In a way it is a shame that so many people are enthralled with the current fashion for gritty fantasy in both book and film, Game of Thrones being the obvious point of reference here. Not that I have anything against the genre but to a large degree, remove the fantasy elements, the dragons, the heroes, the magic and what you are left with is often a fair facsimile of an ancient or medieval version of our own world, or put another way, historical fiction. And whilst fantasy has the ability to entertain, historical fiction can also educate.
It was famously pointed out that the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there, and it is for this reason that the past is also the perfect setting for an exciting story where both familiarity and the unknown intertwine. Why invent glittering empires, devastating conflicts, political intrigues and exotic cultures when they are all their in our history books to be explored.
In Violet Sleep is set 600 years before the start of the common era, a time when the once dominant Egyptian empire has shrunk from being a major player to a pawn in a complex and ever-shifting political game. And whilst these political machinations are raging on the wider stage, we follow their parallels in a more contained environment. The Pharaoh has ordered an expedition to circumnavigate the African continent, a journey into the complete unknown and one undertaken by a mix of mercenaries and allies from a host of different cultures.
It is through the interactions, conflicts and conversations between the various groups that we learn of the nature of the cultures at the time, as examined and recorded by expedition scribe Pa Nofre. But as we follow the journey from the scribe’s own point of view we also learn of his great secret, his addiction to the hallucinogenic Blue Lotus. And so the story contains two journeys one through the physical world and a second into the very nature of addiction, as the fleet moves further from familiar territory, so Pa Nofre travels further down a clandestine path that could very well be his undoing.
As well as being a great adventure story, one woven of secrets and subterfuge, adventure, drama and dreams, it also acts as a popular history book as it describes everything from trade routes to warrior cults, ancient maritime practices to military tactics and enough political intrigue to feel like a Graham Green novel removed by two and a half millennia. Our Man in Sais perhaps! But where as many books in this genre would flaunt palaces and pyramids, heroes, kings and even gods to try and impress the reader, what is so intriguing with this setting is the everydayness of the scenario. These are regular people going about regular tasks, albeit toward a less than regular goal.
It’s a gem of a read; it is a look at the grassroots of an ancient society whilst using that as a mirror to reflect the bigger political picture. You get a taste of the cultural traits of the various groups who seem as normal, complex, irrational, gregarious, dour, flippant and everything in between as we are today…or indeed as we have always been as a species. But most of all it is a thriller, one that twists and turns, teases and taunts as it heads towards its geographical, political and personal destinations.
Who says that you can’t have both education and entertainment under one book cover?
