Synopsis:
KJ Parker’s new novella is a darkly witty historical fantasy. A group of scholars are asked to do the impossible by a ruthless king. The cost of refusal being death, of course.
History isn’t truth…it’s propaganda.
Academics can be cocky. Atop their perches of authority high above the thrumming masses of the unquestioning world they can begin to think themselves gods. It is extremely rare for this authority to be tested. But a challenge from an idiotic, power-hungry king—that’ll do it.
Our narrator is one of a dozen professors at the University of the Kingdom of Aelia. Early one morning, all of them are rounded up for an audience with their dictator, Gyges. You see, Gyges is new to the job—he only just invaded Aelia last year—and like any good tyrant, he’s looking to expand his empire. But he doesn’t think his public image can take the hit of (another) unjustified assault. No problem, he’s come up with a plan—have the scholars construct an ancient city from scratch that justifies his right to the lands of the neighboring city-state.
Now these bookworms must put their heads together to do the impossible. They must make history. Because if they don’t, they’ll lose their heads all-together.
Review:
While I enjoyed this read, I’m not totally sure this novella is labeled correctly. Yes, KJ Parker’s Making History is set in a fictional fantasy world, but a good chunk of this is a political satire – commentary on our current political climate, both here in the U.S. as well as many other countries around the world, including the U.K., the author’s home country.
Now…I tried my hand at writing a political satire before. I thought it worked pretty well as a piece of commentary, considering that very soon after publishing it I had VERY positive reviews and VERY negative reviews depending on the ideology of the person who had read my story. After looking at a few of the early reviews for Making History, I’d say as a political satire piece, Parker may have succeeded. There are some good reviews and some reviews where you can tell…he may have struck a bit of a nerve.
The name of the novella basically gives the story away. The king of a fantasy land wants to “create” a history of an ancient city, giving his best and brightest scholarly minds nine months to make sure the history he wanted to be told was the “official” story. Doing an archeological dig, they are tasked with painting a picture of their enemies…thousands of years in the past. Literally — Making History.
With certain governmental leaders advocating banning books and whitewashing historical events today, Parker’s novella is a timely satire. It is humorous in a “wow that’s really spot on” and “you’ve gotta be kidding me” kind of way, but also a little tough to take in. If this was written…let’s say 15 years ago, it would be a farcical little story. Today though? It’s an interesting story that sometimes goes a little too over-the-top and is a little heavy-handed on some of the story elements.
Now…it isn’t a pure political satire. There definitely is a fantasy element and there is a twist at the end that changes a lot about the first half of the book, while keeping with a different aspect of today’s political climate. The narrative style may not be for everyone either — at times its a bit of a stream of consciousness, but I’d definitely recommend giving this a read, if nothing else to see what Parker does with this short read.
Thank you to Tor for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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