Kalpa Imperial

This collection of short stories chronicles the Greatest Empire that (n)ever was, a sort of fictional history about a fictional empire that remains true to South American style fantasy worlds. Rather than load it with monsters and dragons and legendary heroics, it shares relatable common heroes/heroines in their all-too believable world that mirrors ours, or at least a universe we recognise as something that actually exists. South American fantasy worlds like those created by Gabriel Garcia Marquez are never so unbelievable that you feel it is difficult to get into the story.

Argentine author Angelica Gorodischer is no different. Though some of the history is a thinly veiled sarcastic commentary on greedy, despotic rulers and the problems with monarchs who hand down the reign to the next generation of poorly raised high-born tyrants, many of the stories involve on the philosophies of the outsiders: story-tellers, noblemen, rebels and workmen and peasants and their impact on the various Emperors.

The second to last story I found very interesting, it involved an individual who escaped the Empire and its reach to head south, the South, if you will, where savages live in small villages and have none of the benefits/drawbacks that the folk living within the Empire receive. His quest is one of escape and survival at first, but takes an inadvertent turn and becomes a quest for knowledge. There are some prophecies and other nonsense, and eventually the Empire comes for him and all hell breaks loose in a few pages; but what I noticed about this short story is how closely it mimics the plot of Robert Silverberg’s Nebula Award winning novel A Time of Changes (1971).

I don’t wish to make this review too A Time of Changes­-y but I will say that it is a fantastic novel. A lot of egoism and hence, individuality, has been banned from the states that make up the empire in the civilized North. A drug that opens minds (this novel came out the same year as my favourite movie, Vanishing Point, also about individual freedom and rampant drug use, and I don’t believe that is by mere coincidence) and teaches people the of love, comes from the uncivilized Southern continent (no silly, it is not a sci-fi Colombia, or Kolombya or anything like that) and after using it regularly and realizing he just does not fit into his society, the protagonist loads up on drugs and begins expanding people’s minds. He makes almost a diplomatic mission of it, not so much to change the culture but to share love with the people he cares about. After getting into some majour shit for this, he fleas for the south to live with the natives down there, score some hallucinogens and live in the desert until, alas, the Empire comes for him.

They sound similar, do they not? Well something about that sort of world, that sort of treachery and intrigue sets up an enjoyable atmosphere for me in both stories. And the writing styles by the authors are sufficiently different, with different worlds and different characters with varying purposes that each story is unique, despite my trying to make them sound like the same thing. I am also glad I read A Time of Changes first because I would hate to have started that book and then, 60 pages in, gone “ah wait, I know how this one ends.”

Some of the stories in Kalpa Imperial are actually weak; they just cannot all be winners. But the good ones are very good and the universe in which it takes place is at least consistent and consistently interesting, and very well thought out. I would recommend this book to any casual sci-fi/fantasy fan, but since there is no hardcore magic or monsters I would be hesitant to get LOTR nerds or sci-fi space alien loving nerds into it. Great read though.