The best speculative fiction by people who know their history

Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire imagines a galaxy-spanning empire as a kind of reincarnation of the Byzantine Empire. A song that starts a revolution? Foreign agents enamored with the culture they want to destroy? A society wrapped up in its own account of the heroism of its army? All of these describe Martine’s amazing galaxy-spanning empire but also describe the massive Byzantine Empire that ruled much of Europe and the Middle East from the city of Constantinople (now Istanbul) between 700 and 1453. An expert on Byzantine history she shows a beguiling, self-obsessed empire and the people in a position to bring it down.

Frank Herbert’s Dune is an obvious source for Star Wars and other science fiction, and is a sort of Lawrence of Arabia tale of a foreigner who leads a ragtag army to victory against an empire. It is also an account of the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 and the rise of the Ottoman Empire in its place. It expresses Herbert’s fascination (and revulsion) with an Islam that he sometimes makes overly exotic and strange. The ecological relationship between the planet and its flora and fauna is surprising, and is the central mystery in the book. The imperial plotting and self-dealing capture the desperate attempts to stop the decline in the last days of the Byzantines. The other books after this are not as strong.

Felix Gilman’s The Half-Made World is a brilliant steampunk allegory about what philosopher Jürgen Habermas calls the colonization of the life-world for a faithless utilitarian reason. Gilman imagines a war that pits defenders of wonder, magic, and voodoo against soulless drones seeking gain through environmental degradation. This is a common enough trope in science fiction but what brings it to another level is Gilman’s personification of wonder and magic in a sleazy, violent anti-hero who is frequently possessed by demons. Gilman embodies the colonizers of the world as monstrous, dragon-like railway engines who order men around using telegrams. The innocent reader who will decide the fate of the world is a brilliant, female doctor who is trying to cure herself of her opium addiction. Gilman’s understanding of the rhythm of nineteenth-century language is amazing. His characters each have unique voices and his beautiful prose suggests that Gilman has spent years reading and absorbing the language of long-dead nineteenth-century authors who you have never heard of. This book leads to a sequel but the novel works well on its own.

Mieville’s monsters in the steampunk city-state of New Crobuzon are slakemoths, flying creatures that consume the dreams of their prey at night. As personified drugs, their bodies can be “milked” for hallucinogens but they are actually unstable and dangerous alpha-predators that are bound to destroy the city. Mieville’s is a kind of extended meditation on the beauty and decay of cities at the turn of the last century, but also summons up the intersection of the AIDS crisis, criminal underworlds, and aggressive policing.