Just Finished Reading: Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove

The Year is 1597 almost ten years after the successful invasion of England by the Spanish Armada. London lives under the heel of Spanish oppression and the depredations of the dreaded Inquisition. The showing dissent or any hesitation to Catholic rule means suspicion and possible torture or death. But a plot is underway to throw off Spanish rule and one man is chosen to light the touch paper that will ignite an entire nation in revolt. His name is William Shakespeare, a poet and playwright of some renown. He is commissioned in secret to write a play to stir the blood and the passions of Englishmen, to wake them from their slumber and to make them fall on their enemies like wolves. But such a quest is not without its dangers. Who can you trust in a world were your best friend could be an informer and where one mistake would result in the painful deaths of the entire company? But who could choose not to resist an occupying army in any way they can?

It took me quite a while to read this book probably because I was rather ill at the time. At 557 pages I thought it at least 100 if not 200 pages too long. One the whole it was a slow read that needed tightening up more than a little. HT also exhibited his irritating habit of repeating himself as if to ensure that the reader had grasped a particular point or recognised an important event. He wasn’t so bad in this stand alone volume but he can be particularly annoying in his long series work.

However, I did actually quite enjoy this book. The idea of an occupied England under Spanish Catholic rule is a fascinating one – though rather unlikely from what I know of the period. HT’s characters – as in his other works – were very good indeed. With his trade mark mix of real historical characters (I managed to recognise several of the names mentioned and was prompted to look up others) and literary inventions the author managed to bring alive Elizabethan England complete with, at times, fairly incomprehensible language which I admit took a good while getting used to. The play Shakespeare decided to write, based on the events of the Roman occupation and the uprising of the Ancient Britons led by Boudicca, was indeed uplifting and most certainly stirred this Englishman’s blood! If I had been in the theatres audience that day I’m confident that I would have happily thrown myself at the Spanish!

I think that there is great scope for espionage thrillers based in that time which would be very thrilling indeed and I thought it rather a shame that HT didn’t spend more time on that aspect of things. Reading this book – and several others around the same time – has prompted me (again) to read more English history which, sad to say, I know far too little about. So I guess the book did weave its magic in a way.