Book Review
The Peshawar Lancers

By S.M. Stirling
Reviewed by Mike Finkbiner
from the April 2004 Newsletter

I have long been a sucker for well-written alternate history. S.M. Stirling has written the excellent but disturbing Draka series about a world where large numbers of Confederate hard-liners moved to South Africa after the U.S Civil war and the possibly better Islands in the Sea of Time series where the island of Nantucket and the Coast Guard sailing ship Eagle are transported to the Bronze Age.

So I was looking forward to his most recent book, The Peshawar Lancers, a what-if story that starts with the assumption that a series of comets hits Earth in 1878. The impacts start near Moscow, and multiple strikes walk across Europe and North America.

One large chunk lands in the Atlantic, and the resulting huge tsunami drowns most of the eastern seaboard of the U.S. England is also scoured, but Ireland shields the center of the country.

The resulting devastation would have been hard enough for people to deal with, but enough dirt and ash was thrown into the atmosphere to plunge the northern countries into a series of years with no summers. The British Empire is forced to evacuate as many people as it can from the home isles to Australia, and especially India.

You learn this background a bit at a time as you follow the adventures of Captain Athelstane King, his sister Cassandra and several other interesting characters who are caught up in a struggle between the Raj and a Russia, which is again seeking a route to the Persian Gulf. It’s sort of a 21st century Kipling, with airships and mechanical computers that run on steam.

The characters are well drawn; the adventure is over the top at times, but not ridiculous, and the various pieces of the society fit together well.

It’s an interesting world, and while this story doesn’t need a sequel, I hope he will write more stories set there.

The works of S.M. Stirling are available from Book People.

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