THROUGH DARKEST EUROPE

Reviewed by Steven H Silver

There are several high concept alternate histories which reverse the way things are in our own world to explore how things can be reverse. Steven Barnes’s Lion’s Blood and Zulu Heart and Bernardine Evaristo’s Blonde Roots both spring to mind, although Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Years of Rice and Salt comes closest to the high concept of Harry Turtledove’s Through Darkest Europe. As Robinson did, Turtledove explores a world in which Islam, rather than Christianity, is the dominant religion.

In the world inhabited by Khalid al-Zarzisi, the eleventh century Persian philosopher Al-Ghazali embraced Aristotelian science while the Italian philosopher Thomas Aquinas turned his back on science in favor of a blind faith, essentially reversing the teaching of these two men from our own timeline. By the twenty-first century, the resulting world is eerily similar to our own, although with some major differences. What is considered “Western civilization” is still dominant, but it is based in the Islamic World. Christian Europe is seen as a backwater, torn by the strife of rival sects of religious fanatics.

Al-Zarzisi and his partner, Dawud ibn Musa have been called to Rome by the Grand Duke Cossimo to help him fight against the radical Aquinists, who are trying to stop Europe from advancing further into the twenty-first century and are trying to reverse the social and scientific advances it has already made. Their fact finding tour takes a dark turn when the Aquinists decide it is time to launch an all-out attack on what they perceive as the liberal government of Rome, including the Pope.

Turtledove has clearly models his conflict on the battle between different factions of Islam operating in the Middle East, fighting amongst themselves as well as Western civilization. By switching the arguments to the opposite side of the religious equation, he is strongly pointing out that the behavior is not tied to a specific religion, but rather in the mindset brought about by centuries of teachings and culture.

Although the Islamic culture which pervades the entire world is kept mostly off-stage, with only a little action at the end of the novel set in the Maghrib, al-Zarzisi and ibn Musa bring the reason and modern values to a society which is backwards and unwilling to accept them. Although Grand Duke Cossimo understands the importance of being part of the larger world, his main desire in having the investigators visit Italy is to help him put the Aquinists in their place. Only his assistant, Annarita Pezzola, seems to fully understand what Italy could gain from the modern, Muslim World, and that partly because as a woman she is discriminated against and has to fight for any acceptance, rights, or power, no matter how intelligence and competent she is.

While al-Zarzisi and ibn Musa try to offer help to the Grand Duke as the Aquinists break out in a full scale assault on both lay and religious entities up and down Italy, the situation really isn’t something they can control beside putting out small fires here and there. It is clear that whatever solution they devise to quell the violence they are seeing is only temporary, with the Aquinists, who are multinational in scope, being able to eventually regroup and launch additional attacks. There is a certain nihilistic feel to the novel, even as the men from the Maghrib attempt to build something out of the backwards Christian civilization, or at lease salvage it.

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