Ruled Britannia [Hardcover]

Science fiction writers have a sort of fascination with William Shakespeare. (It only stands to reason. Even if they work in a genre which the literary establishment refuses to recognise, they are, after all, writers, and Shakespeare is the paragon of literary excellence in English.) Turtledove, the acknowledged master of alternate history, is no exception to the rule, but, true to form, in Ruled Britannia, he portrays Shakespeare, not as he was, but as he might have been. In this world, the Spanish Armada was successful in invading England, Queen Elizabeth was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and Catholicism was imposed upon the populace by force. Shakespeare, who is more concerned with his dramas than with political reality, just wants to be left alone, but is drawn into a plot to throw off the Spanish yoke.

The dialogue is set in sixteenth-century English, which is a little jarring, but I found myself able to pick it up surprisingly quickly. (For that, I should probably credit growing up on the King James Version of the Bible, and my English 11 teacher, who made us memorise lines from two of Shakespeare's plays. There is a good deal of business about how to tell the religious loyalty of various characters, but it's on what is, for Turtledove, a surprisingly shallow level. There is no real coming to grips with the principles of the Reformation or the Counter-Reformation, either on the Continent or in England. Rather, religion is simply a matter of determining a character's loyalty to the cause. There is a fair amount of discussion of sex, but that is true to Shakespeare's works, which are more ribald than most moderns realise. (There are also a lot of puns in the dialogue, and that, too, is true to Shakespeare. In fact, there are a couple of hilarious scenes in which characters have "quibbles" with one another.)

Turtledove, the master of alternative history, turns his gaze to the Elizabethan era and asks, what if it were the Isabellian era instead? As "Ruled Britannia" opens, England has been occupied for ten years by the Spanish forces of Phillip II, who holds it in the name of his daughter Isabella. Elizabeth is held in the Tower of London, most of the nobles of the realm have either been exiled or executed, and the weary populace shows little signs of resisting. But as Philip lies on his deathbed, a coup is planned by Elizabeth's faithful councilor William Cecil, who enlists the aid of the popular playwright William Shakespeare in a plot to inspire the English to rise against the occupation.
As with most alternate history, you need to have a good grasp of how things actually went in order for the changes to make much sense. Many characters are familiar: Cecil, Shakespeare, Kit Marlowe, and Francis Bacon among them. Others may not be, such as Lieutenant Lope de Vega, Shakespeare's Spanish counterpart whose interest in his rival's latest work may unravel the whole plot.
Shakespearean gems are scattered throughout, some in contexts guaranteed to elicit a chuckle. And, to Turtledove's credit, all the English dialogue is cast in an Elizabethan dialect. Depending on your familiarity with it, this can either be one of the book's greatest charms or its worst annoyance.
Unfortunately, this is not an action-oriented book, and at almost 600 pages, that can be a real killer. There are scenes where characters are writing, where they are reading, and where they are talking, and scenes where they talk about reading what someone has written. Any actual action is jammed into a somewhat unsatisfying chapter at the end. This is a book about words and ideas, which may not appeal to everybody. Still, it is an original, witty, rich novel that makes for enjoyable, if not always easy, reading.

Harry Turtledove has written one of his better books. Set in 1597, he uses William Shakespeare as his main protagonist. Spain has defeated and occupies Britain affter after defeating the English Navy with it's Armada. Shakespeare is asked to write a play that will incite the English to revolt and overcome the Spanish and gain England's freedom once again.

Though the book moves slow at times, its plot and premise is worth the effort. It is one of his better efforts. It seems that his stand alone alternative histories always seems to be more concise and and pointed than his alternative history series of the USA and CSA.

Turtledove's research and use of dialogue are well done. While his writing may be a little simple at times, this is one time that he has created a book well worth reading for fun and imagination.