Customer Reviews

The Shadow of Albion (Carolus Rex, Book 1)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This regency/alternate earth collaboration by Norton and Edghill, which looks to be the first of a series, is a winner! Is it perfect? No. The last half of the book is a bit rushed and the use of magic is uneven. Even so, I believed in the characters; their dilemmas are real and not easily resolved. The dialogue is appropriate to the setting and I loved Sarah taking over the rifle and shooting down the French troops, to the amazement of her so-reluctant husband - right before they fly away in a hot-air balloon! This is a merry-go-round of a book with pretensions to be a carousel.

Playing in an alternate earth is always fun: lots of name dropping occurs as real historical figures turn up in new walks of life. Beau Brummell finally finds his proper niche as a valet, while John Adams still loves his wife! This book deserves a sequel - there's lots of room for more intrigue, romance and magic in this world - or in an alternate Carolinian earth! I'm looking forward to our English Prince meeting his Danish bride; Wessex and Sarah consummating their marriage (I don't believe they got that far at the end of this book) and Wessex getting over the "honor" and spying question...Let's enjoy all the benefits of a Regency/Scarlett Pimpernel romance and alternate history scifi whirlygig next time.

The Shadow of Albion has a lot of promise. Wessex is a fascinating character, a member of a secret spy organization and carrier of such interesting gadgets as a pocketwatch/pistol. And Sarah, although annoyingly perfect as fantasy heroines too often are, manages to be slightly likeable. The little in-jokes are nice, too, especially the Orczy one. Really, I enjoyed the book most of the way through, until the ending. A subplot which had been heavily developed in the middle of the book was suddenly resolved in a flippant chapter I only half understood. Instead of closing the book with a satisfied smile, I felt frustrated and cheated. Additionally, the lack of explanation of how magic works in the world was frustrating. Magic was a convenient device used only to further the plot, while if magic existed, it would certainly affect the undercover operations Wessex takes part in far more than shown. Still, I wouldn't mind reading another book about Wessex and his good-natured partner Ilya. If Sarah has to come along too, then so be it.

The Shadow of Albion (1999) is the first novel in the Carolus Rex series. This story takes place in an alternate reality in which magic is very possible. In England, Charles II has proclaimed his lawful marriage to Mistress Waters and has accepted Charles, the Duke of Monmouth, as his heir. Upon the death of his father, the Duke became King Charles III and the Stuart dynasty has since reigned over England. The American colonies have remained reasonably content with Stuarts on the English throne, although the thirteen colonies are blocked from expansion by the French lands to their west.

In this novel, it is 1805 and Napoleon Bonoparte rules in France. Sarah, Marchioness of Roxbury, is dying of galloping consumption and Dame Alecto Kennet arrives to confront Roxbury with her dereliction of duty, for she has no heir. They look into the timelines for one to take her place and find Sarah Cunningham from Maryland sailing to England. Roxbury rides to the Saracen Stones to effect the change.

Sarah Cunningham is a child of the new Republic, spending her childhood years between Baltimore and the deep woods. She has grown up among the Cree indian lodges, hunting, fishing, and cooking the game on an open fire. Then, when she is 25, her parents die of cholera and she is taken in by a distant cousin of her mothers.

Sarah Cunningham is aboard ship because a Madame Alecto Kennet has come to America as an agent of the Dowager Duchess of Wessex and Sarah is called to England to right a wrong done to her family. Unfortunately, Madame Kennet dies at sea. Sarah leaves the ship at Bristol and catches the mail coach to London. On the way, they colllide with a strange spidery chariot driven by herself. Sarah falls through the coach window and loses consciousness.

When Sarah again becomes aware of her surroundings, she finds everyone treating her as the Marchioness of Roxbury. She also discovers that she is betrothed to Rupert St. Ives, Duke of Wessex. Gradually, she find out that her fiance is a secret agent of the White Tower and then things start to become really exciting.

This novel is a Regency romance in a timeline that has no Regency. However, it does have Napoleon Bonaparte, Talleyrand, and a strangely effective, but still cruel, Marquis de Sade. Moreover, it does have magic, both white and black.

Recommended for Norton fans and anyone who enjoys romantic adventure in a fantasy setting.

-Arthur W. Jordin

I quite enjoyed about the first half of this book, but as it started poking its way toward a conclusion, my enjoyment slowly declined utnil at the end I somehoe didn't seem to care. A big part of the problem seems to be that the authors have tried to combine too many different things: alternate history, fantasy/magic, dashing adventure a la Scarlet Pimpernel, etc. In the event, it was all a bit too much and nothing seemed to work out well.

One thing that I thought suffered particuarly badly was the elements of magic in Shadow of Albion. There's a bit at the start to draw the heroine from our world to the alternate world, and then it's pretty much ignored for about 2/3 of the book when it's needed to explain a mysterious disappearance. Personally, I couldn't see the need for any of this. The book could have been a more straight-forward alternate history without it seems too many alterations and would thus have been more focused and the ending more coherent. Perhaps the magic has to be introduced so it can be used in the sequel(s); yeppers, the title-page says this is volume 1 of Yet Another Series.

In a time when the word "Regency" is almost exclusively associated with "Jane Austen" and her drawing room romances, "The Shadow of Albion" an alternate history Regency *adventure* is a most ambitious work to undertake. However, undertake it the accomplished Andre Norton and Rosemary Edgehill (a.k.a. eluki bes shahar) do.

The set-up is exciting. Rather than drawing rooms we have the White Tower (a secret intelligence agency), rather than Mr. Darcy, we have the Duke of Wessex, and his Lizzy is none other than the cross-dimensional Sarah Cunningham/Marchioness of Roxbury. Lady Jersey, Napoleon and even the Swedish nobility are scheduled to make an appearance in this international escapade.

So why then the two stars?

The answer lies primarily in characterisation. Our heros, the displaced Marchioness of Roxbury and the incorrigable Duke of Wessex dislike each other and - as we are told more than once too often - are very much engaged, and half way through, very much married. No spark of interest passes between them, although given their personalities we might have had a rather nice Pride and Prejudice romance with a twist of mystery thrown in - but the authors keep our heros in a state of intense personal indifference (not even hate), which makes the reader indifferent to their fate, whether separate or apart. The secondary characters are a tad more interesting, but, lamentably, secondary. The ending twist where Wessex suddenly will-not-lose-his-lady-love-despite-what-dangers-may-come is therefore wretchedly weak, especially next to the charming romance of the turncoat's neice and the missing Dauphin.

The plot, as shown through the language, also left much to be desired. The authoresses attempted to combine too many things at once, and ended up with a mismash of frayed threads. Because, for some inexplicable reason, someone thought it better to bring in a heroine from another world and then give her amnesia, there are interminable and reiterated passages where Sarah attempts to convince herself that she is the Marchioness. (One can only read, "I am Roxbury" so many times!) The same is true for the betrothal - at least five or six people say, "You/I/We are betrothed," to which is almost always replied, "For nine years." OK - I get it already. The alternate history element also tripped up the movement of the plot and the language used to express it. Nearly once a chapter the authoresses stopped to explain a bit of history. While this is perhaps considerate, it also slows down the narrative, usually has little bearing on the plot, and is tediously written. Those who read alternate histories do so at their own risk of not understanding every nuance. That's half the game. Other plot threads are picked up and never used again, such as the necklace Wessex gives Roxbury. On the other hand, some plot threads are excruciatingly apparent, such as who the Dauphin is, when they are meant to be a surprise.

However, with all that said, I still recommend the book to those who like to read alternate histories, and/or adventurous Regencies. A note of warning to those with religious sensibilities - the warring factions of the time are more than brought in to play, with the added element of the "old religion" which is never fully explained nor realised.

As for myself, if I decide to read on in the continuing adventures of the poorly sketched Wessexes, I shall certainly first borrow the book from the library.

And now, as the Monty Python intro says, for something completely different.

I have just finished 'The Shadow of Albion' by Andre Norton and Rosemary Edghill (TOR) and I am absolutely enchanted. I hope there is going to be a sequel. It's an alternative world fantasy set in a world where the Stuarts retained the throne of England, there was no American Revolt and where there are still vestiges of the Arts Magickal. The year is 1805 and Bonaparte threatens to engulf the world. England stands against him.

The young Lady Sarah Roxbury is dying due to her own folly and with a important task unfinished. She summons from our mundane world her double, Sarah Cunningham, to take her place and finish what needs to be done, including marriage to the Duke of Wessex, a secret agent in the service of the Stuart throne.

The authors obviously had a lovely time with this book. Beau Brummell in this world is a valet to the young, impetuous Prince James Stuart, heir to the throne of England. There's a nod to "The Scarlet Pimpernel" in the pseudonym of Citizen Orczy used by the Duke in one of his trips across France-- "The Scarlet Pimpernel" was written by Baroness Orczy, and one of the members of a dinner party given by Madame de Stael in the prison town of Verdun is 'a Belgian Devine named Poirot'. Let us know forget another dinner guest, Sir John Adams from the northern colonies of America who misses his wife Abby very much!

Add the missing Dauphin, the wonderfully villainous Marquis de Sade, a missing Danish Princess, a dungeon and loads of hair raising escapes.

No sex, but some strong emotion. Unfortunately it's not in paperback yet but if you like alternative world fantasy with a nice ironic touch I cannot recommend this book too highly

I really loved the author's scifi novels under her other name. I looked forward to this one because I love old fashioned romantic novels, but what I found was a messy beginning full of unnecessary flashbacks. Once those end, the story gets going, but it's not "Jane Austen meets the Scarlet Pimpernell." There is no Jane Austen and no hint of Wordsworth, or Byron, just a lot of Georgette Heyer slang and characters. Including the heroine and a lower class girl getting on a first name basis in a public shop. Elizabeth Bennet never showed that kind of vulgarity. Why not make up a world instead?

THE SHADOW OF ALBION, described as the first volume in the Carolus Rex Trilogy, includes many elements of the traditional Regency romance: a concentration on the "ton" (British nobility) and its manners and activities, a marriage of convenience (by order of the King!) that turns into something more, a cold-hearted hero and tomboy heroine, and lots of research, including a rich use of period-appropriate language ("abigail" for "lady's maid," for example). But--as might be expected of a book co- written by one of the best-known names in science fiction and fantasy--it's not *just* a romance. First, it takes place in an alternate world where the Stuarts never lost the British throne: in 1805 England is ruled by Henry IX, great-great-great-grandson of the Merry Monarch, Charles II, through his legitimized son the Duke of Monmouth. With no overbearing Hanovers to push them to rebellion (though Henry's daughter Maria is married to a member of that family), the North American Colonies are still just that--colonies, though loosely ruled and in many ways autonomous--and the Mississippi Valley remains a French possession as Napoleon Bonaparte storms across Europe, with dark ambitions for the entire world. Sir John Adams is the British envoy to the Danish court, the Marquis deSade is a supposed sorcerer in Napoleon's service, Talleyrand is the head of French internal security, and nobody is quite sure what became of Louis-Charles, son of Louis and Marie Antoinette, after his parents were guillotined. In England, plots are afoot to return the country to Catholicism, while the Dowager Duchess of Wessex (the hero's grandmother) and a network of helpers seek to keep humanity in a peaceable relationship with the Oldest People--the Faery Folk.

This is what sparks off the story, as the young Marchioness of Roxbury, dying of consumption, is forced by one of the Duchess's operatives to change places with one of her alternate selves--Sarah Cunningham of Baltimore-in-*our*-world--so that her line can continue and the promise "that Roxbury and Mooncoign would always do what must be done for the People and the Land" can be kept. That change, of course, is accomplished by magic--and so the element of fantasy is introduced to the tale, to run as an undercurrent through all that happens subsequently. And plenty does: espionage, valorous escapes, attempted assassinations, alarums and excursions about the countrysides of two nations, diplomatic maneuverings, plots and counterplots exposed and foiled, love affairs, Sarah's marriage to Rupert Dyer, Duke of Wessex, the discovery of the whereabouts of the "Young King" of France, and the sudden sorcerous vanishment of a Danish ship-of-the-line bearing the Princess Stephanie to her wedding to "Prince Jamie," the future James III, 19-year-old heir to the British throne. And although the connection isn't completely clarified in this volume (the authors are said to be working on the next), there's an element of dark sorcery suggested in Sarah's dream of a non-mortal "Beast" somehow connected to Bonaparte's ambitions.

Though Rupert is a rather unsympathetic hero, Sarah more than makes up for him: a tomboy woods-runner in her American girlhood, struggling to understand why the new life in which she finds herself seems unfamiliar and wrong, and eventually using her skills and gifts to play a large part in everyone's salvation. Illya Koscuisko, Rupert's Polish partner-in-espionage, is a delightful original and worth knowing; he and the Young King are almost worth the price of the book in themselves. It's also fun, if you're a history buff, to puzzle out the differences between the Carolus Rex reality and our own. There are even hints of that classic TV series, "The Wild Wild West," in the resolution of Rupert's confrontation with one of the many plotters he must deal with.

To anyone who (like me) has been reading Andre Norton almost since there was any, it's clear from the style that much of the writing was done by co-author Edghill (who happens to have been, under another name, a former neighbor and fanzine partner). But the fertile Nortonian imagination is clearly at work too, and the two have turned out an intriguing read. I'll be watching for Volume Two.

And not all that light. The book caught my attention because I had recently learned quite a bit about Stuart and Georgian England. The alternate scenario is inventive and the world created is plausible and tangible. Some of the descriptions tended to be too detailed, but I think that's a strong point of the book as well. I see the settings and rooms and costumes very vividly. I didn't quite like the several pages narrated from Meriel's p.o.v. I found myself wanting to get back to either Sarah or Wessex. Wessex, with his 'sword-blade' looks and 'cat-footed' walk is charming and reflective, sometimes annoying. He's a rather fun character. I've never read a real Regency, so I guess I can't tell how much he may resemble those characters, but I really liked the notion of a 19th century spy. As to the interactions between him and Sarah, I wish there were more, because I loved seeing them clash. Despite their initial reactions toward each other, they really are quite compatible. I also liked the subtle use of magic...a world in which magic doesn't dominate the lives of people, but plays a stronger and tangible role than in our universe.

If you're a Regency romance fan, this book is for you. It's a great introduction to the alternate history/fantasy genre that combines the familiar aspects of Regency society with the imaginative what-if's of a world where the American Revolutionary War never happened.

It tells the story of Sarah Cunningham, an American from Baltimore, who in 1805 is on her way to England. Unbeknownst to her, in an alternate dimension, her exact physical counterpart, Sarah the Marchioness of Roxbury, is about to die, leaving an important promise unfulfilled. Servants who are practioners of the magical arts manage to switch the Sarahs' personalities at the moment of the Marchioness' death. An added twist is that Roxbury has for years been betrothed (though not in love with) the Duke of Wessex, who is secretly a spy for the King.

This all takes place in an England where the Stuarts still retain the throne, and King George never existed. It is also a world where the American colonies are still proud parts of the English empire, the Louisiana Purchase never happened, the faerie's existence is acknowledged, and John Adams is an English ambassador. It's an excellent blend of the familiar and the unknown, of missing heirs, magic, treason, history, romance, treachery, and adventure.

For Regency fans, this gives you a taste of a new genre, that has a whole new world of reading possibilities. For alternate history fans, the depiction of Regency society explains why that genre is so beloved by its fans. This is a book that is the best of both worlds.