"When is a Regency Not a Regency?"
THE SHADOW OF ALBION, described as the first volume in
the Carolus Rex Trilogy, includes many elements of the
traditional Regency romance: a concentration on the "ton"
(British nobility) and its manners and activities, a
marriage of convenience (by order of the King!) that turns
into something more, a cold-hearted hero and tomboy
heroine, and lots of research, including a rich use of
period-appropriate language ("abigail" for "lady's maid,"
for example). But--as might be expected with a book co-
written by one of the best-known names in science fiction
and fantasy--it's not *just* a romance. First, it takes
place in an alternate world where the Stuarts never lost
the British throne: in 1805 England is ruled by Henry IX,
great-great-great-grandson of the Merry Monarch, Charles
II, through his legitimized son the Duke of Monmouth. With
no overbearing Hanovers to push them to rebellion (though
Henry's daughter Maria is married to a member of that
family), the North American Colonies are still just that--
colonies, though loosely ruled and in many ways autonomous--
and the Mississippi Valley is still a French possession as
Napoleon Bonaparte storms across Europe, with dark
ambitions for the entire world. Sir John Adams is the
British envoy to the Danish court, the Marquis deSade is a
supposed sorcerer in Napoleon's service, Talleyrand is the
head of French internal security, and nobody is quite sure
what became of Louis-Charles, son of Louis and Marie
Antoinette, after his parents were guillotined. In
England, plots are afoot to return the country to
Catholicism, while the Dowager Duchess of Wessex (the
hero's grandmother) and a network of helpers seek to keep
humanity in a peaceable relationship with the Oldest People-
-the Faery Folk. This is what sparks off the story, as the young Marchioness
of Roxbury, dying of consumption, is forced by one of the
Duchess's operatives to change places with one of her
alternate selves--Sarah Cunningham of Baltimore-in-*our*-
world--so that her line can continue and the promise "that
Roxbury and Mooncoign would always do what must be done for
the People and the Land" can be kept. That change, of
course, is accomplished by magic--and so the element of
fantasy is introduced to the tale, to run as an
undercurrent through all that happens subsequently. And
plenty does: espionage, valorous escapes, attempted
assassinations, alarums and excursions about the
countrysides of two nations, diplomatic maneuverings, plots
and counterplots exposed and foiled, love affairs, Sarah's
marriage to Rupert Dyer, Duke of Wessex, the discovery of
the whereabouts of the "Young King" of France, and the
sudden sorcerous vanishment of a Danish ship-of-the-line
bearing the Princess Stephanie to her wedding to "Prince
Jamie," the future James III, 19-year-old heir to the
British throne. And although the connection isn't
completely clarified in this volume (the authors are said
to be working on the next), there's an element of dark
sorcery suggested in Sarah's dream of a non-mortal "Beast"
somehow connected to Bonaparte's ambitions. Though Rupert is a rather unsympathetic hero, Sarah more
than makes up for him: a tomboy woods-runner in her
American girlhood, struggling to understand why the new
life in which she finds herself seems unfamiliar and wrong,
and eventually using her skills and gifts to play a large
part in everyone's salvation. Illya Koscuisko, Rupert's
Polish partner-in-espionage, is a delightful original and
worth knowing; he and the Young King are almost worth the
price of the book in themselves. It's also fun, if you're
a history buff, to puzzle out the differences between the
Carolus Rex reality and our own. There are even hints of
that classic TV series, "The Wild Wild West," in the
resolution of Rupert's confrontation with one of the many
plotters he must deal with. To anyone who (like your reviewer) has been reading Andre
Norton almost since there was any, it's clear from the
style that much of the writing was done by co-author
Edghill (who happens to have been, under another name, a
former neighbor and fanzine partner). But the fertile
Nortonian imagination is clearly at work too, and the two
have turned out an intriguing read. I'll be watching for
Volume Two.
Reviewed by Christine Jeffords
Posted August 4, 2002
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