Pavane
Ratings7
Average rating3.3
15
Ratings7
Average rating3.3
In the year 1588, Queen Elizabeth of England was assassinated. As a result, when the Spanish Armada attacked, England went down defeated, changing the history of Europe and the New World as we know it.
Now, in the Twentieth Century, the Church of Rome reigns supreme over a world of pastoral beauty, while technology is held back to the level of the steam locomotive and the primitive radio. Yet science cannot be suppressed forever, and its advocates are becoming more daring as each year passes. A revolution is building—one that will rock the foundations of an empire. An acknowledged classic of alternate history fiction, Pavane will continue to inspire writers and readers for generations . . .
Reviews with the most likes.
This is well done in some ways, but I find it a mostly depressing story, and there are some things in it that I don't understand.
What if Elizabeth I had been assassinated in 1588 by a Catholic rebel? How would history have been different? That is the premise that opens this quite wonderful novel. The prologue sets the scene and then we jump to 1968, to a world where Rome has ruled with an iron fist for 400 years. Technology has been limited, Papal edicts permitting or forbidding inventions as the Church sees fit. The Reformation was quashed and Cathlocism has been the dominant force across the world. No Industrial Revolution, no American or French Revolutions, no World Wars. No television, no telephones, no internal combustion engine.
The book is divided into “measures”, interlinked stories that move us forward through time. They are set in the South West of England around Corfe Castle and Roberts paints a vivid picture of a feudal society complete with Norman aristocracy, peasants and steam power as the most advanced form of transport. The world building is superb, the prose lyrical. It is a world where fear of The Old Ones, or faeries, still haunts the countryside, where giant semaphore stations dot the landscape and road trains are hauled by steam traction engines. Warfare is still the province of horse soldiers, cannon and siege engines. The Inquisition keeps the flock in check.
But rebellion is brewing and slowly the authority of Rome is questioned. Slowly change creeps across the land. This novel is one of the best dystopian futures I have read and the twist in the Coda at the end is one you don't see coming. Wonderful stuff.
