It’s as if Temeraire had gone from Western China to Napoleonic France without encountering the Ottomans or the Prussians.

I can argue for or against that kind of perspective pretty easily, and of course, it isn’t ever a value-free argument either way.

But if you’re engaged in fantasy, or in alternate history that isn’t narrowly counterfactual, then you’re no longer so burdened by what really happened. In the case of these books, the author has actually taken away a lot of what made Western European societies globally powerful in the late 18th Century. If there’s colonization in the Americas, it’s only in the West Indies and possibly Brazil. That has to affect the sheer volume of the Atlantic slave trade at the very least, though Brazil and the West Indies alone could account for a great many slaves. There can’t be a “triangular trade” in quite the form that we know if it there aren’t colonies in North America. It doesn’t appear that there is extensive British or Portuguese involvement in India. Or for that matter Portuguese involvement in Mozambique. I don’t know that she’s said anything about Dutch involvement anywhere–the British are in control of Cape Town in the fourth book, without reference to the VOC. That alone is huge: try to imagine the Renaissance and the Enlightenment without an economically powerful Netherlands.

So once you’ve kicked out that much from the underpinnings of the history we know, keeping Western Europe in its familiar Napoleonic contours while making southern Africa rather imaginatively (and attractively) different starts to raise questions about how we always put Europe back in the center even when it doesn’t belong there. I understand why Novik is doing it this way: it’s the same reason that SF authors often imagine aliens as cat people or toad people or insect people. Because your readers need a safe harbor when you’re imagining a world that runs by different rules. Napoleonic fictions (and reality) bring the fantasy to ground in something that the readers know and find comforting. But the imaginary history is now running on two very asymmetrical bases: a world that ought by all lights to be completely different from the history we know is in one place almost absolutely the same and in another place radically, even implausibly, different. I think it would be a good idea to think about provincializing Europe in some of our imaginings. If even in our fantasy histories, Europe is always what we imagine that it was, while other societies are clay for our imagination, then there is some sense in which we are believing in the racial or cultural destiny of Europe no matter what. Which seems silly to me, whatever I might think of the influence or impact of Western expansion. I can think of a zillion plausible points of contingent divergence where Western Europe didn’t turn out to be the Europe of Enlightenment, of Renaissance, of Christianity, of the scientific revolution, of industrial capitalism, of colonial expansion, of slavery–well, at least if I’m also imagining dragons.

Then too, history is a ground for invention – incredibly rich – and fantasy soars not least by building upon that rich ground – and on all the other fictions that have built upon that ground, and now themselves form a further ground for invention. When you call for provincialization, it seems to me you call for a leap of genius, imagination, that can substitute for the rich ground of history and genre convention. This asks a great deal of writers – perhaps is worthy of the attempt – but also involves abandoning the collectiveness richness of the tradition in search of something new. Your implicit aesthetic, it seems to me, may have higher literary costs, for writer and for reader, than is at first apparent.

All this separate from the question of whether these Temeraire novels are uneven in their execution of their desired aesthetic.

One explanation: human history is a tale of cruel, sadistic, aggressive, destructive behavior, so by holding European history steady Europe is saddled with that baggage, while everyone else’s history can be “improved” (even to the point of moral superiority if one so chooses). It’s not unusual; I come across this even in so-called nonfiction.

http://naominovik.livejournal.com/

why not ask? You might get roped in as a beta reader, but that could be fun. Maybe that’s the way to get Mr T to Edinburgh for a little enlightenment.

Also, I think that Capt Riley’s family is said to have holdings in the West Indies, so apparently the sugar trade is still there. That would provide at least some underpinning for the Atlantic slave trade, even without the colonies that eventually became the US. Also, Halifax is mentioned as a breeding ground and (I think) naval station, so maybe Nova Scotia, Labrador and others are settled by Europeans. Presumably Newfie jokes will eventually be told in Novik’s world. Maybe one trade route is Caribbean/Atlantic Canada/Great Britain, with Halifax as big as Boston and all the fishing on the Grand Banks done from there. Absent Virginia and the Carolinas and you don’t have as much slave trade, and you don’t get King Cotton a little later, but sugar plantations — and possibly Brazil — might provide enough market for the slave trade as depicted in the books.

As for provincializing Europe, Paul Park’s A Princess of Roumania is an interesting take. Bucharest is the most important capital on the continent, with Ratisbon (usually known to us as Regensburg, Germany) apparently a close second. Haven’t read the second and third books in the set, so I can’t say how it holds up, but it’s an interesting take.

I’ve also long maintained that Henryk Siekiewicz’s epic trilogy is just waiting to be marketed to an F&SF public, with mega-dollars to be made by the first press that gets it right.

“Now, Pater. Mr. Smith is quite sharp as humans go.” The young elf-lord bit into a Hesperidean apple with sharp teeth. “Indeed, some of his insights into moral behavior apply to elfs as much as men, and are worthy of preservation. But, no, ‘tutor’ is by way of euphemism. He was a witty companion while I sojourned in Edinburgh, and I would gladly continue the acquaintance. He desires time to study, and has expressed interest in a sojourn to the Faerie lands. What objection can there be?”

“The drain to my purse,” his Grace grumbled. “And there is the problem of the return journey.” He cocked an eyebrow at young Verdigris. “Have you discussed that with him?”

Verdigris’ fangs devoured yet more of the apple’s pulpy flesh. “Mmm … no. I thought I would leave that as a challenge to him. He is intelligent, Mr. Smith. Surely it will be no great challenge for him to figure out the route.”

“Moral behavior will get him past the Hounds?” His Grace barked laughter. “It hasn’t even taught him to distrust an elf prince.”

“Intelligent, but young, my Mr. Smith,” said Verdigris. “But he will have time enough in Faerie to mature his wits.”