Empress of Eternity

Empress of Eternity

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This seems to have a lot of the same flourishes that I found intriguing in Modesitt's “Ghost” series - bureaucratic infighting, an interest in ecological issues, and an ending that leaves me wondering “what the hell just happened?”

The McGuffin in this case is a massive, indestructible canal - 2, 000 “kays” long and 6 kays wide - that spans the “middle continent” of the Earth. I don't know what a “kay” is. I assumed that it was a kilometer, but it seems to be a common unit of measurement in the three cultures depicted in the book, each of which seems to be separated by tens of thousands of years of time.

At first, I wasn't sure if the “Earth” was our Earth, but the references to a shiny belt in place of the moon made me think otherwise, and, of course, hooked me with the question, “what happened to the Moon?”

Modesitt tells the story from the viewpoint of three pairs of characters separated widely in time. The earliest characters are aristocrats in some kind of constitutional democracy called the “Unity of Caelaarn.” In their time, glaciation has reached the canal. Authoritarian forces are plotting to take over the Unity, and Lord Maertyn is studying the canal in the hopes that there might be a clue in this ancient, indestructible, mysterious artefact that will stave off the glaciers.

The second pair are in the Ruche, which is a polity heading toward a hive mind. The characters can communicate mind-to-mind in a kind of shorthand. Ruche is threatened by global warming and desertification. One faction of the Ruche has overthrown a somewhat more liberal faction and are threatening our characters, who are studying the canal for some clue to fight global warming, with brainwipe.

The final pair is in the far future in some kind of world state called the Vanir Hegemony, which is dealing with separatists called the Aesir. The Aesir have a weapon that can destroy the universe and are using it without care about the risk. The culture of the Vanir is very Norse, for no explicable reason.

As we read the story, the plotlines begin to merge. The canal provides a time-traveling deus ex machina.

I enjoyed the story. I liked that Modesitt provided an answer for his destruction of the Moon plot point, but I'm not sure I understand or accept the explanation. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the characters and was pulled along by the thirst to know more. This is a story with a big science fiction concept wrapped in the big science fiction concept of “deep time,” which nicely captures the gosh-wow! feel of golden age science fiction.