Finished Mo 11/9/15
The author is the father of Martin Amis, TIME'S ARROW.
An interesting novel, but I don't think that the concept of 'alternate history' worked very well. The premise is that the 1976 (the year that the novel was released) that the book is set is a time in which The Protestant Reformation never happened and the Catholic Church has suppressed science and has become the most powerful force in the world. New England is basically the USA and exhibits slightly more freedom than the Catholic Empire. The novel has a medieval feel and almost no part of the 1970's can be detected. Cars and trains are similar to the real thing (the descriptions are not the best, but it is addressed), but flight and electricity are thought to be evil.
TIME ROMANCE- (TM) SciFi type of literature that is frowned upon.
COUNTERFEIT WORLD- (CW) Alternative history fiction (Harry Turtledove; the novel refrences PKDick's THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE.
Novel on wikipedia- (This article has more detail- makes more sense- than the novel; an example of an idea that is much more successful than the execution)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alteration
No comments:
Post a Comment