ESCAPE FROM BYZANTIUM

ISBN: 978-0982484203

review #1 by Adam Armstrong

6.16.09

It makes you appreciate your local religious fanatics.

Simon Rosencreutz is an officer that defies a direct order at the front line and is sentenced to execution. Soon, Simon learns that not only is he not being executed, he is being promoted to Colonel. The down side is that he is now under command of an old enemy, General von der Goeltze. Goeltze moves Rosencreutz to Byzantium, the capital of Zoorland, where he is part of a plot to overthrow the current ruling theocracy. Simon tries to find a way to escape. All of the fighting and plots are of little concern to him. But he soon finds that almost everyone is against him in some form or another.

Mellon does an excellent job dropping the reader right into the action and right into his interesting world. While too many of the protagonist’s flaws are revealed to us, making it hard to care for his outcome, the world he inhabits keeps you reading until the end. It was interesting to see Mellon take Brutalism (Béton brut) and push it past architecture into an all-encompassing art movement.

A wonderful war novel that flirts with world-building similar to the feel of VanderMeer or Miéville; a book that is well worth the read.

5 out of 5

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Review #2 by Garrett Cook*

08.19.09

Escape From Byzantium is a pretty unusual book and this is coming from a Bizarro writer. Genre is a confusing and often petty distinction. It is a thief in the night robbing books of credibility and depriving the tables of many an author of food on their table. Escape From Byzantium reaches across many genre lines to generate something that is neither fish nor fowl, but not altogether unsatisfying for readers of various genres; it is a dystopian novel speaking out against the danger of theocracy in the Aldous Huxley tradition, an alternate history , a steampunk piece with roots in the rich soil of Russian literature.

The theocracy of Zoorland is a country founded on the lies of a false prophet and thoroughly committed to its antiquated, absurd traditions. A viable history that rings true with real world associations is a must for alternative history and science fiction, and Escape from Byzantium has this in spades. The book has a thorough map at the beginning and an appendix at the end charting the church and military hierarchies. Even the most anal-retentive of military history geeks will be sated by this.

The book’s central viewpoint character, the amusingly named Simon Rosencreutz is a soldier in the Zoorian army, fed up by hypocrisy, tormented by his superiors, a cynical, angry young man caught up in Kafkaesque nonsense. We first see Rosencreutz arrested as a traitor and recalling time spent in a concentration camp. Next thing you know, his arrest is declared a mistake and he is promoted to Colonel. From here, Rosencreutz goes on to a series of humiliations that leave him wondering if the army is worth it, while at the same time witnessing the perks of the bohemian lifestyle through “Brutalist” poet Oscar Kokoschka. The depth of Rosencreutz’ s almost cliché cynicism make him occasionally less than pleasant to follow, but the book’s well developed setting and mock Russian/Kafkaesque style make up for these shortcomings.

Escape from Byzantium is byzantine in every sense of the word, big, ambitious full of paranoia and political gamesmanship, but fans of Kafka, Bulghakov, Tolstoy and military history will find this an enjoyable and carefully constructed read.

*Garrett Cook is a Bizarro writer and freelance critic, the Associate Editor of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens and a Submissions editor for Evil Nerd Empire Publishing. His book Murderland Part 1:H8 is now available and his books Murderland Part 2: Life During Wartime and Archelon Ranch will be available this Fall.