Agent of Byzantium [Hardcover]

Harry Turtledove (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: NA (1988)
• ASIN: B000SMSG9M
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,331,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Harry Turtledove is the award-winning author of the alternate-history works The Man with the Iron Heart; The Guns of the South; How Few Remain (winner of the Sidewise Award for Best Novel); the Worldwar saga: In the Balance, Tilting the Balance, Upsetting the Balance, and Striking the Balance; the Colonization books: Second Contact, Down to Earth, and Aftershocks; the Great War epics: American Front, Walk in Hell, and Breakthroughs; the American Empire novels: Blood & Iron, The Center Cannot Hold, and Victorious Opposition; and the Settling Accounts series: Return Engagement, Drive to the East, The Grapple, and In at the Death. Turtledove is married to fellow novelist Laura Frankos. They have three daughters: Alison, Rachel, and Rebecca.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Alternate History Fun, October 25, 1998

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Agent of Byzantium (Paperback)

A great collection of seven stories set in an early fourteenth-century version of Earth where Islam is absent. The Byzantine Empire retained its eastern holdings and swallowed up most of western Europe as well. Their main rival is the Persian Empire which also never fell in Turtledove's well thought-out alternate world. The stories span 15 years in the life of Basil, a soldier and eventual "agent" (read spy) for the Byzantine Empire. Great fun!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Name's Argyros, Basil Argyros, September 28, 2007

By 

Caesar M. Warrington (Lansdowne, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Agent of Byzantium (Paperback)

Imagine a 13th century Mediterranean and Middle East...

-Where the territories of western and southern Europe won back by the Romans during the 6th century reign of Justinian were not only maintained but expanded.
-Muhammad never developed Islam. Instead he converted to Christianity, becoming a holy man, and is now venerated as St. Moaumet.

In the absence of Islam's rise, both the Roman and Sassanid Persian (which has by now engulfed the entire Arabian Peninsula) empires remain as the two superpowers, existing in a sort of medieval cold war.

Into this world comes Basil Argyros, an agent of the Magistrianoi, the imperial secret police; sometimes he acts as a soldier, but more often he's a spy. During the course of his assignments as an agent of Imperial security, Basil also makes some exciting discoveries, thus making him an agent in another sense: as one who brings change and advancement to the Empire. From the Franks he steals a new weapon, recently cooked up by their monks--gunpowder. He returns from the lands of the Asiatic Jurchen nomads north of the Black Sea with an instrument we know as the telescope. He delivers to the emperor the secrets of printing, a recent Persian invention they've been using to foment insurrection in the Empire's eastern provinces. What perhaps is the most fascinating of all is Basil's witnessing the discovery of inoculation, made during a time of catastrophic plague in Constantinople.

Basil's nemesis in many of these stories is the beautiful and deviously clever Persian spy, Mirrane. As the two of them match wits, they develop a mutual respect and admiration, eventually falling deeply in love.

The Baen paperback edition contains the following seven stories:

"The Eyes of Argos"
"Strange Eruptions"
"Pillar of Cloud, Pillar of Fire"
"Unholy Trinity"
"Archetypes"
"Images"
"Superwine"

Only this edition contains the story "Pillar of Cloud, Pillar of Fire;" however, that story can also be found in Harry Turtledove's alt-history collection DEPARTURES (which also includes "Islands in the Sea," the story about Muhammad's aforementioned conversion to the Christian Faith.)

As someone with a Ph.D in Byzantine studies, Harry Turtledove knows the peoples and times upon which he bases this alternative world, making it a fun, fascinating read.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great alternate history from the master, April 26, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Agent of Byzantium (Paperback)

Harry Turtledove knows his history, and it is the mark of a great writer that he can make you interested in what has been a rather obscure part of the historical record. Most of us are familiar with the concept of the Byzantine Empire, but know little of its actual nuts and bolts. Mr. Turtledove presents a set of connected short stories in which his hero foils diverse machinations against his employer. I was intrigued, and looked stuff up in the encyclopedia afterwards, and found the whole thing quite fun