Wasteland of Flint (Mass Market Paperback)

The alternate history part is, the Aztec conquered the world (and, as a rather odd side note, apparently separate, Jesus had a sister, who is as revered as the the Virgin Mother is). But the story takes place enough into the future in space exploration that all of that is background, and the main plot is secret weapons from previous galactic empires gone for millions of years. The way that Aztec mythology colors the people's way of thinking is interesting, as are the racial conflicts- the Nisei and Skawts (yes, that's Scots) retained more of their independence than most other cultures, while the English are nonexistent (the Duchy of Kent is an area of Skawtland) - the main languages (besides Nahuatl) are Norman and Japanese. If you are, as I am, interested in the development of languages, and comparisons between existing languages from their roots, you'll have fun with this. There doesn't seem to be any Italy, nor any remnants of Latin as a language, which I found interesting; there are people who are Maltese, and I'm wondering if that includes Italy rather than just the island of Malta in our universe. A lack of a Rome, to spread its version of Christianity, would explain some of the reasons that Europe is less warlike than others, and would explain no Spaniards and Portuguese conquering the New World. Teasing this sort of thing out from the background scenery is fun.

Suprisingly, the mystical elements didn't bother me much, even though I am not a big fantasy fan nor do I think much of psychic powers or mind reading. I didn't find them obtrusive, and some of the seemingly mystical stuff was given a plausible cover of drugs. I guess my attitude is that in this book it's easy enough to ignore them; one could skip over the shamanistic stuff lightly and still enjoy the vast majority of the book, and not miss any major plot elements.

A few little inconsistencies but nothing that really interrupts the flow of believing in the possibility of this history (for example, we alternate randomly between spelling Tukhachevsky's nationality as Russian and Rossiyan).

Incidentally, another reviewer mentioned that they hadn't read any other Aztec alt-histories; I recommend L. Neil Smith's _The Crystal Empire_ as one such, if you enjoy the idea. It's very different from this book, but quite a good complement, two very different possibilities. There are several other alt-hists where the Aztecs are still a major world power albeit not the world's rulers; if I can find them in our house (family motto: I know it's in here *somewhere*) I will do a List of them for your reading pleasure.

A few other incidentals which some people may want to know about: yes there are aliens, but they are not a major part of the plot, although one such is one of our main characters. No, there's almost no romance, and no sex scenes at all - many space operas have a large helping of romance, but this isn't one of them. No, we don't have any major scenes of bloody violence, no giant gun battles in outer space nor hand to hand combat on the ground; the war here is cultural, and such bad guys as there are, are not total evil villians; resolution of that subplot is interesting but does not depend on armies and strength of weapons. Which is, when you think about it, rather unusual for space opera.

Last but not least, a sequel is in the works; a very short excerpt from it is in the back of the book. I plan to buy it!

The alien cat person is vivid enough if trite. Vastly powerful ancient aliens loom menacingly if vaguely, as is still common in even the best of today's space opera.

Harlan's dedication mentions James H. Schmitz, H. Beam Piper and Leigh Brackett and he threw in occasional references to their works - mention of Megair pirates, for example. All in all I'd say he does tell a decently entertaining story in their often pot-boilerish tradition.