The Tyrant (Raj Whitehall)

With the corrupt and brutal Empire on the verge of collapse, exiled philosopher Adrian Gellert struggles to mold the barbarian tribes of the south into a powerful nation that can replace the Empire, but his plans are complicated by the machinations by the ruthless Justiciar Demansk.

Veteran Drake (Mistress of the Catacombs) and relative newcomer Flint (1632) manage to instruct as well as entertain in this latest volume in their popular... series. Human space has fallen into anarchy and barbarism after the collapse of the Galactic Federation. On the planet Bellview, an artifact of the past a sentient battle computer called Center selects a young officer, Raj Whitehall, to be the father of the future in a revived Federation. After accomplishing their mission on Bellview, Raj and Center have their personalities downloaded into thousands of probes and sent into space. On the planet Hafardine, one of these probes merges with scholar Adrian Gellert, who holds a position roughly equivalent to a Greek in the authors' retelling of the Roman Civil War. Center and Raj's sociopolitical insights prove to be of critical importance to Gellert's father-in-law, the Justicar Verice Demansk, in his attempts to save Vanbert from itself. Most of the narrative excitement derives from the introduction of gunpowder and steam technologies to ancient warfare, while thorough knowledge of the underlying causes and conditions that shaped Rome's destiny lends authority. There's a sense of inevitability to the success of the progressive forces, and more than a little deus ex machina in the device of the omniscient cybernetic advisers. Because the opposition is uniformly incompetent and cupidinous, the story reads at times as if it were a didactic Soviet science-fiction novel, but most military SF fans won't mind.

This sequel to Drake and Steve Stirling's The Reformer (1999) concludes a story that replays the fall of the Roman Republic with the figures of Adrian Gellert, Verice Demansk, and Verice's daughter and Adrian's Amazonian wife, Helga, at center stage. Verice systematically builds a power base by expanding the territory of the Confederation of Vanbert and subduing its enemies while bringing forward new men with a wide variety of expertise and introducing new weapons and technology borrowed from son-in-law Adrian. That worthy in turn helps events along with the guidance of the disembodied voices of Raj Whitehall and Center, from the Drake-Stirling collaborative series, The General, in which this book was originally planned as another Drake-Stirling joint effort. Circumstances led to Flint stepping in for Stirling, which he does very successfully, contributing his own inimitable wit. Readers who don't know the history the book is based on may find the easy switching of loyalties in it a trifle shocking, but they will eventually join the historically versed in sitting back and enjoying. Roland Green
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The Confederacy of Vanbert, once the world's mightiest realm, has fallen to decay and internal corruption. Justiciar Verice Demansk, one of its rulers, embarks on a bold course of action to rectify the condition of the land that he loves even if his actions mark him as a traitor and transform him into a tyrant. The authors of the "Belisarius" series (The Tide of Victory, etc.) join forces to continue a second series (formerly coauthored by Drake and S.M. Sterling) depicting the fall of a society much like the Roman Empire. Set in an alternate universe with connections to the world of the Belisarius series, this exercise in historical and military sf should appeal to fans of alternate history. Recommended, along with other titles in the series (e.g., The Forge, The Chosen), for most sf collections.
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