Christopher Evans: Aztec Century

[shewhomust]

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!

Comments

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

Because my spouse is a Mesoamerican archaeologist by training with a specialty in Post-Classic Mexico, which basically means he is an Aztec specialist, I have long had a particular interest in and fondness for Aztec alt history books that involve Aztecs taking over or staying in power. So I had heard of this and read it back when it came out (I may still own it). I don't recall it all that well but I do recall liking some things about it.

I could go on at length about the plausibility of the Aztecs defeating the conquistadors, but I'll tell you what my spouse says: "Oh, yeah!" (as in, yes, they could have defeated the conquistadors if things had gone differently -- and NOT by Cortez switching sides; my spouse means, the Aztecs could have defeated them all on their lonesome if things had gone differently). [Isn't this the book in which the Aztecs won because Cortez switched sides? Which is a backhanded way of saying the Aztecs could have won but only with European help, and that doesn't thrill me at all. The Triple Alliance was a lean, mean, disciplined, prosperous empire thoroughly detested by their enemies.]

Plus, they had good looks and snappy dressing!

Anyway, why do people fixate on heart sacrifice and the skin flaying stuff? Like cultures don't and won't change over time? Like that was creepier than the Inquisition? There's a form of fetish-ing going on here, to my mind, about the primitive bloody underbelly of "the indigenous empire," that does tire me out.

I honestly can't remember if I found it a satisfying novel or not. But interesting as a worldbuilding exercise, regardless.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

My problem with the book is that the epidemiology doesn't work - one of the reasons why the Aztecs succeed is that there is an epidemic disease current in South America which hits Europe the way Eurasian diseases hit the Americas. This is impossible - no large domesticates to act as vectors and cross-over points, which is why the inhabitants of the Americas had zero immunity to Eurasian diseases, which is why there was a massive die-off.

I am also sceptical as to whether the Aztecs could have sustained expansion - previous Central American empires had been equally successful in the short term and then fallen apart and there is a pattern here. Also, their neighbours did take exception to BEING FLAYED AND EATEN.

I'd argue - on the strength of looking at the art and reading Inka Clendennin's excellent study - that the mind-bogglingly unpleasant aspects of Aztec society were even more intrinsic to it than the foul side of Spain. And do not forget that Spain - as a European rather than colonial power - had a pretty short run as a direct consequence of those things. By the mid-Seventeenth Century, Spain was pretty much over except for its empire which it managed to hang onto for another century.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

I completely forgot the epidemiology aspect, probably because as you say it makes no sense.

Could the Aztecs have sustained expansion? A good question, but one that is true of all aggressively expansionist empires (see, forex, Japan in the 20th century). Certainly their frontier to the west with the Purepecha had at the time of the Spanish arrival been static for some decades. I like to speculate that the Purepecha might have moved into any power vacuum created by Aztec collapse. So I don't see this as a specific problem re: Mesoamerica any more than it is anywhere else--why different empires have differing success.

Also at this time bronze working was beginning to make inroads in the west, specifically within the Purepecha, and if that technology had continued to advance, that may also have affected outcomes.

Did the Aztecs make lots of enemies? Yes, definitely. It wasn't Cortez and his 500 (or whatever) men and their guns who defeated the Triple Alliance. They were tough soldiers, I'll give them that, and he was a smart commander and strategist, but they also had disease AND 20,000 Tlaxcallan allies who hated the Triple Alliance and were eager to see them go down. So, sure. But that doesn't mean the Aztecs might not have fought back to or sustained a position of supremacy, or that as things changed another empire like the more cautious Purepecha might not have arisen with more sustainability.

And I have to say that Clendinnin may not be the unbiased source you are looking for. Isn't one of her books called "an interpretation?" It's not a rigorous objective political, cultural, economic, logistical (as well ideological) assessment of Aztec warfare and empire.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

All of that is true, of course - there was technological change going on which might have broken the cycle. And yes Clendennin is not without her biases - on the other hand, she uses the conversion narratives as a source whcih I happen to think was a smart move, but I know some people disapprove of.

The epidemiology is the crucial thing - not least because the smallpox epidemic smashed the Aztecs' sense of themselves so totally. Skin disease was punishment from the gods, so what did that make universal skin disease? Mortality and morale got heavily interlocked - and that, as much as anything, is why the Spanish won.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

From an archaeologist-perspective focused on complex societies and militarism (which is where my perspective flows from), I think Clendinnen simply gives too much weight to the ideological and emotional. It is almost too easy, to my way of thinking, and in a way I have to admit I find her interpretation a bit condescending toward the locals. Easy for me to say being a USAian myself, I grant, but I find it a very EuroAm-centric view.

I really prefer Matthew Restall, who focuses on how the indigenous societies adapted to, resisted, and negotiated the Conquest without in any way papering over the devastation. (Mike Smith is always reliable on the archaeology.)

[rozk.livejournal.com]

That's a fair basis for understanding where we are likely to agree to differ.

I like Clendinnen's sense of the Aztecs as an advanced urban civilization where ideology and religion and art reinforced each other. I like her sense of their sophistication - and I really don't think she patronizes them at all. On the contrary, she regards them as brilliant but vile.

Of course, that's partly because I came to an interest in the subject through being impressed with their art and a sense of what was vandalized and lost.

Full disclosure - I have an Aztec section in a novel not yet sold -

'
'We lived in beauty,' he said. ' It was a perfect dance among the broad avenues and broader canals that each of us moved through every day. Barges floated by that were gardens of garlands of flowers red and blue and purple and gold, orchards and vineyards and bushes of the sweetest berries; in the evenings, the scent of those gardens lulled us to sleep like the smoke of the richest pipe you ever smoked, like soft music. The people of each quarter knew each other and their headman, and their headman knew their warriors and the warriors knew their lord, and their lord knew me and the priests, and we knew the gods. And the gods danced among us and we moved to their motions and their dance. We sang softly in the streets in the morning, each class with its own song and each moving in its quarter and there were five quarters to the city and that was but one of the mysteries we loved to ponder. In the evenings, we danced the dance of the jaguar and the dance of the humming bird and our women were chaste and we lived in a bliss that made us scorn drunkenness. And the altars of blood were the heart of the city and the blood and flesh flowed out from them to refresh our dark hearts as the flowers and fruit passed to the centre in light and sweetness. Men and girls spent a year of pleasure as the destined offering and knew the price of a moment of terror and agony, and paid it gladly. The sun shone on their sacrifice and they felt it on their faces in their days of glory and pleasure and they knew they were its price. I was their king and I ate the best cuts of the meat carved from their bones and I ate the fruit and sowed the flowers and led my people into eagle dance of war in cloaks made of bright parrot feathers; I know now that it was all a snare, but I still hear that beauty sweet in my heart, though, like a half-remembered song.'

I got that sense of the Aztecs and their world from Clendinnen - and I accept that other views are possible, but I think she gets something right.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely passage of writing. As it would be, as you are also an accomplished poet.

Yes, understood, too, that we're approaching this from different perspectives. I'm genuinely fascinated by empire (most of my work addresses it in one form or another). To me all empires are built on blood so in that sense for me the Aztecs, for instance, are simply one among many expressions of empire.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

And though I am fascinated by power, I am even more fascinated by the making of art. And the Aztec empire seems to me to have been unusually focussed on an organic aestheticized vision of governance.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

I think you have a poet's soul.

I, alas, do not.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this and what follows; far more illuminating than the initial post!

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

THat's wonderful: takes the aspect of Aztec Empire that I enjoyed and does it so much better!

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

You precipitated an interesting discussion!

[anef.livejournal.com]

For a very different take on Aztec survival I can recommend the Flora Segunda books by Ysabeau S Wilce. The Aztecs are peripheral, but the books are a complete hoot.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes - I'd completely forgotten that. I've read the first one, and found it - well, not all that memorable, evidently, but great fun.