Works better as individual stories, where Silverberg can bring his scholarship to bear, than as a quasi-novel whose overall...
From the veteran author/editor (The Longest Way Home, 2002, etc.), a fix-up consisting of ten stories, 1989–2003, some of which have appeared before in somewhat different form, whose premise is a highly familiar one: What if the Roman Empire never fell? Silverberg's crucial divergence point is the Exodus: here, Moses failed, the Hebrews were re-enslaved, Israel never arose, neither did Christianity, and still-pagan Rome defeated its barbarian foes. By the equivalent of a.d. 450, the Eastern Empire under Justinianus at Constantinople is strong, while the Western Empire is weak and again beset by barbarians. Silverberg replays the stock Shakespearean tale of Falstaff and Prince Hal: suddenly, both the emperor and his heir die, the once-dissolute Prince Maximilianus spurns Faustus, his old companion-in-iniquity, and assumes Caesar's mantle. Less than a century later, Corbulo, exiled to Mecca for offending Caesar, arranges the assassination of the prophet Mohammed. In other episodes, the Mayans rebuff an attempted Roman invasion; the Byzantine Empire attacks and defeats Rome—temporarily; a Roman emperor recapitulates a brutal Spanish voyage of conquest across the Pacific; mad emperors come and go, threatening but never quite toppling the Imperium, as do wars of secession and reunion. Finally, the Republic is bloodily restored, but Rome continues; and a small band of militant Jews attempts to build a starship and found an Israel far off in space.
Works better as individual stories, where Silverberg can bring his scholarship to bear, than as a quasi-novel whose overall justification grows steadily more improbable.Pub Date: June 4, 2003
ISBN: 0-380-97859-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Eos/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2003
Once again, a highly impressive must-read.
Second part of an alien-contact trilogy (The Three-Body Problem, 2014) from China’s most celebrated science-fiction author.
In the previous book, the inhabitants of Trisolaris, a planet with three suns, discovered that their planet was doomed and that Earth offered a suitable refuge. So, determined to capture Earth and exterminate humanity, the Trisolarans embarked on a 400-year-long interstellar voyage and also sent sophons (enormously sophisticated computers constructed inside the curled-up dimensions of fundamental particles) to spy on humanity and impose an unbreakable block on scientific advance. On Earth, the Earth-Trisolaris Organization formed to help the invaders, despite knowing the inevitable outcome. Humanity’s lone advantage is that Trisolarans are incapable of lying or dissimulation and so cannot understand deceit or subterfuge. This time, with the Trisolarans a few years into their voyage, physicist Ye Wenjie (whose reminiscences drove much of the action in the last book) visits astronomer-turned-sociologist Luo Ji, urging him to develop her ideas on cosmic sociology. The Planetary Defense Council, meanwhile, in order to combat the powerful escapist movement (they want to build starships and flee so that at least some humans will survive), announces the Wallfacer Project. Four selected individuals will be accorded the power to command any resource in order to develop plans to defend Earth, while the details will remain hidden in the thoughts of each Wallfacer, where even the sophons can't reach. To combat this, the ETO creates Wallbreakers, dedicated to deducing and thwarting the plans of the Wallfacers. The chosen Wallfacers are soldier Frederick Tyler, diplomat Manuel Rey Diaz, neuroscientist Bill Hines, and—Luo Ji. Luo has no idea why he was chosen, but, nonetheless, the Trisolarans seem determined to kill him. The plot’s development centers on Liu’s dark and rather gloomy but highly persuasive philosophy, with dazzling ideas and an unsettling, nonlinear, almost nonnarrative structure that demands patience but offers huge rewards.
Once again, a highly impressive must-read.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7708-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Well written, but does not really rise much above the rest of the teeming post-apocalyptic pack.
The first in a post-pandemic trilogy.
The midwife of the title is an obstetric nurse in San Francisco when an unknown disease strikes; it kills men but is more devastating to women. For women giving birth, it is a virtual death sentence for both mother and child. The nurse falls ill herself but ultimately wakes alone in a hospital bed, surrounded by bodies and her doctor boyfriend either dead himself or long gone. After an unpleasant year spent in a sparsely populated city sprinkled with male predators, she decides to move on in search of something better. Disguising herself as a man and taking many names to protect herself both physically and emotionally from anyone getting too close, she travels across the country, quietly offering birth control to the enslaved women she encounters and defending herself from scavengers and potential rapists. After a troubled interlude with a young Mormon couple fleeing their increasingly unstable community, she eventually finds her way to a small settlement on what remains of a military base, where she devotes herself to passing on her skills and attempting to deliver a surviving baby. Similarly to The Handmaid’s Tale and The Power, the book has a framing device set generations later in that same settlement, where the midwife’s journals are kept and she is venerated as a sacred figure. But confusingly, the story is not solely drawn from her journals; with no explanation, an omniscient narrator occasionally jumps in to reveal information that neither the midwife nor the future residents of the town could possibly know. While knowing the fates of the characters who pass out of the midwife’s life provides closure, it also undercuts the integrity of the story. The somewhat abrupt ending also feels somewhat unsatisfying; after a leisurely (if disturbing) account of the days and months of the midwife’s travels, the author suddenly packs years of her life into the last few pages.
Well written, but does not really rise much above the rest of the teeming post-apocalyptic pack.Pub Date: June 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-5039-3911-0
Page Count: 300
Publisher: 47North
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2019
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