the head of the church in the northern city of Skopentzana. He has always believed in Phos's eventual triumph, but the barbarian invasion makes him question his faith. When he learns that his prayer and blessing has no power, but that his curse can kill, Rhavas comes to believe that Phos may not be the stronger. With half the Empire in ruins, with rape in the streets and with the followers of Phos opening the Empire's gates to the enemy, who can believe that Phos is truly the stronger. And if the core belief of Videssos is mistaken, is it not the duty of a priest to correct those mistaken beliefs, to reform the church? Author Harry Turtledove undertakes the difficult and intriguing task of making a man who embrasses evil the hero of this story. Rhavas begins as a likable character--engaging the readers interest and sympathy. The disasters that overtake him would make many question their faith, but Rhavas goes beyond questioning into an active embrace of evil. It is a mark of Turtledove's strength as a writer that he is able to pull off such a difficult task and still create a compelling story. Turtledove's Videssos Empire is a fantasy version of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire, but with working magic. The events of BRIDGE OF THE SEPARATOR bear a strong relationship to the Germanic destruction of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century--when Gothic followers of the Arian heresy conquered Rome itself. The fantasy element adds a twist to Turtledove's story, but the historical texture really increases reader interest. Fans of the Videssos series will definitely want to read this one as so much of the later history of the Empire depend on Rhavas and his heresy. Those who have discovered Turtledove in his alternate history mode should be aware that BRIDGE OF THE SEPARATOR is not alternate history as generally understood but a fictional world with certain similarities to the world of our ancient past.

This is the twelfth book in the Videssos series of novels. Even though it's the only standalone book in the series, it would be a terrible place to begin. The four books in the Legion series, the three in the Krispos series, and the four in the Time of Troubles are fun, if occasionally tragic. This one is tragic from the very beginning -- unrelentingly so. Fun is hard to come by, as the barbarians sweep off the plains to sack and overrun the northern half of a Videssos preoccupied with civil war. Still, the protagonist's inevitable downward progression is fascinating to watch, especially because we know where it ends. Rhavas is, under a number of pseudonyms, the bad guy in all of the previous Videssos books. Each series has stepped backward in time; now we finally get his origin story. This book doesn't have a map, which disappointed me. The ruined city of Skopentzana is mentioned in previous Videssos series; it would have been nice to know, finally, where it was, and what the Empire looked like at the height of its power. Also, I had hoped for a more detailed depiction of the synod in which Rhavas takes on the orthodoxy and tries to convert them to the worship of Skotos. More is told than shown of a synod that had been described in earlier series as a brilliant and crucial clash of arguments. Charles Freeman's _The Closing of the Western Mind_ got me interested in the theological scrums of the early Christian Church, and I'd looked forward to something on their level. Instead, to keep the plot moving forward, Dr. Turtledove treats it briskly. For the amateur historian, a lot of the fun in the previous Videssos books is figuring out which events and people in Byzantine history Dr. Turtledove is depicting. There's no historical equivalent to Rhavas; the Byzantines were beset by many dangers, but never by an immortal wizard who proselytized for Satan. The sack of Skopentzana and loss of the north is approximately the loss of Rome and the West to the Goths, but it's not nearly as close a parallel as Time of Troubles' Mavrikios to the real-world Heraclius, or Krispos' to Basil the Macedonian. If a further series were to leap back in time once more, it would probably treat the rise of the Emperor Stavrakios, Videssos' greatest conqueror (approximately Justinian and Belisarius rolled into one). Without the tension between the Emperor and his general -- the direct inspiration for Asimov's _Foundation and Empire_ -- there may not be enough drama left to mine. This may be the last hurrah for Videssos. If it is, it's an elegiac ending to the series.

I can't believe the previous reviewers read the same book that I did! While not the author's best book (he has written so many!) it is a welcome addition to his Videssos series about an alternative universe with a Byzantine-like Empire where magic works. In this book he tells of the conversion to the side of Skotos (the Videssos devil) of Rhavas, a priest of Phos (the God of this universe). This is a welcome addition to the backstory of Videssos history as Rhavas has appeared in several previous Turtledove books as a recurring villain who constantly appears in different guises to threaten the Empire, always defeated so far, but never entirely destroyed. A satisfying read and to me, much preferable to many of Turtledove's recent books which are simply retellings of various periods of our own world history (the Civil War, World War Two, etc.) in fantasy form. While admittedly often entertaining, they are by the numbers exercises by this talented author who serves both himself and us far better when he tries, as here, something wholly original.