Kingdom of the Wicked by Helen Dale

 

The purpose of Ben's Bookcase is not literary criticism, but the technical aspects of my own literature and sometimes how it relates to others like it. I criticize books on the other HPANWO blogs. Therefore I'm not reviewing Kingdom of the Wicked (Book One- Rules) by Helen Dale as such; it's more an analysis of its setting, which is similar to my own. I first came across the author on Podcast of the Lotus Eaters, a video channel I watch. She is a co-host on some of the shows along with Carl Benjamin, "Sargon of Akkad", see: https://lotuseaters.com. She is Australian, but lives in London and I suspect that the reason for her emigration was a slightly milder version of Max Igan's political exile. A few years ago she wrote a historical novel set in Ukraine during World War II that had a very "revisionist" theme. This led to a storm of controversy. She published under a nom-de-plume, but was doxed. Kingdom of the Wicked is an alternative history, hence my interest. It tells the story of Jesus Christ, but in a strange parallel universe in which the industrial revolution occurred about two thousand years before it did in our own world. There is an author's note at the end which explains everything and is actually worth reading before starting the narrative. It also has a glossary of terms and language translations. There is a distinct turning point between the real world and hers, a pivotal happening. In Roswell Rising it is, of course, the decision not to publish the cover story for the Roswell Incident on the 9th of July 1947; in Helen's story it is the fate of Archimedes of Syracuse. In the real world, Archimedes was killed in 212 BC during an attempt to capture him while the Romans attacked Syracuse. It is possible the Roman Republic were afraid of the famous wartime applications of his inventions and wanted to pick his brains in a similar way to Project Paperclip in more recent years. However when a soldier tried to arrest him, Archimedes was studying at his desk and supposedly replied: "I'm busy working! Go away!" The solider then stabbed him with a sword and killed him. What if Archimedes had lived?... Then the Romans would have learned so much from him. It's not often appreciated that all the technology necessary to start the industrial revolution had already been invented by the late first millennium BC, mostly from the Greeks in the Mediterranean region. In fact a very old book about Archimedes' influence has recently emerged, see: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7zrjn4. Why then did we have to wait two thousand years for industry to break out in England? The answer is partly the availability of knowledge, but also it was economic. Slavery made the cost of labour so low that it was not worth anybody's while to advance technology. It was only when it was abolished (by white men believe it or not!) that the steam engine, coal burning and farming machinery suddenly made sense. (The plummeting cost of labour is why slavery is now being reintroduced, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2013/09/tory-boy-wants-more-slaves.html.)
 
This is why in Helen Dale's setting, by the time Jesus comes along the Roman Empire has reached a level of technology equivalent to the 21st century West. There are railways, computers and cars. The author has skilfully combined that element with other cultural and religious traditions that are very different to the real modern world. The absence of Christianity and other modern philosophies has made their world culturally alien to our own and would be, despite the advanced technology, far more familiar to a person from the real historical period. For example, family and gender roles are essential and are sharply defined. Maternity hospitals are women's places and military bases are men's places. There is no feminism or "simping". The Romans eat dinner lying on couches, which of course they did in real history. In fact one of the non-Roman characters remarks on how it gives him indigestion and wonders about why they do it. The Romans and the other nationalities have their own attitudes to love and sex, which is the same as in the real world and was very different to modernity. There is also a divergence in the law and trial procedure, which is, as you know, an important element of the Gospels. Helen was trained as a solicitor and so inserts a lot of legal details into her story. I feel very annoyed when I read a historical story in which the characters are essentially modern people transplanted into the past, meaning they have modern attitudes and speak in a modern way. In the Roswell trilogy, I modelled the dialogue of the Quilley family on contemporary films of the era. As readers will know, they sometimes use politically incorrect language and have opinions about racial and sexual issues that would get them dragged out of a modern university by security guards. Helen has done the same with her story. You might think books like Helen's, and indeed my own, are just thought experiments, but the latest cosmology accepts the possibility that parallel universes actually exist, see: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7zopda. Also, the change from one outcome to another could have an incredibly small and apparently insignificant cause. In Helen's universe the turning point was whether an aging genius lived or died when he did. In mine it is the publication of a single news article. I haven't decided yet what the turning point will be in The Obscurati Chronicles serial. No matter now trivial the event, it can lead to very different futures and these futures diverge as time progresses. I think it would be nice to live in the Roswell universe, to see the world eighty years after Disclosure. Imagine what Helen's universe would look like twenty centuries after the high-tech Holy Land. Kingdom on the Wicked is published in two volumes by Ligature First, see: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36333061-kingdom-of-the-wicked-book-one.