MAKING HISTORY

Reviewed by Steven H Silver

K.J. Parker's Making History opens with the narrator, a linguist, and several of his colleagues from the university called before Gyges, the First Citizen of Aelia. Gyges is interested in starting a war, but needs an excuse. He has come up with a convoluted plan which requires the cooperation of the scholars. Gyges spins a yarn about the founding of the Aelian empire and insists that a non-existent ancient city in the hinterlands was destroyed, but contains the evidence needed to give him a reason to go to war against the Sashan Empire. The only problem is that Gyges' story is complete fiction. To that end, he is ordering the scholars to create the ruins of the ancient city, along with the evidence that could be found there to support his claims. The scholars essentially have two choices: to agree to this insane scheme or suffer death at the hands of Gyges, although one of them comes up with a third option, although once he commits suicide, Gyges assures none of his colleagues can follow suit.

Parker has always had the ability to create likable con artists and this is no different. His nameless narrator views the assignment as an unwanted challenge. How to create an extinct language based on an existing language, which allows both the narrator and Parker to explore the way languages and changes naturally occur over the centuries. The reader is walked step by step through the process the narrator employs, with the understanding that the other scholars are doing something similar in their own way. While most are working from the environs of the university, one of them, Maggo, spends most of his time on site, overseeing the [expendable] army of slaves and criminals who have been assigned to build the archaeological site.

Things start to go sideways when the narrator heads to the docks to buy some wine from a foreign trading ship. An expert in several languages, it doesn't occur to him until he is back at his rooms that the language in which the sailor conducted the transaction was the proto language the narrator had invented as part of the project. As the weeks past, other evidence that the scholars were recreating something that had actually existed for centuries began to come to light, leading to tension among the scholars are they tried to determine who was leaking information and why. While this should have moved the story into high gear, the meat of the story really is more the joy the scholars take in applying their esoteric knowledge to a practical purpose.

In addition to the narrator's relationship to the other scholars, Parker introduces his relationship to a former (?) prostitute with the unlikely name Nine White Hairs. Years earlier, he had convinced her to give up her old ways and now his relationship with her allows him to talk about the strange issues that have arisen with the project when he realizes that their situation is precarious enough that he can no longer trust his colleagues. Nine White Hairs proves to have the connections he needs to make contingency plans, as well as help him figure out how the impossible may be happening.

While many of Parker's recent novels, such as the Siege trilogy, have dealt with the difference between what actually happened and the way it is recorded in history, Making History turns this on its head. The academics gathered by First Citizen Gyges are told what the history is and they set about to create the evidence that would support the previously unknown "history" that Gyges wants to use as propaganda to give him a cassus belli The novella fits in well with the discussion of what history is that Parker has been engaging in recent books, but does so in a unique way that helps expand his exploration of the topic.

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