City in Chains

Reviewed by Steven H Silver

City in Chains is the latest fantasy novel by Harry Turtledove and takes up a theme which has featured in several of his alternate history novels, most notably in Joe Steele. Set in Lutesse, an occupied city in which magic works, the novel follows Malk Malkovici, a junkman who belongs to an oppressed religious minority, and Guisa Sachry, a famed playwright and actor, as they try to live their lives under the occupation pf the Chlueh.

Malkovici runs a successful salvage operation with his brother, Sarmel. A member of a minority religious sect, the Malkovici brothers and their business is only as safe as the current authorities allow them to be. Unloved by the local population for what is seen as an heretical belief, they are also at the mercy of their neighbors who could turn on them at any moment while the brothers are simply trying to go about their business. Malk also has a wife to take care of and while she stays home, he contends with moving through the streets and dealing with the occupiers who could take what they want from him, although he has found ways to work with them to allow him and his wife to continue to survive. When he isn't searching for junk to salvage, he descends into a hidden space in his basement to listen to illegal magical broadcasts from beyond the sea, where men who plan the liberation of Quimper gather, although it is not clear that Quimperi liberation would be good for Malkovici and his coreligionists.

Egotisitically sure he is the greatest playwright and performer, not just in Lutesse, but in Sachry the entire Kingdom of Quimper, if not the world, Sachry draws comparisons to the character Joseph Tura in the 1942 film To Be or Not To Be, but Sachry must deal with the realities of living in an occupied country in a way Tura did not have to deal with. In order to keep his theatre open and provide for his own need to be in front of audiences, Sachry finds that he must work with the occupiers, whether it means censoring his works or writing plays that will make them happy. As a famous thespian, he also finds himself invited to galas, which allow him and his young wife, Vonney, who is also an actress, to emulate the lifestyle to which they were accustomed before the invasion.

The two stories only cross occasionally, and while Malkovici and Sachry are at least marginally aware of each other, their worlds really don't overlap, despite the similarity of their problems. Sachry is forced to write a play extolling the occupiers, which he does under a pseudonym, while Malkovici must sell metal to the Chlueh. Turtledove also looks at others who have to make choices about how to live under the occupation, ranging from full blown collaborators to those whose lives suffer from their decision to fully oppose the Chlueh in any way they can. In one poignant scene, Sachry is taken to a dinner to serve as an intermediary between the occupiers and a writer who refuses to bend the knee. Seeing how he writer is treated, Sachry finds himself considering what his own decisions may mean for himself in the future.

Sachry and Malkovici both learn how quickly things can change when the liberation comes and in the midst of their celebrations, they discover that the grass isn't always greener, with Malkovici having to centend with those who begrudge him because of his religion and Sachry learning that people have long memories and a strong sense of vengeance.

Turtledove has created a complex society and although his focus is mostly on the Chleuh occupiers and the subjugated Quimperi, he also introduces the foreign liberators and the religious differences among the Quimperi. The differing levels of animosity each group has for others, coupled with the question of who was a quisling and who was just trying to get by means the novel is not clear cut and can, at times, appear a little muddy, although real life in these circumstances is not as cut-and-dried and City in Chains reminds the reader that even things which seem black and white can have unpredictable gray areas once a person in in those situations.

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