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Rating: 
Summary: A Journey through the Incan Empire
Review: I generally don't waste my time on alternate historical fiction because I want to learn about real historical events in the context of entertaining fiction. But because I had a prior knowledge of the history of Pizarro's conquest of the Incas, I decided it would be worth it to see how the author would change the course of events. A helpful aspect of the book was that each chapter began with a short blurb about what really happened. This helps the reader be aware of where the story deviates into its alternate course.Most of the time the book was entertaining, not with intense action or drama, but with an unfolding of relationships within the Incan community. Atahualpa, called Exemplary Fortune in the book, is the main character, sent away to a distant part of the kingdom to govern there, since one of his brothers, newly appointed as the emperor, fears being overthrown. This is something that did not really happen. Much of the story describes how Exemplary Fortune learns to govern his region, and, having taken a captive Spaniard with him, comes to understand the Spanish character, purposes, and fighting style. He uses this to his culture's advantage, teaching his soldiers how to combat Spanish-style, preparing the Incas for possible invasion. A parallel story involves a young Incan whom the Spaniards called Felipe, and who is taken to Spain by Pizarro, as a companion/servant/trophy. When they return to Peru, Felipe tries his best to find a way to escape and warn his people of the Spanish invasion. The author does a good job of creating an atmosphere of a foreign culture. The way the Indians speak, their beliefs and interactions are different enough from ours that it creates a feeling of a distant time and place containing a unique people. Yet I was never convinced that it was a true representation of the culture. In the book, the Spaniards do invade, but the book ends in a limbo state, with neither side winning--as yet. We are left to imagine what happens next. The reader is the one who must create the alternate history at this point, deciding whether the course of prior events in the story could have possibly changed the outcome of the Spanish invasion. It seems like the author neglected to finish what she started, yet I was also relieved to be spared from reading further details of what I know was the awful truth of that invasion.
Rating:
Summary: A Journey through the Incan Empire
Review: I generally don't waste my time on alternate historical fiction because I want to learn about real historical events in the context of entertaining fiction. But because I had a prior knowledge of the history of Pizarro's conquest of the Incas, I decided it would be worth it to see how the author would change the course of events. A helpful aspect of the book was that each chapter began with a short blurb about what really happened. This helps the reader be aware of where the story deviates into its alternate course. Most of the time the book was entertaining, not with intense action or drama, but with an unfolding of relationships within the Incan community. Atahualpa, called Exemplary Fortune in the book, is the main character, sent away to a distant part of the kingdom to govern there, since one of his brothers, newly appointed as the emperor, fears being overthrown. This is something that did not really happen. Much of the story describes how Exemplary Fortune learns to govern his region, and, having taken a captive Spaniard with him, comes to understand the Spanish character, purposes, and fighting style. He uses this to his culture's advantage, teaching his soldiers how to combat Spanish-style, preparing the Incas for possible invasion. A parallel story involves a young Incan whom the Spaniards called Felipe, and who is taken to Spain by Pizarro, as a companion/servant/trophy. When they return to Peru, Felipe tries his best to find a way to escape and warn his people of the Spanish invasion. The author does a good job of creating an atmosphere of a foreign culture. The way the Indians speak, their beliefs and interactions are different enough from ours that it creates a feeling of a distant time and place containing a unique people. Yet I was never convinced that it was a true representation of the culture. In the book, the Spaniards do invade, but the book ends in a limbo state, with neither side winning--as yet. We are left to imagine what happens next. The reader is the one who must create the alternate history at this point, deciding whether the course of prior events in the story could have possibly changed the outcome of the Spanish invasion. It seems like the author neglected to finish what she started, yet I was also relieved to be spared from reading further details of what I know was the awful truth of that invasion.
Rating:
Summary: A great blend of history and speculation!
Review: Ignorance is not bliss. At least not in the land of Four Quarters, called Peru by the Conquistadors and the Inca Empire in our history books. Ignorance of the threat personified by the Spanish is what caused Unique Inca Atahualpa to make the mistakes that ended his reign in disaster. Ignorance of Spanish weaponry, ferocity and sheer audacity. Not arrogance, as the editorial review above hints. Although the Incas had reason to be arrogant. They had, after all, crafted an empire covering all of the known lands and nearly all the known tribes. And imposed on the Four Quarters a military and economic rule enlightened by the standards of any century. Racial and religious tolerance, to give two examples. But they had no idea what they were up against. Well, neither really did the Spanish, but they were willing to make up for that with pitiless violence and reckless bravery. Atahualpa and the Incas made the easy mistake of judging their visitors by their own standards, none of which the Spanish shared. The result was the conquest we have read about before. But in this book of alternative history, Suzanne Blom corrects some of these problems for the Incas. She gives her principal character the chance to learn about the nature of the Spanish threat before it is too late. The result turns the history we know upside down, although the issue is still in doubt as this first book of the series ends. And what a fine book it is. Suzanne writes in a clear, spare prose that cuts easily through the mass of details most authors would get bogged down in. Her research is superb, and quite properly hidden behind the scenes and characters. This research is most clearly revealed in her use of translations of Inca names and places-- Atahualpa becomes Exemplary Fortune, military men given names like Shrewdness and Thorniest while the city of Cuzco is revealed as Navel, as in birthplace of the whole world. Such translations give the reader easy access to Inca attitudes and culture. (A captured Spaniard becomes Tamed Ocelot, which should give you an idea of the Inca sense of humor.) And this makes it easy for the author-- after a lot of hard work beforehand-- to let each character shine as a real person. No cardboard stereotypes, here. Incas, Spaniards and anyone else encountered seem as familiar to the reader as those encountered or read about every day. Motives and actions become understandable, making the reader part of the story and keeping him turning the pages. I can scarcely wait for the next book in the series. You should not wait to read this one.
Rating: 
Summary: A worthy addition to the genre.
Review: In my efforts to fill the hole in my life that exists between fininishing Eric Flint's "1633" and the arrival of its sequel, I fortuitoulsy happened on "Inca." It was not in the SF and Fantasy section, so I originally took it for a Clive Cussler clone. Thank goodness I picked it up and read the back side. This is right up there with Flint, although closer as a sub-genre to Jake Page's "Apacheria," which is to say we are not dealing with folks from the present going to the past. The hypothesis here is "if things had started just a little differently . . " It proceeds from there very logically and very enjoyably. It is well-researched and well-plotted. The only down-side is it has left me with a hole in my life to fill until its sequel comes out. Ms Blom, you owe us now. You have a contract with your readers. Write faster!
Rating:
Summary: A worthy addition to the genre.
Review: In my efforts to fill the hole in my life that exists between fininishing Eric Flint's "1633" and the arrival of its sequel, I fortuitoulsy happened on "Inca." It was not in the SF and Fantasy section, so I originally took it for a Clive Cussler clone. Thank goodness I picked it up and read the back side. This is right up there with Flint, although closer as a sub-genre to Jake Page's "Apacheria," which is to say we are not dealing with folks from the present going to the past. The hypothesis here is "if things had started just a little differently . . " It proceeds from there very logically and very enjoyably. It is well-researched and well-plotted. The only down-side is it has left me with a hole in my life to fill until its sequel comes out. Ms Blom, you owe us now. You have a contract with your readers. Write faster!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic fantasy
Review: This is a fascinating and well written alternate history of the conquest of the Inca of Peru by the Spaniards. Allés Blom has attempted something very difficult-writing an empathetic narrative novel about an historically and geographically remote people with an alien mindset-and brought it off. Part of what makes stories like this enjoyable is the exotic sets of customs we learn, and Blom does a very good job of unfolding them for us. By having two native protagonists-one an Inca prince, the other a nobody taken by the Spanish-we get to see the story from opposite viewpoints. Actually, there's a third view as well, for each chapter begins with a few words on the "true" history of the conquest (1527-1532). Blom skillfully inverts our expectations, perhaps, that the Spanish were civilized and the Inca barbarians or savages. The Inca prince is depicted as highly rational, shrewd, cautious, and engagingly amiable, not easily awed by a bunch of wild and dirty pale invaders. Blom seems to have adopted the French view that the Inca Empire was a socialist utopia, polite and gentle, clean and organized, with food and sex for everyone. (Never mind that you can detect in the background that they indeed have armies, expropriation and kidnapping of entire populations, killing rivals and prisoners, sacrifices, fixed status, and absolute gender discrimination, in what was, after all, a monarchical empire by conquest.) In contrast, the Spaniards are constructed as lacking any socially redeeming qualities: gold-sickened, rowdy, mean, sexist, disloyal, smelly, thieving, fighting, and destructive (all probably true of the Conquistadores, too). No mention is made of the religious fervor of the Spaniards, their skills honed to fever pitch from ridding Spain of the Moors. None of the perhaps familiar Inca names-Cuzco, Atahualpa, Huascar-are here straight, but only in strange English translation of the long flowery names that takes a while to get used to. The map is helpful but too small, and the scale is now incorrect in the shrunken pb edition. Signs this is a first novel include purely good or evil characters, formally stilted speech, and linear parallel plot structure. Be warned, the story simply stops at a critical point. I hope there's a sequel developing the "alternative" Inca response during1532-1534.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic fantasy
Review: This is a fascinating and well written alternate history of the conquest of the Inca of Peru by the Spaniards. Allés Blom has attempted something very difficult-writing an empathetic narrative novel about an historically and geographically remote people with an alien mindset-and brought it off. Part of what makes stories like this enjoyable is the exotic sets of customs we learn, and Blom does a very good job of unfolding them for us. By having two native protagonists-one an Inca prince, the other a nobody taken by the Spanish-we get to see the story from opposite viewpoints. Actually, there's a third view as well, for each chapter begins with a few words on the "true" history of the conquest (1527-1532). Blom skillfully inverts our expectations, perhaps, that the Spanish were civilized and the Inca barbarians or savages. The Inca prince is depicted as highly rational, shrewd, cautious, and engagingly amiable, not easily awed by a bunch of wild and dirty pale invaders. Blom seems to have adopted the French view that the Inca Empire was a socialist utopia, polite and gentle, clean and organized, with food and sex for everyone. (Never mind that you can detect in the background that they indeed have armies, expropriation and kidnapping of entire populations, killing rivals and prisoners, sacrifices, fixed status, and absolute gender discrimination, in what was, after all, a monarchical empire by conquest.) In contrast, the Spaniards are constructed as lacking any socially redeeming qualities: gold-sickened, rowdy, mean, sexist, disloyal, smelly, thieving, fighting, and destructive (all probably true of the Conquistadores, too). No mention is made of the religious fervor of the Spaniards, their skills honed to fever pitch from ridding Spain of the Moors. None of the perhaps familiar Inca names-Cuzco, Atahualpa, Huascar-are here straight, but only in strange English translation of the long flowery names that takes a while to get used to. The map is helpful but too small, and the scale is now incorrect in the shrunken pb edition. Signs this is a first novel include purely good or evil characters, formally stilted speech, and linear parallel plot structure. Be warned, the story simply stops at a critical point. I hope there's a sequel developing the "alternative" Inca response during1532-1534.
Rating: 
Summary: Insight into the Past
Review: Want to travel to the empire of the Inca? This book will take you there! This richly textured story made me feel as though I was walking the mountain paths alongside "Exemplary Fortune", its hero. The detailed descriptions of the people, their culture and the land around them made this fast-paced book an enjoyable read. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Through Inca eyes
Review: When you read this book, you will se the world through the eyes of Incas, and it's not the world you expect. Meticulously researched and suspenseful. Suzanne changed ONE THING in the real history of the Incas, and everything changed.
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