Romans in America

Clash of Eagles by Alan Smale
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful alternate history adventure, and I loved it, but it's also a character-driven novel that is surprisingly affecting, with people you want to meet in real life.

Like Sintikala. She's awesome. Great character.

This is a what-if novel, positing a couple things: the Roman Empire still exists in the 13th Century, having incorporated the Norse and other peoples; with Viking help, they can travel to North America, where they encounter and defeat some of the native peoples; searching for gold, they fight all the way to the Mississippi, to Cahokia, where (spoiler, but it's in the blurb, so...) they are defeated by an organized resistance using theoretically-possible devices related to images and themes of the actual material culture of the real-world people of Cahokia.

That's act I. Act II is about the only surviving Roman, Gaius, who is kept alive through his depression and regret long enough to reach the point where he wants to change. His interactions with the Cahokian people is my favorite part of this, the way he meets and gets to know individuals as unique humans as well as discovering the merits of another civilization. The author doesn't preach, IMO, but in 21st Century terms, Gaius is a colonizer who has his eyes opened to the horrors and evils of his actions, of empire and conquest, and tries to right his many wrongs, at many levels.

It isn't that easy; there are many conflicts--many people he has hurt, many who cannot and will not trust him--and the explosive action in the final act removes the possibility of simple solutions. It is brilliant world-building and conjecture and extrapolation, and I found it moving and entertaining in equal measure.

Recommended, of course.

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