From rec.arts.sf.reviews Sun Jun 10 13:46:45 2001 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!nycmny1-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu From: alex@arcfan.demon.co.uk (Alex McLintock) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Pashazade, by Jon Courtenay GrimwoodN Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Date: 10 Jun 2001 07:13:53 -0400 Message-ID: Organization: Software Agents Group X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Lines: 68 NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Trace: 992171636 senator-bedfellow.mit.edu 1917 18.85.23.65 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2843 Pashazade, Jon Courtenay Grimwood Review Copyright 2001 Alex McLintock There are few books that dare to have a gold coloured dust jacket, and fewer still that actually deserve it. This is one. I am metaphorically kicking my friends for not introducing me to Grimwood's work earlier. Maybe it was because he has never been published before in hardback and therefore lacked credibility. Maybe this is better than his earlier books, I can't judge yet. The achievement of this novel is the creation of a detailed and believable alternate history in which the Arabic world dominates a large part of the world, alongside the Germans and Asia. The US is little more than a backwater country. Most of this story takes place in Iksandra (which I had mistakenly assumed was Alexandria) The hero protagonist, Ashraf Bey, is an American whose bad luck and poor choice in friends and work colleagues seems to have turned for the better when he gets broken out of jail and an all expenses paid flight to Iksandra. Everyone calls him "Bey", an honorific reserved for the aristocracy and not a plain "Mister". It turns out that he is a Pashazade - the son of royalty. Along with the title comes an honorary job in the civil service, seemingly unending credit supply from his aunt, and an arranged marriage. To top it all off he has cyberpunk style wares implanted in his brain at a very young age. The wares are like an interactive survival manual, waking up and helping out whenever life- threatening trouble is brewing. Things go from trouble to fubar as the situation turns into murder hunt with a bit more Dirty Harry than Columbo. Most of the book is a gradually peeling back of layers as we learn more about the protagonist, as well as throwing up new questions: Is he the murderer? Is he just in it for the money? We are presented with a relaxed Muslim world which is far more strict than most Western societies but is less strict than current fundamentalist muslim countries. In an interesting reflection of the American immigration question "Have you ever been a terrorist?" Iksandra asks of its visitors "Have you ever been convicted of murder?" There is a clear class system, and it plays an important part in the plot. Everyone knows his place on the social ladder and is trying to climb up. Organised crime, honest cops, triads, and even a bit of love interest. What more could you ask for? This fast paced novel might not make it in the US of A because of Americans unfamiliarity with other ways of living. But then book reading SF fans are an intelligent bunch so hopefully I will be proved wrong on that count. %T Pashazade %A Grimwood, Jon Courtenay %I Earthlight %C London %D 2001 %O hardback %G ISBN 0743202848 %P 384pp %K science fiction An html version of this book review appeared on the SF and Computing Book Reviews website http://www.DiverseBooks.com Alex McLintock http://www.OWAL.co.uk/ Internet *Software* Consultancy http://www.DiverseBooks.com/ SF/COMPUTING BOOK REVIEWS