Cassell, 1975, 589 p, including 2p Map of mediæval Northern France and the Low Countries.

This is the sixth and last of Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles, following on from The Ringed Castle. Each chapter is preceded by an epigraph in French and there are copious quotations/song lyrics in French throughout.

Among other incidental historical goings-on such as the French capture of Calais from the English, the French war against the Spanish (in both of which Lymond has a guiding role,) and the wedding of Mary Queen of Scots to the Dauphin, the main plot concerns the unravelling of Lymond’s seemingly uncertain parentage, an unravelling performed in the main by Philippa Somerville, whom Lymond married in The Ringed Castle to protect her honour, a union which remains unconsummated and from which Lymond is desirous of an annulment (as, to be fair, is Philippa.) The reasons for this desire are complicated and not entirely voluntary and obstacles continue to put in its way but both contract promises to future marriage, in Lymond’s case to Catherine d’Albon, daughter of the Maréchale de St André, in Philippa’s to Austin Grey.

Lymond is neither ashamed nor guarded about his past amours – he has a son, Kuzum, by the deceased Oonagh O’Dwyer; a former lover, Guzel, left behind in Russia, and in this book he beds the Maréchale (or, rather, she beds him) before the proposal to her daughter. When Catherine asks if she’s agreed to marry a libertine she gets the reply, “‘Everyone marries libertines,’ Lymond said. ‘But not everyone knows it beforehand.’”

A minor sub-episode reveals the young Scottish Queen, under the influence of her de Guise uncles and prospective father-in-law, King Henri II, secretly agreeing that if she died childless the throne of Scotland should pass to France. This does not go down well with delegation of Scottish nobles sent to witness Mary’s wedding, who are obliged to keep their knowledge of the pact secret but Lymond goes so far as to warn Mary that such an outcome would meet with all but universal opposition back home.

Also contributing to the proceedings, helpful in relieving Lymond of a burden of sickness as well as in the resolution of the parenting issue, is one Nostradamus.

While the level of research and historical detail are impressive and incident is never far away once again Dunnett’s writing and dialogue lacks clarity.

Pedant’s corner:- hiccoughing/hiccough (it’s not a cough; hiccuping/hiccup,) “Daedalus’ honeycomb” (Daedalus’s,) palinquin (palanquin.) “After Russia, campaigning in France, would be like” (that second comma is needless,) “the aesthetic figure one would have thought from his reputation” (‘ascetic’ makes more sense in context,) Luxembourg (sometimes here spelled Luxemburg, which may have been a rendering of the usage of the viewpoint character of the moment,) “the Vidame de Chartres’ voice” (the final ‘s’ in Chartres is not voiced so its possessive is certainly Chartres’s,) “like Crassus’ lamprey” (Crassus’s,) “staunch the bleeding” (stanch,) alambic (usually spelled ‘alembic’,) “his language than had not been moderate” (his language then had not,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech, “there had been nothing demanded of Philippa which needed intrude on this relationship” (which need intrude; or, which needed to intrude.) “The pavilion of the Duke de Guise and that of his brother d’Aumale were empty” (The pavilions,) “was tinging the cloth” (tingeing; tinging is something bells do.) “One of the Count of Egmont’s foraging parties had acquired half a dozen wagons of grain and were occupying the village”  (One … was occupying,) “tell the prayers” (they were musicians, not supplicants: ‘tell the players’,) “a Brazilian dancer” (I wondered if Brazil was known as such in 1558 but the term is apparently from around 1506,) a missing full stop.

Gollancz SF Masterworks, 2013, 312 p, with iv p introduction by Justina Robson.
(Not borrowed from but) returned to a threatened library.

Framed as a tale told by Doctor Michel de Nostradame in Salon-de-Provence, 1554, (that’ll be Nostradamus to you and me) this is the story of George Paxton, a monumental mason, in the late(ish) twentieth century US.

George is approached by a glib salesman to buy a scopas suit (Self-Contained Post-Attack Survival) for his daughter to protect against nuclear attack. It is too expensive and his wife makes him return it. However, soon such suits are commonplace, people wearing them in the course of everyday life. Then George is offered a free suit provided he accepts the condition that he sign a confession of his complicity in the nuclear arms race. He does so, to give the suit as a Christmas present to his daughter. On his way back home his town is obliterated in a Soviet nuclear strike, a response to the US attack which followed the detection of Soviet Spitball missiles heading for Washington. As he heads towards the blast area to try to rescue his family the last thing he sees before losing consciousness is a giant vulture as big as a pterodactyl heading for him.

As it turns out he was taken from the ruins by the crew of a submarine, the City of New York, now headed for Antarctica. The crew are “unadmitted”, humans – with black blood – whose existences were pre-empted when their hypothetical progenitors were annihilated by the war. The survivors they have gathered were all architects of the war in one way or other. After giving them medical treatment – ‘If one had to say something good about acute radiation sickness, it would be this: either it kills you or it doesn’t,’ – the unadmitted put them on trial, Nuremberg-style. This allows Morrow to skewer the through the looking-glass idiocies and contradictions of deterrence theory. The submarine’s captain, dismissing a particular riddle as having no answer, poses one that does, “When is a first strike not a first strike?” is then asked, “When,” and replies, “When it is an anticipatory retaliation.” (Sounds like 1970s Rugby Union doctrine.)

In the course of all this we encounter a MAD Hatter (Mutually Assured Destruction,) a March Hare (Modulated Attacks in Response to Counterforce Hostilities) and Stable talks (Strategic, Tactical, and Anti-Ballistic Limitation and Equalization,) the likelihood that scopas suits contributed to a willingness to accept the possibility of nuclear war, and the thought that, “When you turn the human race into garbage, you also turn history into garbage.”

At the time of writing (1986) the prospect of nuclear annihilation was never far away, in 2015 it has, perhaps, much less resonance. Whether it is this that contributes to the sense of distance throughout the book is difficult to decipher. Whatever the reason, the tone feels somehow off-kilter. Moreover, rather than being rounded characters most of Paxton’s fellow defendants are ciphers there solely to represent points of view and the unadmitted seem like actors inhabiting parts only shallowly instead of true agents. The role the giant vultures had in precipitating the war is a nice touch though.

The blurb mentions Kurt Vonnegut as a comparison but – repetitions of epitaphs “they were better than they knew” and “they never found out what they were doing here” apart – I was more reminded of R A Lafferty, except without his level of utter bonkersness (giant vultures excepted of course.) Despite Vonnegut’s lighter touches the seriousness with which he treated his subjects was always apparent. Morrow approaches this but doesn’t quite get there.

Pedant’s corner:- Paxton is named as Paxman on the back cover! Then an other (another,) as if a rain were felling on its streets (falling,) Jesus’ (Jesus’s,) videocassertes (videocassettes,) liquifying (liquefying.)
In the introduction:- whimsys (whimsies,) the reasoning of the accused make them (reasoning is singular so “makes”.)