A Midsummer Tempest - Poul Anderson

    1974; 240 pages.  New Author? : No.  Laurels: Nebula Award Nominee (1975); World Fantasy Award Nominee (1975); Mythopoiec Fantasy Award Winner (1975).  Genre : Mythopoeic Fiction; Shakespearean Lit; Fantasy; Romance; Alt-History; Steampunk; Time Travel.  Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

    The year is 1644.  The English civil war rages, with Oliver Cromwell’s Roundheads (aka, the Parliamentarians) engaged in a bitter struggle with Prince Rupert’s Cavaliers (aka, the Royalists).  At the moment, things are going badly for Prince Rupert, who is also our main protagonist.  The battle is lost, and he is about to come under house-arrest (well, technically, we’d call it “castle-arrest”) courtesy of one of Cromwell’s devoted supporters, Sir Malachi Shelgrave.

    For Rupert, the future is grim.  It’s only a matter of time before he’s hauled off to London and beheaded.  He’s not above trying to escape from Shelgrave’s castle, but four armed guardsmen watch him whenever he leaves the tower in which he’s imprisoned.  And without young Rupert, his dashing military leader, the days of the king, Charles I, are numbered as well.

    All of this sounds like a fascinating book of 15^th-century Historical Non-Fiction.  That is, until a 19^th-century steam-powered locomotive comes chugging out of its storage shed.

    And when the King and Queen of the Faeries make an appearance.

What’s To Like...

    A Midsummer Tempest is an ambitious effort by Poul Anderson to merge five or six different genres into a coherent storyline.  Sure, Alt-History and Sci-Fi go together like peanut butter and jelly, and so do Fantasy and Steampunk.  But seamlessly blending all four of those, then tossing in Romance and Shakespearean Literature to boot?  That’s impressive.

    There are Multiverses present, but even they are done with a new twist.  You can jump from one dimension to the next, and from one point in time to another as well.  But Poul Anderson’s novelty is to allow literary universes to participate.  So characters from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream jump in and interact with characters from other “real” worlds.

    The story starts out as Historical Fiction; Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Oliver Cromwell, and King Charles I were all historical figures.  The pacing is initially slow, but when the first bit of Fantasy shows up at 17%, things pick up nicely.  If you like anachronisms (and Shakespeare did), you’ll love this book.  Besides the aforementioned  multiverses and steam locomotives, there are other out-of-place things such as semaphore towers, diving bells, and hot air balloons.

    There are some neat phrases from at least five different foreign languages: German, French, Danish, Latin, and Spanish.  The malapropisms, many of which are misquotes from Shakespeare, were a hoot.  One example: "Abstinence makes the font grow harder”.  Occam’s Razor shows up; so does the magical herb Thistledown, the latter for the second book in a row that I've read.  I want to go to my local used-book store in hopes of finding “Introduction to Paratemporal Mathematics” and “Handbook of Alchemy and Metaphysics” and I’d also love to stop in at “The Oald Phoenix” tavern for some suds and socializing.

     The ending is predictable but adequate.  A major case of deus-ex-machina occurs, but I suspect that was deliberate.  The Epilogue was my favorite part of the finale, nicely resolving the elves-in-a-human-world paradox.  Those who read this book for the Romance will not be disappointed.  A Midsummer Tempest is a standalone story, with no ties AFAIK to any other Poul Anderson stories or settings.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Dumbledores (n., plural) : Bumblebees.

Others : Descry (v.); Wadmal (n.); Postilion (n.).

Excerpts...

    “Ye mortals do have powers, do know things, which are for aye denied the Faerie race,” she said.  “Among them is the strength of mortal love.”  Wistfulness tinged her speech: “Mine ageless, flighty kind knows love … of sorts … but simply pleasantly, like songs or sweets.  True human love is not a comedy; time makes it tragic.  In those heights and deeps rise dawns and storms beyond our understanding, the awe and the abidingness of death.”  (loc. 865)

    “Ha, ha, I’m not the only freak around!” he hooted.  “Who’rt thou that walkest thin as sparrowgrass behind yon red cucumber of a nose?”

    “Well, not a mildew-spotted calabash,” drawled the Englishman.  “I think I know thee from my maester’s taele.  Now come an’ sniff mine own.”

    Caliban edged toward him, stiff-legged and bristling.  “Be careful, cur.  I’ll haul thy bowels forth to make thy leash.”  (loc. 2948)

Kindle Details...

    A Midsummer Tempest presently sells for $4.80 at Amazon.  Poul Anderson (1926-2001) was a prolific science fiction and fantasy writer, and a couple dozen of his works  are available as e-books.  They range in price from $4.53 to $8.99.  There are also a couple of bundles available, priced from $7.80 to $9.99.  A tip: another good place to find Poul Anderson novels is at your local used-book store.

“I hope (…) you’ve got the wit to grasp the fundamental ideas of the transcendental calculus.”  (loc. 1564)

    The writing is great, the genre-blending is impressive, and the historical setting is fascinating.  But there are also some weaknesses, the most salient of which is a rather humdrum storyline.

    The romantic angle is obvious, yet the two lovers are allowed to meet and hatch an escape plan.  Indeed, there are two escapes, both of which proceed with a yawning lack of snags.  The key artifact is surprisingly easy to retrieve, and the Faerie folk’s largesse with magical gifts solves any challenge that our heroes might face.  In short, no tension ever builds.

    Then there’s the dialogue.  Rupert speaks in a Shakespearean lingo, and his sidekick, Will Fairweather, uses some sort of ersatz Scottish dialect that got old in a very short time.  Imagine reading paragraph-after-paragraph filled with words like: thic, backzide, loard, zaddle, caere, zuppoased, etc.   Yuck.

    The critics certainly loved A Midsummer Tempest, judging from the 1975 laurels listed in the header of this review.  Their reasons are valid – this really was an innovative approach to writing a Fantasy tale.  But personally, I found it to be all form, and very little substance.

    6½ Stars.  My favorite parts of A Midsummer Tempest were the spellbinding set of characters at The Oald Phoenix Inn and those times when the Faerie folk were present.  Unfortunately, those instances were few and far between, lying in the shadows behind the spotlighted (shouldn’t that be “spotlit”?) life and loves of Prince Rupert.  Fantasy yields to Drama and Romance, and more’s the pity for that, methinks.