My latest podcast is up on the New Books Network website! In it, I interview Anthony Kaldellis (a returning guest!) about his book on the self-identity of the people in what we call the Byzantine empire, but probably shouldn't. Enjoy!

Even though I finished Topping's novel, I'm still wrestling with some conflicting feelings about it. In the end it proved to be an exciting adventure set in a Byzantium wracked with religious and ethnic tensions. Separated by a riot, the Doctor and his companions each find themselves with a different group, thinking that the others are dead. From there, the adventure unfolds to a satisfying conclusion.

Yet the continuity issue persists. The novel ends with the Doctor and his companions traveling to Rome, where presumably the actions from the serial will continue. Topping might have gotten away with this had he paid just a little more attention to the chronology. Because unless the cart they're riding in can also travel in time they're a year late from the events in the episodes. It's just too glaring an issue for me to overlook, and it's left me with a more jaundiced opinion of the book than it would otherwise deserve.

I'm about a fifth of the way into this book, and I'm definitely conflicted about it. So far it looks like the author is going for a purely historical adventure of the type that was common in the First Doctor era, which makes for a nice change of pace. Setting it in Roman-controlled Byzantium in 65 CE is also a plus, as the conflict of groups in the eastern empire at that time provides for interesting dramatic possibilities.

Yet Keith Topping approaches it in a way that creates a real continuity issue: after the TARDIS crew rescued Vicki from the planet Dido they went immediately to Rome in 64 CE — the transition between the episodes excluded any other possibility. What makes this problematic is a scene early in the novel in which the TARDIS crew is talking as though they have never before visited the Roman empire, much less the capital itself. It's difficult to believe that Topping was unaware of the serial (if he wasn't, he had no business writing a Doctor Who novel) and perhaps he will address it later in the novel. But then he has a scene involving some Zealots in which he writes this:

'The Roman scum will never annihilate the tribes of Israel,' Basellas noted, and turned to the others in his group for comments.

'Matthew speaks the truth,' said Yewhe in a harsh and angry voice. 'What have the Romans ever done for us?'

'Let us not travel down that road again,' a tired Ephraim said.

Inserting a less-than-clever Life of Brian reference into a Doctor Who novel doesn't exactly give me confidence that Topping is taking his task seriously.

My latest podcast is up on the New Books Network website! In it, I interview Anthony Kaldellis about his new history of the Byzantine Empire in the 10th and 11th centuries. Enjoy!

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was fascinated by the description and the concept behind this historical novel. A story of spies, trade, politics, brotherly love, prejudice, song and art, set up in the era of knights, noble houses, the Crusades and Byzantium, the book had story, adventure and interesting characters (including the protagonists, achondroplasic twin brothers, Tobias and Tomasso, dwarves who are not only minstrels and accomplished musicians, but can fight with the best and are spies too).

Although there is plenty to recommend this story (beautiful writing, incredible description of settings, power relations, ships, trade routes, and even social and religious customs), my difficulty with it was that I felt I caught the story half-way through after lots of it had already happened. Not having read the previous series the author has dedicated to the noble house of Gisborne, the constant references to facts and adventures that had happened before made me feel as if was missing a big chunk of the action (although this is book one, and that could cause confusion to some readers).  

The story is told in the third person but from Tobias’s point of view and I had some difficulty with the amount of telling that required at times, as due to their small stature and the need to be discreet because of the risks involved in the business at hand (the trading in an illegal and very valuable purple dye, that has come to embody power and everybody wants), the brothers are in hiding often and others have to tell them what happened. I felt the style of these fragments was not different enough from the rest of the book as to clearly indicate another speaker, rather than something once again seen from Tobias’s point of view.

I also felt I needed further information to fully empathise with the main character and his hesitation, ambivalence, difficulty making decisions, and his strained relationship with his brother (whom I found the more interesting of the two, perhaps because more morally ambivalent, with several shades of grey). Not knowing how Tomas had changed, or what their relationship had been like before, other than in a brief flashback to their time in Paris, didn’t help me fully understand why he found him so difficult now. By contrast, I thought some of the secondary characters like the captain of the ship, who is always handy to save Toby, and the doctor, were fascinating and well deserving of their own books (perhaps that’s already planned).

A solid book about a fascinating topic, with historical detail of the period beautifully rendered, that I feel it will be enjoyed more by readers already familiar with the characters and their backgrounds.