Conquistador

This is good stuff. I haven't read any of Steve Stirling's other novels (yet), but I know who he is and I've had him on my to-read list for quite a while. I'm glad I started with this one.Murray Leinster launched this whole alternate-history thing a half-century and more ago with his short story 'Sidewise in Time'. Since then there have been lots of attempts -- some successful, some not so much -- to render convincing alternate and/or parallel histories; Ward Moore's _Bring the Jubilee_ is probably one of the best known, and Harry Turtledove is generally regarded as the reigning king of the genre.Stirling holds a place of honor as well, and this book illustrates why. It's a well-researched, well-paced, well-told adventure tale that involves a good deal of plausible alternate history but doesn't depend on it at the expense of characterization and plot.The setup is nice. In 1946, John Rolfe VI, a WWII veteran living in California, does something in his basement with a shortwave set -- and suddenly one end of his basement is covered with what looks like a wall of liquid mercury. On the other side is . . . well, you'll just have to read it and find out, won't you?Suffice it to say that what happens next has some long-term consequences. We check in on them in 2009, when fish and game warden Tom Christiansen is investigating some illegal activities involving a whole lot of ivory and a live California condor. Among the evidence he and his team collect, there's an odd photograph (clearly a fake, right? Riiiiiight) of some Aztec priests wearing Grateful Dead T-shirts . . .And the rest is (alternate) history. No spoilers; all the stuff I've mentioned here is in the first twenty pages of the book.I like Stirling's style, too. He makes me think of Jerry Pournelle (who is credited in the acknowledgements, and who has previously done some cowriting with Stirling). In fact the narrative tone reminds me a bit of Pournelle and Niven in _Lucifer's Hammer_, although I'm not sure I could say exactly why.Anyway, a nice read and one of the finer entries in recent SF. If you like well-written alternate history novels, this will probably be your cup of tea.

It's 1946. The white man is about to discover America....Bottom line: Steve Stirling's writing just keeps getting better. This parallel-world thriller incorporates the best features of his popular Draka and Island in the Sea of Time series. Enthusiastically recommended.1946: John Rolfe, recuperating from his war wounds,is tinkering with a war-surplus shortwave radio. !!CRACK!! The end of his basement is GONE, replaced with a sheet of rippling silver....2009: Tom Christiansen, game warden, is on a bust of wildlife-smugglers. The smuggler's warehouse is destroyed by incendiaries, but he find a fresh-killed man -- and a fresh-killed *dodo*....And Steve Stirling is off and running with another of his patented reinventions of SF/F classics, here the 'virgin world next door.' As always, his research is deep, and impeccable. Details matter. His major characters come alive, and the minor ones carry their spears smoothly.The structure of the book is a police-procedural in 2009 -- Christiansen & a buddy work through an increasingly-weird wildlife-parts smuggling case -- with explanatory flashbacks in "New Virginia", as John Rolfe has tagged his virgin California. Once the wardens have twigged to the Rolfes' secret, they're abducted to New VA, and the book morphs to a political thriller -- Draka-like Elements are intent on subverting the (mostly) benevolent oligarchy that rules the new New World. One of the strengths of Conquistador is that all sides are drawn warts and all -- no shining heroes or dastardly villains here (well, a couple of the latter) -- just people playing with the hands they're dealt. And the new New World is a fabulous wish-fulfillment fantasy, that almost everyone who's gotten a bellyful of the downside of civilization has had -- but here worked out thoughtfully and carefully. Very nice.So, are there warts on this terrific book? Pretty minor ones: the secret-gate-between-worlds shtick is overdone. The food is better than I'd expect in white-boy heaven -- compare the Canadian/Northern US 'land of the bland', and the big, bland, indifferently-prepared meals in old White South Africa, to the lovingly-described feasts in New Virginia.... OK, so I'm reaching for something to complain about. This is Stirling's best-written book yet. It's (probably) #1 of a series, but comes to a stirring resolution, with a wonderful trick teaser for the next. If you've liked previous Stirling books, you'll love this one. And if you've put off trying him -- wait no longer. This is a winner.Here are some author comments, from Usenet:"I've had CONQUISTADOR bubbling at the back of my mind for a long time; since the early 80's, in fact.It's a different book than it would have been if I'd written it then, of course; I like to think my technique has improved, and I've mellowed out a bit.On the other hand, it's also not quite the same book that I would have written if the idea for it had come to me recently. Large chunks have been 'around' since its genesis.That m

With Conquistador S.M. Stirling maintains and builds on the standard his readers have come to expect from the author of the Draka and Island in the Sea of Time series. Like Stirling's last offering, The Peshawar Lancers, Conquistador is essentially an Alternate History, although partaking also of elements of other genres such as techno-thriller, action-adventure, crime, utopian romance and even Western. It will be of interest therefore not just to diehard SF and AH fans, but to those who enjoy these other genres. The tale opens in 1946, when John Rolfe VI, wounded WWII combat veteran and scion of an old (by US standards!) if now impoverished Virginian colonial family accidentally creates a mysterious shimmering silver gateway in the cellar of his Oakland, California, house, whilst tinkering with his radio set (a fine vintage 1940s SF plot device this!) A gate which opens on another America, undiscovered by Europeans, through which Rolfe and those he lets in on his secret can go back and forth at will, even if they have no idea how it works. It is typical of Stirling's impressive historical erudition and worldbuilding skills that he supplies a detailed, convincing allohistorical rationale for this. A timeline in which Alexander the Great did not die young, but went on to found an empire from the Atlantic to the Bay of Bengal. Whilst Poul Anderson in Eutopia built a hi-tech Hellenistic scientific-industrial 20-Century civilization on this premise, Stirling equally convincingly goes the opposite way. His Hellenistic Eurasian empire has stagnated by 1946 at a medieval level, with quarrelsome successor states surrounded by barbarian tribes, and thus has yet to cross the Atlantic. An Appendix describing in some detail the world thus created is a fascinating addendum to Stirling's tale. Rolfe and his old Army buddies build their own society on the other side of the Gate, financed by its resources, such as unRushed Californian gold, sold on our side. And peopled by assorted disaffected elements seeking a bolt hole, from postwar East European and German refugees, through French and British colonials dispossessed by the end of Empire in Africa to Boer and Russian malcontents today. Whilst the Native American inhabitants are decimated by European diseases accidentally introduced by 20th Century Americans rather than 16th Century Spaniards. The society John Rolfe and his associates build in their New World is the latest in Stirling's series of thought-provoking fictional alternatives to that of the modern America he inhabits. Like its predecessors, the Domination of the Draka and the societies of the Island series, the socio-political structures are carefully worked out, plausible and interesting. Stirling is clearly fascinated by environmentally-friendly, hierarchical alternative societies. As he has progressed, the dystopian downside of the alternative societies he devises has steadily grown less, to the extent that many will feel that in his latest book i

S.M. Stirling goes from strength to strength as an author, and his latest outing shows it. Put simply, this book's about a man who finds a way to an alternate-America never seen by white men from 1945 California---and the consequences of his decisions. John Rolfe VI is Not Nice in the way so many of Stirling's characters are, but compared to the _real_ villains, he's very nice indeed. His ideas of Utopia are not what I would choose, but make a lot of sense considering where he's starting from and who he is. I could fare farther and do worse than to live in his "New Virginia."When a "First Side" game warden stumbles across evidence of large-scale smuggling of endangered species, he has to team with a person from "New Virginia," Rolfe's new country, to put things to rights.There's a few clues that "First Side" isn't _quite_ our own timeline; I spotted a reference to a Mark Twain novel that was altered, and there are other clues here and there.

Isaac Asimov once said that he was able to generate numerous Robot stories, simply by taking his Three Laws of Robotics and considering the possible variants if he emphasised one over another, or if he made two come into conflict. In a like way, Steve Stirling is doing so with the theme that he first instantiated in his Draka series. To wit, what happens when a group of people is put in an environment where they are a technologically advanced minority? How do they behave, and indeed how should they, towards a backward majority. What type of society will arise? In the Draka books, the Draka are a ruthless, expansionist, slave owning power. In "The Chosen", he gave us a very slightly more benign version. Then in the Nantucket trilogy, he created two societies. The Republic is explictly the US; benign and expansionistic. Walker's Kingdom of Greater Archaea is literally sadistic, and aggressively imperialistic. Now, Conquistador takes it further, and is more nuanced. The breakaway society is aristocratic and, where it suits itself, ruthless. But there is no slavery, or even the serf-like chattals posited in his other books. The leader is admirable at times; a benevolent dictator. Whereas with the Draka, Nantucket and Chosen scenarios, few readers would empathise with the villains, here it is fuzzier. In fact, this society and its leader, Rolfe, map closely into that of Isketerol's in the Nantucket books. Recall in those that Isketerol is shown as bold, as per his sneak attack on Nantucket itself, but also as genuinely concerned for his society, and humane when he can afford to be, because in the long run, this yields more. If you have read and enjoyed Stirling's other books, then you will too, here. The portal idea is scarcely new, but Stirling, with his usual skill, has made a fresh variant. The scenes in San Francisco and Los Angeles, especially in the alternate universe, are well drawn. The descriptions of a teeming Nature are most attractive, and will be no surprise to his readers. A seductive window into an alternate California. Plus, if this book is well received, he has left an ending begging for a sequel.