Pavane

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.