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Bridge of the Separator (Videssos)

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"Bridge of the Separator", the most recently published novel in Harry Turtledove's "Videssos" universe, is chronologically the earliest in terms of when the story is set. This book does for Rhavas (later known as Harvas Black-Robe or Avshar) in the Videssos stories what "Episode III, Revenge of the Sith" does for Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars Universe.

In other words it explains how the principal evil character in the later stories started out on the side of good but turned to evil, e.g. the dark god Skotos. (I'm not giving away anything here which isn't explained on the dust jacket of the book.)

Like a number of science fiction series, Turtledove's "Videssos stories" have been written in reverse chronological order. He started out with the "Misplaced Legion" quartet, in which three cohorts from Julius Caesar's army in Gaul (in 56 BC in our time) were transported to the Empire of Videssos in another world. While there they came up against a very powerful "wizard prince" called Avshar.

After writing the Misplaced Legion books, Turtledove went back several hundred years for the setting of a trilogy of books about a peasant named Kripos who rose to be Emperor of Videssos. Then he wrote another group of stories set earlier still, the "Time of Troubles" quartet.

Avshar features as a deadly enemy of the good guys in all three of these stories and also in one of the short stories Turtledove has set in the same universe. In each case he is described as an extremely powerful wizard who is tall, very thin, and looks exceptionally old but is still fit and vigorous: where a name is given for him it is always an anagram of Avshar.

In "Krispos of Videssos" an ex-patriarch tells Emperor Krispos that be believes that their current opponent "Harvas" is actually Rhavas, the former prelate of the town of Skopentzana which had been the second city in the Empire until it was destroyed by barbarians three hundred years before. Rhavas, who up to that point had been a serious contender to succeed the head of the church of the good god Phos, had seen so much evil during the sack that he became a very different man.

In "Bridge of the Separator", Harry Turtledove goes back those three hundred years to Skopentzana before the sack and tells the story of Rhavas from his own perspective. At the start of the book, Rhavas is a genuinely good, brilliant and pious priest, sent to Skopentzana to gain experience of running a major temple by the current Patriarch in the hope that he will move on to much higher things. But then the outbreak of civil war is only the start of a series of terrible events ...

Despite being chronologically the first in the series this volume is not the best introduction to the world of Videssos as it is probably the weakest of the twelve books. It is very difficult to empathise with Rhavas - for one thing he does not have the glamour of Anakin Skywalker, and even before his fall while still a good man, he is not a very likeable one. I'm sure most readers of this review will have met at least one or two individuals who are honest and well meaning but whose company it is impossible to enjoy; the original Rhavas is a bit like that.

There are also some logical inconsistencies in the book. For example, the Dark God, Skotos, tempts Rhavas in "Bridge of the Separator" by giving him an unwanted and evil power - all he has to do is curse someone, almost anyone, and that individual drops dead. (Again, I'm not giving anything away here that isn't stated on the dust jacket of the book.)

Fortunately for Maniakes a century later in "The Time of Troubles", for Krispos three hundred years later in his trilogy, and for Marcus Scaurus in "The Misplaced Legion", Rhavas no longer has the power to kill with a simple curse when he comes up against them, despite having become in all other respects a much more dangerous wizard in the meantime. Why Skotos should have time-limited a gift which makes Rhavas much more useful to him - other than that it would have wrecked all the other books - is never explained.

Nevertheless I can recommend this to readers who are particular fans of Turtledove's writing as it does help explain one of the most important characters in most of the other Videssos books.

For anyone who wants to know the order of the books so as to read them in sequence, the twelve Videssos books and their chronology translated into Earth time (if it runs at the same rate as ours) are as follows.

c. 850 BC - "Bridge of the Separator"

c. 700 BC - (The Time of Troubles series)

"The Stolen Throne"
"Hammer and Anvil"
"The Thousand Cities"
"Videssos Besieged"

"The Stolen Throne" and "Hammer and Anvil" have also been published together as "The Time of Troubles Part I"; similarly "The Thousand Cities" and "Videssos Besieged" are published together as "The Time of Troubles Part II".

c. 550 BC - ("The Tale of Krispos" trilogy)

Krispos Rising
Krispos of Videssos
Krispos the Emperor

56 BC - ("The Misplaced Legion" quartet)

The Misplaced Legion
An Emperor for the Legion
The Legion of Videssos
Swords of the Legion

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.

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.

Unless you are so engrossed in Videssos that you have to know all the thoughts rumbling in Turtledove's mind as to why things are what they are in the books he wrote previously. Don't read this book.

As said in other reviews, it is backstory.

Grim backstory.

For the dark side. But who cares? Are we not supposed to be connected to our stories. Don't we want some conclusion that leaves us with peace. Here we have something that fills in a gap that did not need it.

Turtledove is a historian first and maybe something nagged at him to write it, but it makes Videssos seem less than it was before this book.

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.

When I first read Harry Turtledove's "Videssos Cycle" in 1987 when it hit the shelves, I became an instant fan of his. I sought out other material, like "Agent of Byzantium" (a collection of short stories about an alternate history of the Byzantine Empire where Islam was never founded, and Mohammed became a Christian saint). Turtledove's material from this period is almost all extremely good. I really can't say that for anything he's done in recent years. While I enjoy his early stuff as much as ever, his recent material seems flat and uninspired by comparison. This book, unfortunately, is no exception. While it doesn't suffer from Turtledove's most glaring flaw -- endless, endless repetition of the same points -- it does suffer from one almost as glaring, and actually far worse from a storytelling point of view: taking the easy way, the lazy way, out of a dilemma in telling the story. He did that in another book of his I reviewed on amazon ("Curious Notions"). In it, he builds up the main character to be an especially bright teenager. But in a couple of places, in order to move the story forward, he has to make that character do inexplicably stupid things, otherwise the character won't ever get into trouble in the first place, and there'd be no dramatic, suspenseful story to tell. Turtledove didn't seem to try very hard to come up with a clever, more believable way to drop his main character in the soup. Something similar happens here. The main character, Rhavas (who was Avshar in "The Videssos Cycle" -- by then an eight century old lich) is prelate of one of the largest and most important cities of the Videssian Empire. As a cleric, who has studied theology and almost nothing else his whole life, he has almost no skills at all other than those of a scholar. He's not the peerless swordsman, archer, and sorcerer he would become by the time of "The Videssos Cycle," he's still just a scholar/cleric. Now Turtledove has placed him in the Empire's northernmost large city, in a position to live through the sack of that city by savage, bloodthirsty nomads, so that he can see the horrors and atrocities that will shake his faith, and convince him that evil is stronger than good, and that Skotos (Videssos' Satan-like evil deity), is stronger than Phos (Videssos' version of God or Yahweh). The problem comes in how to get this very unwarriorlike man, with no combat skills of any kind, nor any skill in magic either, safely through a land overrun with murderous barbarians, and back down south to the Imperial capital of Videssos (the city itself that is, as opposed to the whole Empire, which shares the name), so that he can be condemned as a heretic by a synod of his fellow clerics.

The challenge for the writer is a considerable one. Rhavas has to come face to face with numerous blood-chilling horrors in order to credibly shake his faith and make him conclude that evil is stronger. But at the same time, how can he get so close to all these dangers and survive, when he lacks the warrior's or sorcerer's skills to fight or magic his way past the danger? Unfortunately, it's a challenge the Turtledove meets very poorly in this book. He simply gives Rhavas the ability to kill almost anyone, instantly, simply by pointing at that individual and saying "curse you." That's all it takes, and Rhavas' target keels over dead on the spot. In fact, in one scene, he doesn't even have to point or say the words; he just wills it to happen, and happen it does. In another, he almost idly curses a man who is not even present, and that man falls down dead as well. And still worse, on three occasions, he curses entire cities, and each time, the city so cursed is immediately struck by a devastating earthquake. Readers familiar with the three other series set in the world of Videssos will see the problem at once: nowhere, absolutely nowhere, in any of the other series did Rhavas/Avshar ever once display any ability like this. He could kill with magic, but he had to cast elaborate spells, some of which required considerable preparation beforehand, and it seemed to drain him a little -- he couldn't do it over and over, whereas here, he can kill as often as he likes, it seems, literally as easy speaking. Also, his warrior's skills were formidable in the other books, but why would he ever have needed to acquire them in the first place if he had the ability to kill instantly with just a word or even a thought? And as for the ability to flatten entire cities in a moment, merely by calling out a few words, where did that power go? Why couldn't he ever do it again? It certainly would be a useful ability for an evil sorcerer bent on the conquest of his former homeland. This seriously hurts the book, because it gives the character so much power, you don't feel like there's anything that really threatens him, and because it creates such a glaring continuity error with Turtledove's other books set in this same world.

As for the rest of the book, it's decent, but not especially great. Others have pointed out, quite correctly, that even before he succumbs to evil, Rhavas is not a very likable man. He's the kind of priest who is stern and unforgiving in his rectitude, always looking down on those who fail to live up to the same high, ascetic standards by which he abides. He's cold and quick to judge, and his one, overriding characteristic is a stiff, unbending nature, that disdains compromise. That probably makes it more believable that such a man could throw himself with equally unbending devotion to evil, once he's decided evil is stronger, but it makes him far less sympathetic as a character, so you don't feel much at his transformation.

All in all, this is a decent book, and those who like Turtledove's books about Videssos will probably enjoy another visit to that world, but where once I wished for as many more books about Videssos as the author could write, I now find myself wishing, given the quality of the author's more recent work, that he would leave well enough alone.

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 Phos, in favor of the evil Skotos.
It's tempting to think Skopentzana might have corresponded with Rome. I see no other candidate in the three series for an analogy with the western empire and the city of Rome. But, I can't quite make myself believe it: as related here, Skopentzana was never an imperial capital, and was always thought of as a distant outpost. Maybe the back story of the Rome-equivalent is a story Turtledove has yet to tell. Then again, perhaps the intent is that Skopentzana represents Kiev, with its proximity to the Viking-like Haloga people.
Bridge relates how Rhavas witnessed the sack of Skopentzana, fled, and gradually made his way back to Videssos the city. He witnessed horrors that Phos seemed powerless to stop, and gradually discovered an ability to kill by mere thought, seemingly inspired by Skotos. Rhavas is thoughtful about, and at first troubled by, these revelations. His gradual corruption makes for an effective psychological evolution.
What doesn't quite satisfy me is that Rhavas never considers that, while Phos and the forces of good might be overmatched, nevertheless standing up for the good, even in the face of defeat and martyrdom, is the more moral and logical position. (That would've been an interesting take on Norse fatalism.) Instead, Rhavas decides to worship and emulate the evil Skotos, not merely acquiescing to, but embracing a bit too easily, the works of evil that had appalled him.
At the synod, Rhavas argues to the rest of the Videssian clergy that Skotos is more powerful than Phos, and consequently more worthy of worship. Again, Turtledove set himself a difficult task, to describe a synod whose written proceedings would horrify Videssian clerics centuries later. Yes, it's well told, but it didn't quite blow me away, the way I had wanted.
In summary, I'd recommend Bridge of the Separator to any Videssos fan, as an important piece of the Empire's narrative history. To those new to Videssos, I'd recommend starting with the original Videssos series, featuring the Misplaced Legion of Roman soldiers. For myself, I want to reread Bridge, and see if the impact of the story is greater with repeated reading.
By the way, in case Mr. Turtledove reads this, I'd also love to see the back story of how Scaurus' and Viridovix's swords were created. Is there a tie-in between the Druids and Videssian sorcery?

This was only my second book written by Turtledove that I have read. I randomly picked this book up at my local library after having read After the Downfall. I didn't realize it was part of a series at the time. It took me a while to get going with the book, probably 60 pages or so. I thought about not finishing it, but was actually trying to figure out where this book was going to go. After the initial investment I finally started getting into the book and the mid section I couldn't put it down. I think the one short coming is the begining seemed slow and it took a while to become interested in the main character

There are many things wrong with this book in spite of all the time an old "Lost Legion" fan like me may spend trying to like it. I wanted to love this book I really did but usual problems with Turtledove's recent writing make certain flaws all the more glaring. The main character in spite of being completely unlikable has to be constantly told how "correct" "right" or "just" his point of view is at least in the beginning anyway. Characters are introduced just so when the main character thinks "I said it, that really needed to be said" a disposable extra can also say "well most holy sir I may not like what you said but it needed to be said." Another thing I have not yet bothered to calculate the number of times "most holy sir" or later "not so holy sir" were used but it was a lot.

I will say that when Rhavas finally does go evil things get a lot more interesting to bad all he ever gets around to doing is a one-two slaughter punch of mages and defenseless farm families although the earthquakes were cool.

Overall-We have known who the bad guy was ever since the last of the Lost Legion series oh so many years ago why tell us this story now? It makes no sense.

I'm a Harry Turtledove fan, and am willing to overlook a lot of flaws in his writing if the basic idea is fun or intriguing. But a novel with a one-dimensionally insufferable character whose transformation makes him one-dimensionally selfish violent and cruel just won't work magic. The religious system (Zoroasterian or Manichee) where 2 one-dimensional gods battle it out could have been treated imaginatively, but this never got off the ground either.