Customer Reviews

Agent of Byzantium

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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!

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.

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

The reader is given several stories but all about Basil, a soldier for Byzantium. Basil loses his family in a plague and changes his career to a secret agent. The part where Basil loses his family to a plague is quite touching. I give a salute to the writing of Turtledove that he spares the reader the death of Basil's son by having Basil give him opium for the pain until the end, the child merely stops breathing instead of going through the agony of small pox.

Now, this is important. In one of the stories its found how to innoculate the population from diseases. Small Pox destroys large amounts of Byzantium's populace. This discovery is make 600 years before the discovery in Westerm Europe. So, the people running the Byzantium government work to insure the health of their citizens. The Byzantium army is spared the ravages of disease and is able to beat threats from Persian armies.

Harry goes into Greek fire, the secret of Byzantium's Naval success for years. It was natural that Basil is sent on a mission to discover the secret of black powder. This is the subject of one story and how it is employed in battles.

Basil also works to check the forces of Persia, what we now know as modern Iran. Strangely, while this story was written in 1987 the fact is the threat from Iran (Persia) seems just as real today. Basil battles a Persian spy who is quite like a Soviet spy master (remember, this was written in 1987). Basil is once again the hero and checks this threat from Persia and gains a lover to replace his late beloved wife.

Basil is also involved with one of the most weaking things that happen to Byzantium. It was a religious problem with Christianity and that involved the worship of Icons. People would worship the Icon of the cross instead of Jesus the son of God. While this does not seem of great concern to modern readers but form a historical context it's a deadly threat to Byzantium itself. Religious conflicts with the Roman Catholic church weaken Byzantium and let it be invaded by both Muslims and Western Europeans. Turtledove comes up with an solution to the icon problem that would actually not be available until the 16th century. Had the 16th printing press technology been availiable in the 12th Century then Muslim soldiers would not be standing in a ruined Constantinople in 1453.

Dr. Turtledove gives some sound historical reasons on how close it was for Byzantium (actually the real name was close to Romania)to being more of an eternal empire than the famous Roman empire that it outlasted by nearly 1000 years. Had just a few events and forces of nature been different then modern Islam would be a shawdow of its present self, the Protestant reformation would not have been needed, and we could have avoided lots of wars.

This is the middle of summer. This book is a good read and perfect for those summer vacations.

If you like the Eastern Roman Empire and would like to read some good make believe stories about it. Then get introduced to Basil and his adventures in this slim little book. It seems to me that the Author has a great love and grasp of the ins and outs of that old and somewhat ignored Empire. I also feel that this is when the Author has really hit his stride and it shows in this labor of love.

Although I feel, along with previous reviewers, that Basil (the protagonist) is a bit too lucky with his discoveries, the historical setting more than makes up for it. The author provides clear insight into Eastern traditions that the west has long ignored, describing Hagia Sophia as it was in its days of glory, and citing many examples of Greek theologians and historians. A good read by all standards.

I am a Turtledove fan and bought this book to replace an old soft cover copy. Being a priss about my library I had no regrets other than that it took me so long to find a hard cover version is such good shape.

Like the earlier reviewers this was my first Alternate History book, and i thoroughly enjoyed it. Anyone interested in Byzantine or Medieval history will love this dream of what could have been.

it was my first reading about alternate history and i love it from the first reading back at 1994. I love Byzantium and it was absolut astonishing to read something like that. I hope to find this rewiew helpful

It has been three years since I read "Agent of Byzantium" and after reading many more books of the same genre, I regard this short book among my favorites (along with "Lest Darkness Fall", and The Belisarius Series). Turtledove combines intrigue, technology, warfare, romance, and of course, Byzantine politics to make a great collection of short stories recounting the adventures of an ancient James Bond character. My favorite story recounts how the Empire gets their hands on gunpowder. The femme fatale Parthian spy clearly seemed created to support sequels, of which there have been none ... which is my only dissapointment