Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

This book was utterly brilliant, a rewriting of history where the Europeans were not the top dogs. I loved the humour and the variety of styles and mixed with the whole 'what if' premise I found the book compelling and impossible to put down

"History has taught us that few events bother announcing their arrival in advance, a number enjoy eluding all attempts at prediction, while most are content simply to happen."

Jared Diamond meets Philip K Dick meets Sid Meier.

Or “Guns, Germs and Steel” meets “The Man in the High Castle” meets “Civilisation”

This novel, translated from the French by Sam Taylor, is written in four parts.

By far the main part of the novel is the third part – an alternative history in which a small force of Incas conquer Spain and Portugal (rather than vice versa).

And the key reason this happens is the first part – a rewrite of the Vinland sagas in which lead by a woman, the Icelanders continue their path down the coast of the Americas, trailing disease-ridden death with them until in Inca territory the native population develops some form of immunity. And with the immunity to Western diseases they also bring the horse.

As a result the second section, a fragmentary journal of Christopher Columbus, is largely a story of failure ending on Cuba – only really achieving the result of introducing those he meets to the concept of guns (albeit with limited ammunition) and to the practice of ship building (although any ambition to sale in the opposite direction seems muted).

And the main third section begins with the events of the Inca Civil War between Huáscar and Atahualpa (which in our world, aided by the epidemic the Spaniards bought, paved the way for the Spanish conquests). Here – with no Spanish forces to intervene – it ends with Atahualpa fleeing to Cuba still pursued by his more powerful brother. There he meets a Taino Princess who learnt Castilian from Columbus and his crew as a girl and has always wanted to see the lands where Columbus came from and she accompanies the Quito originating Incas on a speculative adventure East – which sees them landing in Lisbon just after a devastating earthquake (moved forwards some 220 years or so by the author) and into a Europe convulsed by religious intolerance and wars – something Atahualpa and his consort are able to cleverly (if often fuelled by a desperate lack of alternative) into survival and some form of power, and then (when they achieve a method to ship their native gold and silver to what they see as a New World) an Imperial dynasty – completely altering the make-up and history of Europe.

The book ends, slightly oddly, with a short story of Cerventes and his participation in an alternative battle of Lepanto, before he is shipped to the Americas (it being remarked that the arts are one area where the New World of Europe remains the superior of the Central American Empires).

It would spoil the third and main section to say too much more about it – other than to make some general observations. And the first observation is that a key reason for that is that this is not a book where one can delight in the writing – as it is, I assume rather deliberately, written in the third section in the style of a rather factual and dull history book.

A second observation is that the book seems to be rather Euro-centric – just as one example Atahualpa draws his main tactics from a book he finds – by Machiavelli. And perhaps related to that the author is clearly not a believer in chaos theory – in fact the book could be said to be something of the opposite to the butterfly effect: a rather large peturbation in initial conditions leads to a rather bounded series of changes in the world – characters, locations, events from our world timeline recur again and again just with a different slant. This makes the book interesting and easy to pick up all the way through but does not really function as a real alternative or as something bringing a distinctly non-Western world view.

Some of these changes are clever (Francis willingness to do a deal with the Turk makes him a natural ally for the Incas); some deliberately funny (a later Aztec invasion of France and England leads to the erection of a sacrificial pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre); some I think inadvertently apposite (the Icelandic explorers survive Chihen Itza due to a surprisingly strong ability at the life-or-death ball games – their opponents are sacrificed instead of then – at least Roy Hodgson only had to resign); some rather silly I felt (Henry VIII – already free to marry Anne due to the change in Holy Roman Empire/Pope power politics the Inca’s forced – still converting to sun-worship due to the ability for Kings to take multiple wives may be good for a cheap laugh but rather misses the tortuous religious arguments he went through to justify his actions and his strong refusal to brook even mild reforms); and some not entirely convincing (the author does a good job in the first two sections of partly levelling the advantages that helped Europe conquer the Americas, but missed I felt really creating any real advantages the other way to allow the reverse to occur: and just as one example the Inca’s finding Portugal on what is literally the first ocean ship they have ever sailed in as a people does not seem a plausible reversal of the Spanish and Portuguese age of explorers).

Overall this was an interesting and enjoyable book, brilliantly conceived but which I nevertheless felt fell short of its potential.

There's undoubtedly concept on a grand scale here as Binet offers up nothing less than an alternative history of the world through to the seventeenth century. Starting with a revisionary take on the Icelandic Sagas in which the Vikings are led by a woman, this subverts the history of colonial conquest and asks questions about why things happen the way they do - might history have turned on a pinpoint in a completely different direction?

As this is Binet, it's erudite without being heavy but there are references galore in here from history and literature as well as famous historical figures in quite unfamiliar guises.

So why just three stars? Well, this is entertaining and makes important points about legacies and histories, about ancestries and the extent to which all cultures are really multicultural - all the same, the dry telling may be a deliberate pastiche of historical narrative and sagas but the no dialogue approach and the sweeping movement left me feeling uninvolved. I love Binet's intellectual playfulness and the fact that his books are so different from each other - but the deep moral seriousness of his HHhH hasn't been replicated for me in this book.

A wide-ranging ‘What if...?’ slice of alternative history traversing Greenland the Global South, Binet’s counterfactual novel is a landmark translation from the new Leopard imprint. Particularly recommended for fans of Cervantes!