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SALES POINTS * #35 in the Millennium SF Masterworks series, a library of the finest science fiction ever written. * 'A striking work of the imagination' Anthony Burgess * 'Keith Roberts's evocative prose, sharply drawn characters, and unique concepts make him, to my mind, the finest British SF writer of his generation. No alternate history novel of the past thirty years comes close to equalling Pavane' George R. R. Martin * 'Robert's gift in Pavane is to make us see both the delights and the horrors of this simpler alternative; to see this alternate world as a complex, functioning reality' Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove, Trillion Year Spree.
Steamrollers in 1968 London? Feudalism? An oppressive, inquisitorial Catholicism dominating Europe? A truly different world meticulously created here by author Roberts who projects what would have happened if the Spanish Armada had broken through and religion had stifled an industrial revolution. Of course in time missteps still lead to the inevitability of progress in this view, and the segments recorded here show the breakup of the archaic system. Unrequited love drives Eli Strange to a lifetime of amassing a fortune and creating a dynasty that will eventually give his descendant. Lady Eleanor, the power to rebel against the Pope. A passion for art drives young John into a monastery, the only place where he can receive training and as Brother John he is called upon to paint the agonies of the Inquisition, scenes that drive him to a mad martyrdom and he becomes the inspiration for the revolution of the oppressed. Other characters, incidents, all have their place in the pageant, the tapestry of this other past. Pavane - stately steps augmented by mysticism, magic and maybe. (Kirkus Reviews)
