Book Review: The Peshawar Lancers by S.M. Stirling

There are plenty of books I want to listen to, but they just aren't available in audio form.  It frustrating, but it is what it is.  Sometimes, however, my patience is rewarded in a big way.  Case in point, the book we're reviewing today.  We're reviewing the alternate history novel The Peshawar Lancers by S.M. Stirling. 

The Peshawar Lancers takes place in a world where, in 1878, the Earth was bombarded by a series of asteroids.  This event would later become known as The Fall.  In addition to the chaos of the impacts, there were massive tsunamis and five years of endless of winter.  The European powers fled south to their colonies in warmer climates.  The novel takes place in the year 2025.  The climate has long since stabilized, but the world has been forever changed.  The British Empire, now known as The Angrezi Raj, is centered India and has its capital in Delhi.  They've rather thoroughly gone native and the extended exile has produced a unique Anglo-Indian hybrid culture. 

The novel follows several characters from across the Angrezi Raj, and their plots do intertwine and intersect.  First, we have Athelstan King, and his right-hand man Narayan Singh, of the Peshawar Lancers; an elite military team who guard the frontier of the Viceroyalty of India.  We also follow Athelstan's twin sister Cassandra, a highly respected astronomer who is reaching a way to prevent a second Fall.  We also follow Prince Charles and Princess Sita of the British Royal Family.  Finally, there is Yasmini, a psychic girl on the run from the sworn enemy of the Angrezi Raj, the Russian Empire.  Oh, did I mention that Russia is ruled by satanic cannibals?  

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that this novel was worth the wait.  This is one of the best alternate history novels I've read in quite some time.  S.M. Stirling has long been hailed as a master of worldbuilding, and those skills are on full display here.  The world of The Peshawar Lancers is rich, vibrant and detailed.  I could practically smell the spices on the streets of Delhi, feel the rush the wind on a soaring airship, and overall just really felt like I was going on a swashbuckling alternate history British-Indian adventure.  

Let's delve into the specifics of the worldbuilding.  The Angrezi Raj is divided into three primary parts: the viceroyalties of India, Australia and the Cape.  The Viceroyalty of India comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Malaysia and a bit of Thailand.  It is the one we get to see the most of, and it appears to be where the Anglo-Indian hybrid culture is strongest.  It is the cultural and political heart of the empire.  Each of the viceroyalties operates its own colonies across the globe, and India is in-charge of managing the British home isles.  Oh, how the tables have turned indeed.  For extra irony, the British of the home isles closely follow Indian standards of fashion and the India's spin on English.

I suppose I should elaborate on that bit.  English has gone through a few changes since The Fall.  Several lone-words from a smattering of Indian languages have crept in.  Thus, the Angrezi are prone to say things such as "The Kunwar must fulfill his rajadharma for the good of the Angrezi Raj".  Also, the "Th" sound has been replaced by "Dee" and W has been supplanted by V.  Despite all of this, the Angrezi insist that they are speaking the exact same English as Queen Victoria I. 

The Church of England has pretty much become Hinduism in all but name; though it is mentioned a more conservative version, closer to the original thing, exists as well.  Characters frequently swear in the name of various Hindu deities.  Though it was also mentioned that Benjamin Disraeli, who lead the evacuation efforts during The Fall, has become a saint.  Perhaps in the biggest bit of irony, the Angrezi consider beef-eating to be extremely taboo, and Angrezi cuisine has fully embraced Indian ingredients.  Charles and Sita shudder at the thought that their ancestors ate cows.  There's a particularly amusing scene where Henri de Vascogne, a visiting French diplomat, is amazed at how flavorful and tasty Angrezi cuisine is; noting the old stories about British cuisine being bland must have false.  In fact, he finds Angrezi breakfast foods to be a bit over spiced for his taste. 

Most of Britain's colonies in Southern Africa, plus a few Portuguese and would-have-been German colonies, have become the Viceroyalty of the Cape.   They're pretty much Apartheid Era South Africa, but bigger and with a steampunk-lite level of technology.  There's talk of them breaking away from the Raj, but they're still loyal...for the moment.  Afrikaans has become a dead language, but it, along with Bantu, still managed to contribute several words to the Kapenaar dialect.  

Australia and New Zealand form the Viceroyalty of Australia.  Out of all of the viceroyalties it is probably closest to the version from our world.  Fiercely loyal to the Raj, but culturally more conservative, meaning closer to what we'd recognize as Victorian culture.  Their English is the closest to our own, to the point that Athelstan can't understand an Australian member of the Peshawar Lancers.  Australia has a colony in the Pacific Northwest of North America. 

Speaking of which, what happened to America?  It got hit hard by The Fall, and the resulting tsunamis.  The less effected region couldn't handle the influx of refugees, and America collapsed into Neo-Barbarism and tribalism.  There are a few civilized places; Texas has a semi-civilized tribal confederation, California is home to a series of theocratic city-states, and the Mormons are doing pretty well in Utah.  The Angrezi have a few outposts at the major rivers, but no serious settlements.  

Now let's talk about the rest of the world.  France, which is now known as France-outre-mer, evacuated to its North African colonies.  They've held onto Marseilles and a few other places in Southern France, and have retained most of their original culture.  They've also begun resettling Italy and the Iberian Peninsula, though that's being slightly complicated by the Caliphate of Damascus, the successor to the Ottoman Empire.  Egypt has managed to become independent, and acts as a buffer state between France and the Caliphate.  It's also mentioned that Brazil is doing fairly well for itself, albeit they also happen to be members of the caudillo of the month club.  The Dutch evacuated to Indonesia and exist as a client state of the Raj as the Republic of Batavia.  They've got a hybrid culture with Indonesia like the British do with India.  

The Raj's main rival for power is Dai-Nippon.  They're a union of China and Japan, and by that I mean Japan invaded China during The Fall.  They control the Japanese home isles, China, a good chunk of Eastern Asia and they have a colony on the west coast of North America.  They are ruled by a Mikado who, these days, spends just as much time, if not more, in Peking as he does in Edo.  And yeah, Beijing and Tokyo are still called Peking and Edo.  From what we glimpse it appears the Westernization has slightly reversed, with the Nippiness favoring traditional clothing, and samurai still play a role in society. 

By far the most notable resident of the post-Fall world, other than the Angrezi themselves, is the Russian Empire.  The Fall has a massive impact on the Russian psyche.  As a result, they turned their backs on Christianity and embraced Satanism.  Nobody know how exactly this happened, but it is speculated that it might be a very corrupted version the Yazidi belief in Melek Taus, the peacock angel.  Indeed, the Russians often refer to Satan as Melek Taus; though they also associate him with the Slavic god Chernobog.  

Russia retreated to their Central Asian territories, and their capital is Samarkand.  Russia makes a point of keeping its Kazakh and Uzbek subjects terrified and in-line by, among other things, eating them.  At one point Count Ignatieff, the main villain of the book, looks forward to getting home to Samarkand to enjoy a delicious suckling Uzbek.  So yeah, the Russians literally eat babies. 

The one of the most notable features of the Russian Empire are the Sisters of the True Dreamer.  They're descended from a nun who had psychic powers, which they all inherited.  Boys go mad around puberty, but girls keep for several years before their madness sets in.  The madness can be averted with sex, but that also removes their powers, so the Russians make a point of ensuring that doesn't happen.  You might wonder why they never try to run away, but there could be several reason for this.  If the girls never see themselves getting away in their dream, they won't try, and thus you get a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Alternatively, they do try, but their sisters rat them out.  The Sisters are the one true fantasy element in an otherwise mostly steampunk-lite sort of novel.  There is one particularly amusing scene where Yasmini gets a glimpse of several alternate worlds, including our world. 

So, how is this story for realism?  Well, perhaps not the most realistic, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was about the size of Mount Everest, so I'm not sure if humanity could have realistically survived The Fall.  Of course, that depends on how much total mass those asteroids amounted to.  Stirling has said that he wrote The Peshawar Lancers because he want to write something that like the adventures stories of Rudyard Kipling, which you can't really do in the modern explored world; but he also wanted to avoid the disappointment of historical fiction. 

He knew what he wanted to happen, built the story around that, and the book is all the better for that.  As you may have guess, I adore the worldbuilding Sterling put into this book.  This book is often described as being steampunk, but I'm not sure if I entirely sure if I agree with that label.  It is certainly true that the book includes several things often found in steampunk works, such as airships and Babbage Engines, but for the most part the technology is typical Victorian and Edwardian stuff. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, the exact labeling is fairly inconsequential.  At the end of the book there is a very large appendix that really fleshes out the details of the history of this alternate world.  

It was kind of amazing to think that Athelstan and Cassandra, both in their mid-twenties, were about the same age as me when I was reading this book.  I felt the same way about Jazz Bashara when I read Artemis, which I will get around to reviewing at some point.  Prince Charles was, I would say, probably different from the Prince Charles of our world.  He certainly sounds younger and more handsome than the Prince Charles of our world.  Well, that and he's the son of King-Emperor John II, who has no analogue in our world that I can think of.  One touch I liked is that the British Royal Family is still called Saxe-Coburg Gotha.  Germany was destroyed during The Fall, and thus World War I never happened, so they never changed their name to Windsor.  

Cassandra's romantic struggles give us insight into the society of the Raj.  It's mentioned that women have made considerable strides and advances, but they still lack the vote.  Cassandra is attracted to Charles, but if she marries him, she'll have to give up her hard-won position at the university.  So it seems that, beneath the adventure and exoticism, the Raj still has its share of issues to sort out.  Of course, for me personally, the lack of air conditioning would be a real killer.   

I haven't really been talking about the characters.  That not because I thought they were bad, or that I didn't enjoy them.  I did, very much so, but when I think of The Peshawar Lancers I always think first and foremost about the amazing worldbuilding.  Hey, if nothing else, it gives you something to discover when you read this book. 

I would also like to take a moment to plug the awesome audiobook version.  The audiobook version is, of course, the whole reason we're having this review.  It is narrated by Shaun Grindell, who perfectly captures the story.  I'm very happy that this amazing work of alternate history is available in audiobook form at long last.  

Well, there you have it.  I've been waiting for The Peshawar Lancers to come out in audio for quite some time, and it was well worth the wait.  Easily one of the best alternate history novels I've read in a while.  Well, I think that should do it for now.  I will see you guys next time.