Christopher Evans: Aztec Century

Back in the summer, when helenraven was visiting, she was reading Aztec Century, and we talked a bit about it; and when she left, she left it behind, so I could read it too and we could talk about it some more. I read it not that long after; the time-lapse is the delay in writing it up (please also to forgive a certain haziness in the memory of detail).

'Classic SF', then, in the sense that it won BSFA Best Novel in 1994, and it's a sign of how out of touch I've been with SF that it rang no bells for me whatsoever. Also, it's an alternate history, a sub-genre whose classification as SF I've only recently come to terms with - though not in this case, since the 'alternateness' of Evans' history is technological as well as political. But what drives the story is not the cheap power and transportation, it is the survival and expansion of the Aztec empire.

I don't know enough about the Aztecs to judge how plausible this is. If events had gone otherwise, could the Aztecs have defeated the conquistadors? And if they had, might their society have developed into the one depicted here? In another novel, one where the imagined world simply provided a background for the characters and the plot, this would matter less, but Aztec Century isn't that novel. The story is told by Princess Catherine, the daughter and sister of Kings of England, who remains hostile to the invaders. She views their civilisation from outside, and her suspicions keep open questions about how far the Aztecs retain the bloodthirstiness of their past, of their old religion. So the reader is invited to speculate about who the Aztecs have become, and inevitably that speculation refers back to what you know (or in my case, don't know) about the Aztecs. To a lesser extent, I wondered too about the way history has diverged: might events elsewhere have allowed the Tsarist regime to survive in Russia? Is it conceivable that John and Cynthia Lennon have stayed together, John joined the army, been "a great royalist"? (Because as well as the big differences, Evans has a lot of fun with the effect on individuals). I wasn't swept along by the narrative, I was caught up in a conversation with the setting: a different kind of reading, but nothing wrong with it.

What really undermined the narrative for me was the narrator, Princess Catherine. The story requires her to continue her opposition to the ruling Aztecs; but it also requires her to remain at court, to be present at events which only she can report to us. She storms about telling people they are wrong, despicable, evil - and then puts on her party frock and comes down to dinner. What's more, the plot is full of plot and counterplot, it depends on the reader not knowing who can be trusted - so Catherine cannot be too perceptive about other people. It's like reading the diary of a particularly rude and self-centred adolescent.

There's a framing device, no more than a couple of preliminary paragraphs in which Catherine speaks about her decision to write down her story; but at the very end, the story turns back on itself to connect with that introduction, and the nature of that twist introduces an entirely new element into the story. I found this very disconcerting, and not entirely in a good way; it's effective, but the artifice was slightly too obvious.

In short: a really interesting book, but not, to my tastes, a satisfying novel.

ETA:

1. I forgot to say that one of the things that irritates me about Princess Catherine is not the author's fault at all. But Peter Dickinson did the 'alternate royal family' so much better, in King and Joker and Skeleton-in-Waiting; his Priness Louise is a real person (and, in the first book, a real adolescent, with all the moods and overreactions that that implies) and he is interested in her, and how her situation might affect her. This isn't what Christopher Evans is doing, but I was still conscious as I read his book that he wasn't doing it.


2. For some intelligent and informed remarks on what Christopher Evans is doing, read the comments!