Warlords of Utopia
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Faction Paradox Warlords of Utopia |
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| Author | Lance Parkin |  |
| Published | 2004 | |
| ISBN | 0 97259 596 1 | |
| Publisher | Mad Norwegian Press |
| Synopsis: All those parallel universes where Rome never fell are at war with all those parallel universes where Hitler won. |
A Review by John Seavey 16/4/05
Sometimes, when people review a book that they dislike, they say they "can't put their finger on exactly what's wrong with it." With Warlords of Utopia, it's quite the opposite; it's spectacular, amazing, stunning, but... looking at it, it's difficult to say exactly why at first. The narrator/protagonist isn't particularly likeable, no other characters are given much (if any) depth, the villains don't show up until half-way through the book... but yet, you read the whole thing absolutely stunned by how great it is.
I think it's mainly the scale that does it. It's a big, huge, magnificent, brilliant idea that trumps every single "what if?" novel out there, and it develops that idea from its origin to its apotheosis intelligently and with precision. Marcus Americanus Scriptor moves, in his narrative, from Point A (the discovery of a device that allows him to leave his version of Rome and travel to another, alternative universe where history flowed differently) to Point Z (a final battle between a thousand Romes and a thousand Berlins, orchestrated on the one side by him, on the other side by the Council of Hitlers) so elegantly that the unfolding of the idea is the most important thing in the book. Parkin doesn't concentrate on character development of his ancillary characters for exactly that reason; the events are far more interesting than the individuals could possibly ever be. Even Scriptor himself is only given character insofar as we're seeing the events of the war through his eyes!
And yes, the Nazis don't show up until the book is half-over... but that does nothing to dilute the expectation of their arrival. We know that Scriptor's first, tentative explorations will eventually lead him into conflict with the other great power mentioned on the back of the book, and it gives the first half of the novel an extra dramatic push. The second half needs no such help. Hitlers everywhere, Roman guerillas, battles that operate on a scale scarcely imaginable, atomic bombs, Hitler's son, giant Roman insect-tanks... the last half of the book goes by fueled by adrenaline as much as anything else. It all leads up to a conclusion that isn't 100 percent satisfying (perhaps 94.3 percent, if we judge these things scientifically), but which does tie the whole thing back into the framework of the FP cosmology, which is something I'd started to wonder about somewhere around page 100.
On the whole, exactly the must read everyone probably expects it to be.
Lance Of Utopia by Jamas Enright 13/4/06
Ah, this is how you write a book! Thank you Lance Parkin for not leaving a bad taste in my mouth as I leave the Faction Paradox range. As the back cover says "Rome never fell. Hitler won. Now they are at war." (Note: not War, just war.) I've never gone out of my way to read alternative history books, but Lance Parkin weaves a fantastic tale where Rome is still a functioning empire, and Germany wins World War II. And not just once. A whole slew of Earths are available where these two versions of history occur (and it says a lot for the author that he manages to keep coming up with variations and keeping them fresh, although I never knew history enough to know if these are real details or not).
(It's an interesting aspect of either our culture or the author that in none of the Nazi-Germanys is Nazism treated as a good thing. At best, it's all people know, but the light shone on it is always reflecting darkness and hatred. I'm not saying that Nazism is good, just that no-one ever admits that possibility in these stories.)
The build-up is slow but effective. Even in the opening pages, you can tell that this is a story well told, and you're willing to trust in the author even though the history of the world is something strange and unknown. From one Rome we build up to several, and then cross over to find a completely different history. And the best part about all of this is that the presence of the True Universe and Faction Paradox, etc., isn't really there. They are there, of course, but only play a minor role, stepping in to provide helpful plot points at times, but basically this book could easily stand outside the Faction Paradox range (which is one of its better points).
The main character is Marcus Americanius Scriptor, but his role is more observer than participant (although he is the one through which most of the events take place, he more allows them to take place while he is around rather than actively cause them). As such, while we read the life story of Marcus, we learn more about the what than the why, and he manages to be neither protagonist nor antagonist. That said, there are some nice moments when Marcus is confronted with his innate biasedness towards his Roman history, and can consider no other historical variation as acceptable (or they may just play that way given our own biases).
The worst aspect of this book is that it sets a high bar on the type of stories that can be told in the Faction Paradox universe, and on the quality of the writing. Lance Parkin is one of the better authors around, certainly, but this means that the next books are unlikely to meet this bar, let along exceed it. That said, as long as neither Lawrence Miles nor Philip Purser-Hallard write any more books, I might be able to accept that.