Customer Reviews

Pashazade (Arabesk)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jon Courtenay Grimwood does do one thing very well: he does make you care for his characters.

But other than that, Pashazade's overly ambitious, impossibly complicated--it wants to be too many things: alt-history, cyberpunk, a whodunit, a hardboiled noir escapade, and a coming of age story.

Nobody could accomplish all that in 360 pages, and while Mr. Grimwood comes closer than you'd ever expect, he doesn't entirely succeed.

The alt-hist (the Ottoman Empire survived into the 21st century) is just laid out, and not developed at all (the book could have been set in Alexandria 20 years from now and it wouldn't have made much difference); the cyberpunk is faux Gibson, right down to the product placements (and it's amazing how many of the products are the same in this world, despite the radical changes a brokered WWI, leaving the Kaiser and the Austro-Hungarian intact, would have been); there aren't enough good clues for a good whodunit, so in the end the mystery is solved because the author says it is, not on account of any internal logic; the noir is acceptable, but no more (i.e., about what you'd expect); and the coming of age might have been handled better if the book weren't so danged flashbacky (one of the flashbacks, which ought to have been the book's prologue) actually interrupts the grand finale.

Still in all, the book never bores; it just frustrates.

First of all, if anyone thinks setting a cyberpunk/noir in the Arab/Islamic world is a brand new idea, I would refer them to the late George Alex Effinger's '80s Marid Audran series (When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, and The Exile Kiss) and short story collection (Budayeen Nights). That series featured a down and out 22nd-century Arab gumshoe in grimy Cairo who is unexpectedly elevated into a powerful position and makes heavy use of brain implants in order to track down a few murderers, exact vengeance, and try and figure out just who his parents actually were. Hmmm... sounds an awful lot like this book, doesn't it?

Grimwood's story is a fairly off-the-rack "reluctant hero" tale about Ashraf, a small time hoodlum unexpectedly sprung from jail in the U.S. and brought to Alexandria/Iskandriya by an aunt he didn't know he had. Apparently he's the son of the Bey of Tunis, and therefore a very important young man with carte blanche and legal immunity to almost anything. However, it's clear that he's also got all kinds of genetic modifications, the source of which is left deliberately murky. He's also got some kind of invisible advisor fox (in D&D days, we would have called it a familiar), and a whole host of issues. Soon after his arrival in "Isk", his aunt is killed and the police seem to think he did it. So naturally, he must carry out his own investigation in order to clear his name -- with the help of a ponytailed ex-American Chief of Police. At the same time, Ashraf's past -- from lonely boarding school upbringing, to working for Seattle Chinese gangster Mu San -- is measured out in italicized flashbacks.

Actually, the entire first third of the book is rather confusingly arranged, with chapters in reverse chronological sequence and shifting points of view. It's an unnecessary and messy structure which only makes the story that much harder to get into. Eventually, things settle down and Grimwood sticks with telling the story from Ashraf's perspective -- albeit, still continually interrupted by flashbacks. It's as if the author was afraid neither Ashraf's present or past were interesting enough on their own to hold the reader's attention for extended periods of time, so he mixed them together to keep the reader from getting bored! Pacing is definitely a problem in the book, it's generally exceedingly slow, but also kind of choppy due to short chapters and the flashbacks mentioned above.

The story trudges onward, with Ashraf racing to solve the murder before the authorities come down on him. Fortunately, his 9-year-old cousin adores him and sticks to him like glue. And as in so many cliche films, the kid will prove to have world-class computer hacking skills that will become pivotal in solving the mystery. His other ally is the woman he is supposed to get married to, the rebellious daughter of a mega-billionaire industrialist. Also as in so many cliche films, they get off on the wrong foot, bicker, and then predictably fall into bed together -- and of course, she's got a comic-book body. In the end, the villain is perfectly predictable, although the motive comes out of nowhere and seems quite ridiculous. The ending comes rather suddenly, and many readers will leave feeling rather frustrated -- there's a lot left to be answered in the second and third books.

Having grown up in the Middle East, and being a moderate sci-fi fan and a big mystery fan, I was looking forward to this book. I was especially curious to see how the alternate history elements were going to be portrayed and used. And while on the one hand, it's nice that he didn't make the alternate history too intrusive, there didn't really seem to be a whole lot of point to it either. Perhaps the geopolitical differences will have a greater impact on the second and third books in the series, but in this one they don't enter into it that much. Also, many reviewers seem to be misunderstanding the alternate history. In this series, the Ottoman Empire is intact, but it is essentially just a regional power, not a world power. That's why a German is in charge and the Khedive is just a figurehead locked in a gilded palace. Also, if you're going to set up an alternate history setting, why are all the designer brand names the same as in our own world. Since in this setting Germany dominates Europe, wouldn't there be a lot more German designer brand names instead of Japanese and Italian?

In addition to the above weaknesses, the "cyberpunk" elements lack any originality. I'm not a big fan of the genre, but everything seemed familiar: hacking, genetic modifications, pet robots, implants, drugs, viral music, even a ridiculous underground club. And in a nutshell, that's kind of the problem with the whole book -- it all feels recycled. The setting's been done before, the main character is a classic archetype, the relationships are all cliche, the plot is classic "must clear my name" material, I'm just not seeing any original ideas. That said, there are bits and peices of nice writing here (generally the flashbacks), and there are intriguing hints here and there, enough so that I probably will read the next in the series to see if it gets any better.

Abetted by his Aunt Nafisa, who he never knew existed, Ashraf el-Mansur comes to the Mediterranean port city of El Iskandryia having escaped from an American prison. Lady Nafisa explains to her nephew that her brother married American Sally Welham and though divorced five days later, he is a legitimate offspring of an Emir.

Aunt Nafisa introduces Ashraf to her niece nine year old Hani and his future wife Zara daughter of wealth; both hate him because the fuss made over him interferes with their respective lives. However, before his aunt can complete arrangements for his entrance into the elite of Ottoman society, she is killed. As a newcomer and the sole heir to her fortune, the police suspect Ashraf murdered his aunt. Based on his American experience with Chinese employers, Ashraf knows he must prove his innocence or be railroaded into prison or worse. His only help comes from two females who loath him.

PASHAZADE is a fabulous futuristic amateur sleuth tale built on an alternate historical foundation to include Germany winning World War I and the Ottoman Empire thriving in the early twenty-first century. The who-done-it is cleverly handled so that mystery buffs have a solid investigative tale with some intriguing police procedural elements. The cast is terrific. Ashraf also known as ZeeZee struggles with what he has learned about his patriarchal ancestry (his mother could not provide two consistent responses as her version of the truth kept wavering) and with his aunt's death. Hani and Zara add depth to Ashraf's character. However, the star is the city of El Iskandryia where fundamentalist Islamic and western hedonists share a troubled past and shop at Wal-Mart.

Harriet Klausner

If you think that murder mysteries need vicars or tortuous plots, where the last chapter reveals all then put the kettle and I'll finish before you come back. But if you are open to Chandler film-noir stories please stay as this review is for you.

The context is an alternative future where the 1st world war ended early so the Ottoman Empire is modernised rather then dismembered. Aristocrats still have political and social power within a liberal monarchy. Think of Jordon being the norm throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

This is by way of back-story as real focus is the arrival from an American Jail, of Asref Bey in El Iskandryia(Alexandria in our timeline) summoned by his Aunt who is a mover and shaker in the local politics to marry a cousin he has never met. His refusal and the death of his Aunt soon have him fighting for his life in a world he struggles to understand. Intertwined with this story are flashbacks to why he is confused about his past and future.

The story is plot not character driven but the setting makes for freshness to a familiar story. Given my interest in history and politics, I found it difficult to see why this society has more advanced technology then our timeline but that's a Geek thing.

Anyway, the kettle is boiled and the tea-tray is on the way so let's go before we have to find out what Professor Plum did in the Library.

Pashazade has been on my in-pile for a good year and a half. I've picked it up a dozen times, read the first page repeatedly, but never launched into it. Now the time was right, and after a good start Thursday night, spent all afternoon baking in the sun and devouring this dense, lyrical, intricate and most unusual book.

Pashazade is nominally sf - it's set in an alternate universe in 2106 or so, one in which President Wilson, rather than intervening in World War I, negotiated a settlement that left the old empires intact. The setting, al-Iskandriah under 21st Century Ottoman rule, is the star of the book as Los Angeles in the 40s starred in classic noir.

And sun-baked, redolent, languid noir it is. Pashazade reminded me of a blend of first-season Veronica Mars and Chinatown - the hero with a personal stake in a killing rooted in local politics, intrigue and corruption. Add a post-cyberpunk, quite broken reluctant hero, an utterly annoyance-free precocious kid and a lovely billionaire's daughter, and you've got ultramodern noir at its finest.

But more than just a fine example of a genre updated - I've fallen in love with al-Iskanriah in a way I have with very, very few story settings: the Rome of the early Falco novels, the city of Amber, the Federation, the beach in front of Troy - it's a very short list of places for a lifetime of reading. Al-Iskandriah is that vivid, that intriguing, that layered and nuanced and real.

And Grimwood can turn a phrase, too - there are a lot of subtle gems of prose, nothing too garish for someone who does *not* like an obtrusive or mannered style.

At last year's ComiCon, I was given an Advance Reading Copy of the sequel, Effendi. I'm headed back to the Ottoman Empire's greatest free port...

As a big fan of 'alternate reality' fiction and sci-fi, I figured that 'Pashazade' would be a perfect fit for me.

Unfortunately, I'm alsa a fan of 'good' fiction.

The 'alternate reality' concept that Mr. Grimwood invented for this book was wonderful. President Wilson doesn't bring the United States into World War I, leaving the Kaiser in power in Germany, the Austrio-Hungarian Empire intact, and - most importantly - the Ottoman Empire in control of wide swathes of the Middle East and North Africa. Unfortunately the possibilities that this setting were never fully developed.

The story is a rather standard murder/noir that just happened to be set in Iskandriya (cosmopolitan Alexandria on the Mediterranean Coast of Egypt) but could just have easily been set anywhere else. The characters wore their culture like a suit of clothes and the city itself never seemed to be given the attention that it deserved.

Many of the characters were rather flat and/or strangely malleable as the plot demanded. Mr. Grimwood designed his reluctant protagonist, Raf, as a character unsure of his own identity. To me it seemed that Mr. Grimwood was just as clueless.

The structure was hard to follow at times and the more 'sci-fi' elements of the book seem a bit like fancy accessories added to spice up a rather bland plot.

I wish I could have written a better review. I wanted this book to be good. It wasn't really bad, at least not to the point where I didn't want to finish it, it just suffered from over-promising and under-delivering. Pashazade's exceptionally interesting concept was let down by a unsatisfactory execution.

Superb, atmospheric, dark and yet hopeful; the whole of this trilogy is a romp through an alternative present/near future. The setting is outside the Euro/American cultural confines we are used to so there is an exoticism about the story that gives it a delicious edge. The plot is complex and full of twists; the characters likewise. Highly recommended for anyone who likes alternative history scenarios or who is interested in Arabic/Middle-Eastern cultures. I couldn't put these books down.

This review applies to the advance reader's copy of the upcoming paperback edition:

This is an alternate universe story in which the

Ottoman Empire has survived to become a world power,

and its most decadent city is El Iskandria. The reader

is plunged into the real-time experiences and

flash-back memories of Ashraf al-Mansur, a convicted

criminal who is released from jail in Seattle and

brought to El Isk by Lady Nafisa. She tells him that

she is a relative of his, and that he is really the

son of nobility. With nothing to go back to, Ashraf

accepts the story, true or not. He is immediately

engaged to be married to Zara, the daughter of a

businessman with links to El Isk's shady underworld.

His refusal to marry a girl he doesn't know, and

Zara's refusal to be married off, starts a chain

reaction of murder.

Instead of allowing the reader to know even a little

more than the story characters, the author keeps the

reader in the confused state of the protagonist. This

device was initially annoying, as I found myself

having to carefully re-read passages for the stingy

clues given about what is really going on. Thankfully,

this didn't last, as the plot begins to move rapidly

with the attempts on Ashraf's life, and two murders.

The protagonist's efforts to unravel the murders while

being the prime suspect are gripping enough to keep

the reader's attention, even when it is obvious who

the killer must be.

The scifi backdrop of designer drugs, computer

hacking, implanted brainware, and genetic enhancements

is intriguing, but not well developed. If the reader

has no previous knowledge about what these things are,

this book won't explain. The parts that are

chillingly well-written are Ashraf's memories of a

lonely childhood, a distant and self-absorbed mother,

and of being an enforcer for Mu San, a Chinese lady

gangster.

While the characters could use some fleshing out, I

found the relationship between Ashraf and his niece,

Hani, and the developing attraction between himself

and Zara, to be the most satisfying aspects of the

story. Readers should be warned that this book is the

first in a trilogy and the author makes certain that

enough plot threads are left unresolved for subsequent

books.

This is a murder mystery set in Alexandria, Egypt in a slightly futuristic but nearly contemporary time. BUT it is also in an alternate history universe where Europe and the Middle East have long been under the Turkish cultural and political influence of a new Ottoman empire.

Our hero is a psychologically disturbed guy in his twenties. Who messed the poor devil up so badly? His parents, of course: a long-absent Turkish aristocrat father and a cold, emotionless English mother who is a famous photographer. Recently released from a Seattle prison for crimes incurred when working as an enforcer with a Chinese-mafia in the Pacific Northwest, he comes to Alexandria to visit his only living relative, his aunt.

Unfortunately, she's murdered the day he arrives. He, while still being treated as the aristocrat heir to his father, must run around Alexandria trying to solve her murder. Even though he's the prime suspect.

He's joined by a tough little girl who was his aunt's ward, and a cynical young woman who can't stand him because her family promised her in an arranged marriage to him. In an attempt to hold the reader's interest, the book unnecessarily withholds information:

[SPOILERS - SORT OF. The author should have conveyed this stuff early on rather than hinting and hinting and hinting until we sort of guess at the book's end about the following:]

Our hero's mother had him enhanced through nanotechnology. He has see-in-the-dark eyes, and a computer-advisor planted in his mind whom he knows as "the Fox." What harm would it do to just tell us this stuff in the first chapter? Keeping it a secret does nothing for the plot. Rather, it distracts us readers with all the unnecessary secrecy.

Pashazade is a novel with a unique premise that fails to fulfill its potential. It is a cyberpunk mystery set in an alternate future wherein the Ottoman Empire was not destroyed as a result of WWI. Sadly, the novel is more cyberpunk than Ottoman, which is a weakness. The original setting is merely peripheral, so the plot could be transported to any setting and hardly anything would change. Grimwood should have made the setting more integral to the story. A good example is Bangkok 8, wherein the Thai setting and culture are enmeshed with the storyline. That story could not take place anywhere else, primarily because the primary character comes from that setting. In Pashazade, the primary character is an outsider, basically an American. This character is poorly drawn, a composite of mismatched traumas and cyberpunk cliches. I had no emotional investment in his success because he was neither likable nor ever in any jeopardy. The story is run-of-the-mill, and the outcome barely makes sense. The villain is forgettable with no rational agenda other than the acquisition of money. The cyberpunk elements are standard, from the endless branding of clothing to the clubs, music, and drugs. For what it is, it is breezy, descriptive, and written with flair. The action is memorable and occasionally the dialogue is sharp. It is just a shame that a novel with so much promise ended up being so ordinary.