A Secret History: The Book Of Ash, #1 - Softcover

Gentle, Mary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380788691 ISBN 13: 9780380788699

Publisher: Eos, 1999

Synopsis

In an alternate fifteenth-century Europe, Visigoths are threatening to destroy Burgundy, the crown jewel of Europe, and Ash, a Joan of Arch-style woman warrior, will fight to save it. Original.

About this title

Review:

Mary Gentle first came to prominence with the lovingly conceived and beautifully written SF novel Golden Witchbreed. Its sequel, Ancient Light, then took the world and premise built into the first novel and deconstructed it thoroughly. Gentle's latest plays some of the same tricks with reader expectations.

In a typical fantasy milieu, the mud and blood of a military camp in 15th-century Europe, a scarred and beautiful 8-year-old girl kills her two adult rapists. She is Ash. In unflinching prose, Gentle describes the child's treatment in a men's camp, then the teenager's hard lessons in the art and craft of war, and finally the young woman's rise to command a mercenary army. Ash, it seems, is not only strong and fast but has the advantage of hearing a voice that instructs her on troop deployment. To the well-versed SF reader, the voice begins to sound suspiciously like a tactical computer.

Just as the reader gets ready to reassign the book to time travel SF, Gentle inserts--in what are purported to be excerpts from a 21st-century scholar's e-mail conversation with his publisher--hints that perhaps the novel belongs in the alternate history category. By now Ash and her army are embroiled in war and politics up to their fluted breastplates (armor, like all the historical detail, is minutely and accurately described), and if swords and poleaxes were not enough, she now faces golems and the Carthaginian army. Amazingly, Gentle makes this impossible mix believable, and by the end of the novel it is apparent that this is the beginning of a most interesting series. --Luc Duplessis

About the Author:

The author of A Secret History, Mary Gentle has written eight books that have won critical acclaim from science fiction and fantasy authors and critics alike. She's completed two Master degrees and is an expert sword-fighter. Her home resides in England

About this edition

• Publisher: Eos
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0380788691
• ISBN 13: 9780380788699
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 432