Customer Reviews

Conquistador: A Novel of Alternate History

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

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.

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 it is outweighed by the positive side. Unlike the nightmare slave-state of the Draka, the New Virginia Rolfe builds may well seem to many readers, this reviewer included, a better place to live in many ways than its counterpart on our side of the Gate. Although, as we discover, its inhabitants include villains as evil and ruthless as any.
Then a US Fish and Wildlife Service agent investigating an apparent illegal trade in endangered wildlife products stumbles upon a mystery, One that starts from an inexplicable extra specimen of the extremely rare Californian condor in a blown-up warehouse. That continues via his meeting and becoming involved with Adrienne, the glamorous and talented wild card of the Rolfe family pack. And ends in the secret of her other world, and its own secret enemy within, an enemy that menaces both her world and ours.
En route escaping death at the hands of post-Soviet mafiya hoods, and their Sicilian originals, on the mean streets of our America and at the guns of hostile Indians in a desert canyon of another world's West. Passing from the humdrum offices of US Government bureaucrats to the elegant mansions of the aristocrats of another America, from the polluted urban sprawl of our LA to the small towns, yeoman farms and wildlife-filled wilderness of an alternative California.
S.M. Stirling's latest book managed the not inconsiderable feat of keeping this reader on the edge of his seat whilst making him think. Heartily recommended, both as an exciting, page-turning adventure story and a thought-provoking exploration of historical, social and political alternatives to our own world.

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.

You know, it's hard to say why I didn't like this book. Well, no it isn't, but I can almost justify every problem I had with it -- almost. Conquistador is the story of an alternate Earth, which becomes accessible through a freak accident which opens a dimensional portal from our Earth to the new one. In this new land, European settlers never made it to the New World, and so when the portal's discoverer -- he-man and Southern Gentleman Extraordinaire John Rolfe -- steps through from Oakland in 1946, he finds himself in a California populated solely by Native Americans, and incredibly rich and bountiful wildlife. It is a paradise, the perfect place that California once was and hasn't been for a very long time, and Rolfe does what any he-man and red blooded American would do with this opportunity: he Manifest Destinies himself right the heck over there, starts bulldozing, and builds a new nation the way he thinks it should be built, dagnabit. The main story takes place 60 years later, and focuses on the efforts of his granddaughter, Adrienne Rolfe, and of a Fish and Game warden from our side of the portal named Tom Christiansen, to protect this other-dimensional nation from a hostile takeover by an evil faction bent on world domination -- both worlds, that is. That's the basic concept, though the novel is much broader in its scope, covering everything from ecology to politics to world history to modern warfare; it's epic in every sense of the word.

First of all, on the positive side, it has amazing descriptions, particularly of natural scenes and the actions and habits of animals. The action scenes were great, and only marred by the ability of the heroes to do anything and everything well, and to take on overwhelming odds and win the day, but what the heck? That isn't uncommon in adventure novels like this one. I liked that he didn't dwell on the actual functioning of the dimensional gate; he makes some references to string theory and the multiverse, but for the most part, they just deal with what they've got, without obsessing over how they got it. The author obviously knows his stuff and has done huge amounts of research and planning, which makes for a better reading experience. But there's too much: on some level, this book felt like the author showing off his knowledge and planning, and while I'm impressed, I'm not terribly entertained by erudition. Plus, I think he's wrong: wasn't it just an urban legend that "Kemosabe" translates as an insult and "Tonto" means "idiot?"

Anyway, the serious problems I had with this book were with the larger-than-life characters, the sheer length of it, and the ethnocentrism of the setting and general attitudes portrayed. Okay, larger than life characters: the hero is hugely strong, and much is made of his 6'3" frame, his great slabs of muscle, his enormous strength; that's all fine and good, but he's also intelligent, sensitive, environmentally conscious, and one of those smug Libertarian survivalist type that can go into the woods with a large Rambo knife, kill a bear, skin it, cook it, and then build a log cabin to eat it in while he discusses politics and history and philosophy, in at least three different languages. It's a bit much. But at least his love interest is the feminine version of him, in every way: also large and remarkably strong, though in her case much is made of the buxom curves on top of the muscle; also a master of all trades and a jack of none, also humble enough to throw sheaves of wheat with her peasants and yet dictatorial enough to kill without remorse in protection of her homeland. What a woman. Oh, and both of them are humbled by her grandfather, the founder of the new nation, and as smart as they all are, everyone is hard-pressed to keep up with the heartless Machiavellian plotting of the bad guy. Fortunately he's dead when the main action happens, thus allowing the heroes to brilliantly exploit the weaknesses left by the poorer planning of Satan's hellspawned children, and win the day. Oh, by the way, the Machiavellian guy? Yeah, he's Sicilian.

The second issue I had with it was the length. Out of 600 or so pages of novel, at least 300 of them were descriptions of wilderness and wildlife, of settlements and farming and social order on the other side of the Gate, in Rolfe's Commonwealth of New Virginia. And almost every word of that boils down to this: in this world, there are too many people. Stirling goes on and on and on about how much more beautiful and majestic, and healthy and useful and just -- good -- the world is when the total population of California is under 200,000. And I agree, and the world as it is depicted here does sound absolutely wonderful. You can stop telling me, now. It just got obnoxious; it felt like I was being lectured, yelled at, for the things I have done to screw up this world and ruin it for people who would have preferred it the way it is in the book, and hey, I didn't do it, so quit yelling, okay? And as much as I like good description: stop talking about the food, please.

The last problem I had with it was a certain, mm, callousness about the characters. Now, Stirling makes the point that the characters who found this world of New Virginia are from a less touchy-feely society than ours, and it's a good point; realizing the truth of that made me accept their casual racism. They use a number of racial epithets fairly early on, and you find as the book goes on that New Virginia not only doesn't have anyone but white members (basically -- they do have Jews, so, y'know, that's multicultural and stuff -- but then, they treat them like crap in some ways, so never mind), it includes Nazis and South African Boers along with the Southern Gentlemen. But, the founder is unapologetically racist, so that was reasonable, at least; but then, these characters are seen as sympathetic, as heroic, as being in the right -- so even though the author distances himself from this archaic viewpoint, it seems he'd rather be on the far side of that divide. Then it bothered me that the characters, all of them, were so indifferent to the fact that the coming of these extradimensional honkies caused a repeat of history: they brought diseases that wiped out 95% the Native American population. And while I understand that this is just something that happens in history, with the way people become separated from other populations and thus susceptible to their germs, I think it should be treated with some sympathy, some sorrow and respect for the victims who died. These people effectively say, "Pshaw; they died, tough luck. No crying over spilt milk. More room for us. Hey, somebody shoot that renegade Indian over there!" Though the point is made that our heroes are fighting against a group that plans even more horrible things for the non-white peoples of the world, and even though there is a token black character, still the white settlers exploit the native people in every possible way -- and the system of exploitation is seen as very clever, if a bit heartless.

Come to think of it, that's a reasonable description of the book: very clever, if a bit heartless. I'd like to read something else by this author and see if it measures up, both in the positive and negative ways.

That Alexander the Great did not die in 323 BCE but instead lived another 40 years. His empire expanded even further and was maintained by his sons. Rome never rose, all the tribes of the Middle East (including the Jews) were either eliminated, assimulated or exiled. Christianity and Islam never happened. The Enlightment and Industrial Revolution never occured. Now imagine that this all took place in an alternate universe, one that was discovered in 1946 by a WWII vet fooling around with his ham radio in his Oakland California basement. Just what would happen?

Stirling speculates that the vet would let just a select few in on this discovery and that this group of former army buddies would attempt to shape a world without the mistakes that they perceived as causing the horros they had endured over the past few years. The story then goes forward to the 'present day' 2009. Another young war veteran has stumbled on the secret of the 'Gate' and finds himself embroiled in the politics of this alternate reality.

This is an excellent story, one that is generally well thought out and logically developed. The founders of the new society were young American men who reflected the thoughts and prejudices of their time and social classes. They populated their new world with like-minded individuals and attempted to create a world with all of the virtues and none of the flaws of the world they left behind. They also kept a foothold in the original universe, attempting to take the best it had to offer while keeping it's problems out.

There are a few flaws with the book. Stirling does go on at great length about details, particularly those concerning food. Coincidences tend to be just a bit too convenient, particularly toward the end. There are a few continuity errors and this 582 page book would be a better 450 - 500 page one. Still it is an intriguing story, most of the characters are compelling and the end begs for a sequel.

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.

Steve Stirling has done it again: he created a new alternative world, this time a parallel one similar to the paratime by H. Bean Piper. This one gets discovered by a WW2 veteran and VMI graduate who figures that he gave his due to Uncle Sam and starts to create a world to his liking. He collects an assortment of his Army buddies and desperate refugees and creates the Commonwealth of New Virginia.

In his Islander series Stirling had a group of Americans in a new world who choose careful cooperation as their way of dealing with its inhabitants. In The Peshawar Lancers it was integration, the English refugees became one more caste in their Indian empire. In this novel the colonialists, supported by their secret paratime-gate, can afford to create a dreamland.

A colony that avoids the mistakes made by the imperialists since 1700 and so creates a paradise for great white hunters, a utopian Rhodesia with a small population, lots of big game and a perfect California weather. No underclass or slaves since they have modern machinery and keep their Mexican Gastarbeiter on strict time-contracts. A world with no problems, unspoiled and beautiful, almost perfect.

Now if one thinks about it the catch becomes obvious very soon. A world like this could only work with a paratime-gate through which it exports minerals and imports technology. Without the gate everything would change, especially the perspective of the ruling class, the so-called 30 families. Now I wonder if there will be a sequel

Taking aside all that the novel is just great fun to read, an enchanting escape from reality. Only towards the end, when the four heroes went out to fight for this land, not at the OK coral but close, it becomes a bit silly. First through the dessert, fighting Indians, storming and shooting up an enemy camp and army, shooting down their planes  A bit much for so few people and pages. Maybe a little less action towards the end would have made it a better book. After all on the last few pages tell a few great jokes without a gunfight

At first I did not want to buy this book because I was disappointed that it was not a sequel to The Peshawar Lancers but some of the Amazon reviews awoke my curiosity. Now, on one hand I am glad that Stirling does not do a Turtledove by expanding every book into never-ending series; on the other I really would like to read a sequel one day. But then he will probably write something new, something even better. I guess I just have to keep on buying them.

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 made writing it an interesting experience; sort of like a collaboration with myself."
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[Conquistador] "right now it's a standalone, although there's potential for sequels.

I'm planning on a couple of alternate-history space-and-planet operas next, though, involving alien-induced differences in the solar system which only become known on earth in the early 1960's."

[Google Groups for an interesting discussion of Conquistador. Caution: SPOILERS]

Review copyright 2003 by Peter D. Tillman
First published at SF Site

I enjoy Stirling's books, and found this one to be my favorite. The plot is familiar enough. It is an alternate earth/wish fullfilment set up. A WWII vet inadvertantly opens a gateway into an alternate earth where technology never progressed past the Middle Ages, and those pesky europeans never made the trip to North America. This man, (worthy of a book by himself) sets up a personal "perfect world" while exploiting it's riches on our side of the gate to fund his program.
The colonists would not be on generations Ex or Why's approved list including ex Nazis and whites moved out of their homes in South Africa. I am sort of generation Vee or Double You so I can look at both sides of apartheid or Algeria. Not too fond of the Nazi's but they certainly got everywhere after the war didn't they?
At any rate, the book rattles right along if you can stand Stirling's hobby horses. He is rumoured to be anti Christian and certainly has shown a lot of respect for Wiccans. In all of his books there is a distasteful affection for feudal societies, and an obvious love of food. Read the book. The look at a non technologicaly spoiled world is worth the effort alone, and I was amazed and pleased to find the male protagonist to be a blonde, male Norwegian!

I've enjoyed Steve Stirling's work in the Man-Kzin novels so when I saw this novel I decided to give it a shot.

The premise behind the novel is simple and should be evident to anyone who reads the first fifty pages, but if you really don't want to know anything about the book then stop reading here.

John Rolfe a recently returned veteran of WWII discovers/stumbles upon a portal into a parallel universe Earth. Specifically, since Rolfe lives in California, he steps into an alternate universe California as the location on the other side of the portal is the same as in our universe. In this parallel world history has gone differently than it did on our own world. The timeline is still the same, ie it is still 1946 in the parallel universe just as it is in Rolfe's, but everything is different. North America was never discovered by the Europeans because of historical differences so Rolfe stumbles into a pristine and untouched California unspoiled by the depredations of European influence.

From there we cut to the future/present of 2009 where we meet Tom Christiansen who is a fish and game warden investigating some odd happenings with rare and endangered species. Tom is our protagonist for the rest of the book which starts well, but flags as it nears the end.

The premise of the novel is fascinating, but Stirling fails to overlay an interesting story to explore it. The overall plot is predictable and most of the engrossing parts of the novel are the revelations of how the society of the alternate Earth works and the history of that world pre-portal and post-portal.

There is a conflict that drives the novel's plot, but it isn't particularly new or innovative having greed and lust for power at the heart of it. While this certainly is a legitimate driver in many conflicts both real and imagined the motivations involved don't get detailed enough to make us care one way or the other. This is unfortunate as there is a lot of detail in the book that is completely unnecessary.

One unnecessary part of the novel is the extreme detail involved in the descriptions of every meal the characters consume. It's like Stirling was on hunger strike while writing the novel as every pat of butter and dollop of gravy is gone over. This is every single time they eat something from beginning to end whether it is cereal or a four course meal. The first few times he details the meals the characters partake in it was fine, but after about the tenth time of reading a page of descriptions of what bread they were eating and the meat and the toppings and the side dishes it becomes tedious. Chow down and move along already.

The concept of Conquistador is a good one, the details that Stirling puts into the alternate universe are well done and scientifically accurate, but the central conflict feels trite. The book gets tedious towards the end because of this as Stirling has used up most of the alternate universe background subjects and is firmly entrenched in driving the plot. That is probably the worst part in that Stirling has a lot of good bits in the book that do fascinate, but he doesn't really involve a lot of that in the plot directly instead it just serves as wallpaper for a story that grows increasingly boring as the book progresses.