Bridge of the Separator (The Videssos) (Hardcover)

by Harry Turtledove (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Great Harry's latest Videssos novel is somewhat, but not altogether, grim in both plot--usurpation and civil war lead to devastating barbarian conquests on the outskirts of the Videssan empire--and the development of the main character, Rhavas, a prelate of Phos. Rhavas has ecclesiastical ambitions yet is a true believer in the god with the great and good mind. He stands up for his beliefs when barbarians besiege and sack his city. But the horrors he sees and the crimes he commits during the fighting, and the discovery that he has the power to fatally curse his enemies, lead him into the heresy of wondering whether the god with the great and good mind is stronger than the evil power, Skotos. His logical examination of this idea leads to a great deal of trouble for both himself and Videssos. Dr. T can't write a bad book, and this novel is quite intriguing, if less amusing, than many of the 11 previous Videssos books. Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Description
Rhavas was a good, holy, and pious man - and the cousin of the Avtokrator. He would probably have become ecumenical patriarch of the Empire in the capital, Videssos the city...if his world had not suddenly and tragically fallen apart when the Empire of Videssos erupted into civil war and the Khamonh barbarians swarmed over the borders. As the home he loved was brutally sacked, Rhavas had to flee for his life, then make his way through lands swarming with fierce nomads and with soldiers loyal both to his cousin and to the rebel. He may never see Videssos the city again, let alone preside in its High Temple. He has always followed Phos, the god of light and goodness, Videssos' god, and despised evil rival Skotos. Those who fall off the Bridge of the Separator during judgment in the afterlife tumble down to Skotos' ice forevermore. But when evil seems to have swallowed the whole world, what is a cleric who reverences logic as well as goodness sup- posed to believe? It's a harder question than Rhavas wishes it were.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Baen; F First Edition Hardcover edition (December 6, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416509186
• ISBN-13: 978-1416509189
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #805,818 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Does for Videssos what Episode III did for Star Wars , November 15, 2006

By	Marshall Lord (Whitehaven, UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

"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

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Turtledove's Best, But A Welcome Addition to the Videssos Series, February 3, 2006

By	James M. Dickey (Alexandria, Virginia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable, Albeit Grim, Backstory, February 23, 2006

By	D. J. Trindle - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.