The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism

Book Description

Fifteen years ago, revelations about the political misdeeds of Martin Heidegger and Paul de Man sent shock waves throughout European and North American intellectual circles. Ever since, postmodernism has been haunted by the specter of a compromised past. In this intellectual genealogy of the postmodern spirit, Richard Wolin shows that postmodernism's infatuation with fascism has been widespread and not incidental. He calls into question postmodernism's claim to have inherited the mantle of the left--and suggests that postmodern thought has long been smitten with the opposite end of the political spectrum.

In probing chapters on C. G. Jung, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Georges Bataille, and Maurice Blanchot, Wolin discovers an unsettling commonality: during the 1930s, these thinkers leaned to the right and were tainted by a proverbial "fascination with fascism." Frustrated by democracy's shortcomings, they were seduced by fascism's grandiose promises of political regeneration. The dictatorships in Italy and Germany promised redemption from the uncertainties of political liberalism. But, from the beginning, there could be no doubting their brutal methods of racism, violence, and imperial conquest.

Postmodernism's origins among the profascist literati of the 1930s reveal a dark political patrimony. The unspoken affinities between Counter-Enlightenment and postmodernism constitute the guiding thread of Wolin's suggestive narrative. In their mutual hostility toward reason and democracy, postmodernists and the advocates of Counter-Enlightenment betray a telltale strategic alliance--they cohabit the fraught terrain where far left and far right intersect.

Those who take Wolin's conclusions to heart will never view the history of modern thought in quite the same way.

Customer Reviews:

Long live the death of postmodernism.......2007-04-22

Wolin presents a clear view of the political impliations of postmodernism's program.

Eye-opening study of some major thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries.......2007-03-23

Wolin's masterly monograph "The Seduction of Unreason" constitutes a major contribution to contemporary intellectual history. Wolin's study dissects various political implications and current repercussions of the ideas and modes of thinking of Joseph de Maistre, Johann Gottfried Herder, Arthur de Gobineau, Friedrich Nietzsche, Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt, Carl Gustav Jung, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot, Jaques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Jean Baudrillard. In two "political excursuses," he indicates how the ideas of these and other - partly, highly respected - thinkers who, in one way or another attacked some basic Western values like rationalism and human rights, have via the "Conservative Revolution," and German and French so-called "New Right" gained influence on extremely right-wing parties as well as on mainstream politics. Wolin's usage of the term "fascism" in the book's title, to be sure, could be seen as misleading in so far as only some of the protagonists of his fascinating story were full-blown fascists. Still, his study is a valuable addition not only to the history of ideas, but also to comparative fascist studies in that it presents many illuminating cases illustrating why and how ideas have consequences, in general, and in which way anti-rational and anti-democratic thought can be utilized by fascist movements to justify dictatorship, ethnic cleansing and violence, in particular. The book is thus a valuable addition not only within the fields of cultural studies and history of science, but could also be of use in seminars on extremist politics. It forcefully debunks the idea that the ideational sources of ultra-nationalism and fundamentalism in both the inter- and post-war Europe are solely to be found among marginal scholars and publicists. Wolin's study is eye-opening in that illustrates how some major trends in 20th century mainstream humanities have played the role of, and are, partly, still functioning as, catalysts for the spread and acceptance of radically ascriptive views of human beings, and extremely right-wing ideologies.

A Useful Cautionary Reading.......2006-07-25

Wolin is at his best when he is critiquing narrative. His review of the postmodernist mishmash is especially good, as he identifies the trick favored by pseudointellectuals of responding to logical deficiencies by coining another term--preferably, in French. Even when Derrida was arrested in Soviet-era Czechoslovakia and thus caught in the grasp of real repression, so inadequate was his own philosophical basis that he had to invent a new term to deal with his inability to explain it.

Wolin doesn't do this, and it's to his credit. He's pretty good, too, at tracing the philosophical antecedents of various thinkers, such as Bataille and other fascist fellow-traveler predecessors of the postmods. What he does less convincingly is demonstrate the necessary consequence of tyranny--and, specifically, fascism--from within a given thinker's own systematized logic.

Specifically, I'm as yet unpersuaded that Wolin has shown that fascism is the inevitable and specific outcome of Heidegger's version of existential phenomenology. That fascism--or something like it--was most congenial to Herr Heidegger's personality, may very well be true...but that is ultimately and centrally not Wolin's concern. His book, after all, is about the *intellectual* rather than merely temperamental affinity for tyranny.

I'm reading another of Wolin's books, and may read yet others in the future. Wolin has useful and occasionally illuminating analysis...but I have the feeling, as yet only tentative, that he may have a large enough ax to grind that his conclusions do not always follow from his evidence. In this volume, at least, I remain unpersuaded that any of the thinkers named by him must necessarily have a "romance" with fascism, based upon their stated ideas.

Gossip columnist for philosophy.......2006-06-19

Strictly speaking Richard Wolin is not really a philosopher, he is a historian. This partly explains the way he places selective emphasis on key philosophical points from a historical point of view rather than a philosophical one. Simply bringing up a group of philosophers that do not conform to your views and then blaming them for the ills of society is an exercise that quickly becomes boring for the reader. When one reads philosophy one should be inspired by the words that fill the pages. It should represent the writers creative ability to invite the reader to a different way of doing philosophy. Richard Wolin's task seems merely to discredit his opponent and, as such, does not really contribute much to the key questions philosphy has grappled with since the ancient Greeks to today. His manner of scholarship shuts the subjects of his book out of philosophical dialogue rather than draw them in to expand on his ideas, or lack thereof. As an example, to say that Gadamer prefers surrendering to authority instead of trusting in Reason is a gross misunderstanding of his intentions and shows a lack of reading of his texts and work as a whole. This is because Wolin makes no attempt to pick up on the themes of these philosphers and run with them in order to come up with a new philosophical perspective pf his own. In this respect, the book feels dated, it is an anti-anti-reaction to a philosophical fad that never was and, correspondingly, turns philosophy into a mere culture war with opposed sides, both of whom think the other has something to hide. Philosophy should be more enlightening than this. Also, Deleuze is a thinker that I think Wolin has simply lumped in there with all the others for no apparent reason. Read his later work and you will find he was quite fond of American literature, especially Whitman and Melville. His philosophy drove him there. In any case, do not fear these German/French philosophers because of writers like Wolin. Read their work, discuss and revitalise their ideas. You might find that it is not as simple as you first thought, and that neither perspective has authority over the domain of philosophy. If one wants to read a philosopher with similar but better argued ideas, they could do worse than Habermas.

Absolutely Entrancing.......2005-05-23

The Irish Times

November 6, 2004 Weekend; Book Reviews; Pg. 13

Absolutely entrancing

John Banville

Political philosophy: An attack on European right-wing and 'left fascist' thinkers and their American followers is a kind of philosophical Nuremberg trials.

In Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus there is a character called Breisacher, a Jew, whom Mann describes as a private scholar and polyhistor and "a racial and intellectual type in high, one might almost say reckless development". Although Nietzsche's name is not mentioned - the life and personality of the novel's protagonist, the composer Adrian Leverkuhn, are in large part based on those of the philosopher - Breisacher is the quintessential Nietzschean. His specialty is the philosophy of culture, "but his views were anti-cultural, in so far as he gave out to see in the whole history of culture nothing but a process of decline". He sets J.S. Bach as the central figure in the "progressivist barbarism" that caused the deterioration of music from "the great and only true art of counterpoint" into the "effeminizing and falsification" of the "harmonic romanticism of modulation", a process in which even Palestrina had already played a "shameful part".

When he turns to the Bible and the history of his own race, Breisacher is even more extreme, seeing King David and his successor Solomon - "an aesthete unnerved by erotic excesses" - and "the prophets drivelling about dear God in heaven" as "the already debased representatives of an exploded late theology, which no longer had any idea of the old and genuine Hebraic actuality of Jahve, the Elohim of the people".

For Breisacher, the history of the modern world, and by "modern" he means the period from the pre-Socratics onward, is the history of an inevitable degeneration from the true and authentic primitive into weakness, softness and falsity.

Breisacher is a member of the circle surrounding the creepy Sextus Kridwiss, a collector of primitive art; other savants attending the Kridwiss evenings are Dr Egon Unruhe, a "philosophic palaeozoologist" who works on verifying the essential truths of the ancient Germanic sagas, in which "a sophisticated humanity had long since ceased to believe"; Professor Georg Vogler, a literary historian who has written a much-admired history of German literature from the point of view of racial origins; and the poet Daniel zur Hohe - Mann is always wickedly witty in the matter of names - a high-strung young man whose "dreams dealt with a world subjected by sanguinary campaigns to the pure spirit" and whose only published poetic work, The Proclamations, ends with the line: "Soldiers! I deliver to you to plunder - the World!"

Mann knew his proto-fascists from the inside, having been one himself, as he showed in his anti-democratic, anti-modern Meditations of an Unpolitical Man (1918).

When the phenomenon of Hitler and Nazism demonstrated to him in no uncertain terms how wrong-headed he had been, and how, as Richard Wolin puts it, "the flip side of apoliticism is a potentially lethal dearth of Zivilcourage", he abandoned his homeland for democratic America and dedicated himself to the anti-Nazi cause. The Hohes, the Voglers, the Unruhes, even, to their great cost, some of the Breisachers, remained behind to support the new regime, mostly, as did the real-life philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, by keeping silent and going into "inner emigration", but in some cases, such as that of Heidegger, by a total and extremely noisy identification with the Volk, the Reich, and the Fuhrer.

This trahison des clercs on the part of a considerable number of European philosophers, scholars and academics did not end with the defeat of Nazism, according to Wolin, whose book, the subtitle of which is "The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism", is a vigorous, full-frontal attack on European right-wing and "left fascist" thinkers and theorists and their contemporary followers in American intellectual life, among the latter of whom The Seduction of Unreason has already raised many a hackle.

For its literary and philosophical sympathisers - he lists W.B. Yeats in their number - fascism, Wolin writes, "reintroduces an aesthetic politics" and "allows for the reprise of an ecstatic politics amid the forlorn and disenchanted landscape of political modernity". The European counter-revolutionaries, such as Joseph de Maistre and Arthur de Gobineau

knew what they wanted as a replacement for liberal democracy: the "contrary of revolutions", the restoration of the old regime. Their German heirs - Nietzsche, Spengler, Carl Schmitt, and Heidegger - disillusioned denizens of modern society, knew that one could no longer turn back the clock. Instead, they decided to seize the bull by the horns. They embraced industrial society but only under the proviso that it be governed by a totalitarian dictatorship. Dictatorship was the most efficacious means with which to vanquish the debilities of political liberalism and reestablish the sublimity of "Great Politics" (Nietzsche).

Wolin sees this drive towards dictatorship and the aestheticisation of politics as a process that continues to this day, not only in the demagoguery of the likes of Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jorg Haider, but in the writings of such latter-day thinkers as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Indeed, The Seduction of Unreason may be taken overall as a tocsin sounded to rally the forces of reaction against European anti-democratic cultural theory in general, and postmodernism in particular. The latter is Wolin's bete noir; he considers it not a philosophical movement at all but a form of frivolous despair encompassing a broad assault on the "epistemological and historiographical presuppositions of modernity: objective truth and historical progress". He cites Jean Baudrillard's definition of the postmodern universe as one in which "there are no definitions possible . . . It has all been done . . . It has destroyed itself. It has deconstructed its entire universe. So all that are left are the pieces. Playing with the pieces - that is postmodern". The postmodernists and their shock-troops the deconstructionists, Wolin writes, "seek refuge in myth, magic, madness, illusion, or intoxication - all seem preferable to what 'civilization' has to offer". They are the direct heirs of Mann's Kridwiss circle who "could scarcely contain their mirth at the desperate campaign waged by reason and criticism against wholly untouchable, wholly invulnerable belief" - irrational belief, that is.

Wolin insists that the postmodernists are now in retreat. What he sees as "the current disaffection with postmodernism" is, he writes,

in no small measure attributable to recent political circumstances. Humanism's return spells postmodernism's demise. Totalitarianism was the twentieth century's defining political experience. Its aftermath has left us with a new categorical imperative: no more Auschwitzes or Gulags. We now know that an ineffaceable difference separates democratic and totalitarian regimes. Despite their manifest empirical failings, democratic polities possess a capacity for internal political change that totalitarian societies do not. A discourse such as postmodernism that celebrates the virtues of cultural relativism and that remains ambivalent, at best, vis-a-vis democratic norms is inadequate to the moral and political demands of the contemporary hour.

To some, perhaps many, readers this will sound suspiciously like a whistle in the dark. Curiously, too, in its rhetorical vigour the passage and others like it echo the pronouncements of the so-called "neo-cons" now running the show in the White House and the Pentagon. Wolin, a tough, old-style liberal democrat, would no doubt be appalled at such a comparison, but then, in a phrase he is fond of using, often in the nexus of politics, philosophy and literature "les extremes se touchent".

The Seduction of Unreason is a kind of philosophical Nuremberg Trials. Wolin puts in the dock not only the obvious miscreants such as Heidegger and Nietzsche -"was it really so far-fetched that such a thinker would become the Nazis' court philosopher?" - but other, less obvious fascist fellow-travellers. He is particularly acute in the cases of Jung - "There are more polite ways of putting it, but Jung was a fraud" - and Gadamer. The latter was a pillar of post-war German philosophy, but Wolin is relentless in following him into his lair to root out the weasel words by which, according to Wolin, he accommodated himself to Hitler's regime; Gadamer in his counter-Enlightenment worldview, Wolin writes, holds that "since human insight is intrinsically untrustworthy, the best course is to limit its use as much as possible. Should a confrontation between authority and reason arise, it is always safer to err on the side of authority".

In a brilliant chapter, 'Maurice Blanchot: The Use and Abuse of Silence', Wolin tackles one of the shadowiest yet also one of the most influential French intellectuals of the 20th century. There is no doubt that Blanchot is a very great thinker in the realm of aesthetics, and a strong influence in the work of Barthes, Foucault, Derrida and others, those who engaged and engage in "a generalized assault against the idea of 'representation' - the notion that mind is capable of portraying reality truthfully and objectively". Blanchot, who holds that art is important chiefly as a creator and preserver of silence - in a brief biographical epigraph to The Book to Come he describes his life as "wholly devoted to literature and to the silence unique to it" - is discovered by Wolin writing before the war for "a dizzying array of far-right journals", and calling for a revolution that will be "a series of bloody shocks, a storm that will overwhelm - and thus awaken" the French nation.

Like Paul de Man, who wrote anti-Semitic articles for collaborationist Belgian newspapers and after the war developed an extreme form of deconstructionist criticism which was seen by some - simplistically, surely - as an attempt covertly and symbolically to wipe out his own past, Blanchot in his emphasis on silence and impenetrability might be thought of by those same accusers as seeking quietly to erase past sins. "My supposition," Wolin writes, "is that underlying the theoretical antipathy to 'representation' as a figure for knowledge and truth is a subconscious 'will to nonknowledge': a desire to keep at bay an awareness of unsettling historical complicities, facts, and events."

Is Wolin correct in his views, justified in his judgments? The Seduction of Unreason is a wide-ranging yet subtle consideration of the intellectual's abiding fascination with absolutism, and as such it is a perceptive, compelling and invaluable document. His indignation at the folly and perversity of so many major European thinkers is wholly justified and peculiarly invigorating, and most of his charges against those thinkers seem unanswerable. Yet in his almost triumphalist assertions of "humanism's return" he will seem foolishly overconfident to some, and plain mistaken to others. The opposition to humanism, as contemporary philosophers such as John Gray have shown, is not necessarily a new barbarism, but a new honesty and, dare one say it, a new humility. The Enlightenment brought much darkness; it is possible to see Hitler and Stalin and Mao, with their millennial insistence on human progress and the need for a supra-rational organisation of society, as true sons of le Siecle des Lumieres. On the other hand, it is hard to deny Wolin's contention that "with a self-defeating Nietzschean glibness, postmodernism has burned its bridges to a traditional rhetoric of moral evaluation". But is a "traditional rhetoric" really what we need?

Newton's Cannon: Book One of THE AGE OF UNREASON (The Age of Unreason)

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A tarty Ben Franklin, a crazy Isaac Newton, and weird angels.
An interesting premise
Tightly woven tale of alternative history
A Near Miss
What if Alchemy worked?

Newton's Cannon: Book One of THE AGE OF UNREASON (The Age of Unreason)
J. Gregory Keyes
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0345433785
Release Date: 1999-03-29

Amazon.com

Newton's Cannon is an alternate history set primarily in the court of Louis XIV. This might sound familiar to readers of Vonda McIntyre's Nebula-winning The Moon and the Sun. Keyes, like McIntyre, blends alchemy, history, and fantasy in his novel.

Keyes's characters are expertly drawn: Louis XIV, the aging King of France who seeks a return to international preeminence, young Ben Franklin of Boston, a printer's apprentice who yearns to master alchemy, and Adrienne de Montchevreuil, a lovely, impoverished noblewoman who secretly pursues mathematics, but attracts Louis's lustful attention. The many secondary characters are also believable personalities, and the plot is original and suspenseful. Keyes's writing is precise and witty. "It was, Adrienne reflected, impossible not to be impressed by the Grand Canal. More like a cruciform inland sea with banks of polished marble, it summed up many things about Versailles. It was monumental in proportion, insanely expensive, impossible to overlook, and entirely frivolous."

Though the ending of Newton's Cannon leaves much unresolved--setting up book two of The Age of Unreason, A Calculus of Angels--it's fine entertainment all by itself. --Nona Vero

Book Description

A dazzling quest whose outcome will raise humanity to unparalleled heights of glory--or ring down a curtain of endless night . . .

1681: When Sir Isaac Newton turns his restless mind to the ancient art of alchemy, he unleashes Philosopher's Mercury, a primal source of matter and a key to manipulating the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Now, as France and England battle for its control, Louis XIV calls for a new weapon--a mysterious device known only as Newton's Cannon.

Half a world away, a young apprentice named Benjamin Franklin stumbles across a dangerous secret. Pursued by a deadly enemy--half scientist, half sorcerer--Ben makes his fugitive way to England. Only Newton himself can help him now. But who will help Sir Isaac? For he was not the first to unleash the Philosopher's Mercury. Others were there before him. Creatures as scornful of science as they are of mankind. And burning to be rid of both . . .

Customer Reviews:

A tarty Ben Franklin, a crazy Isaac Newton, and weird angels........2007-09-27

An insane Isaac Newton and a fourteen-year-old Ben Franklin are the protagonists in this, the first volume of a trilogy with the highly apropos title THE AGE OF UNREASON. Keyes has a distinct voice as an alternative historian, very different from that king of alternative history, Harry Turtledove. The byzantine plot adroitly bounces back and forth between the adventures of young Ben in Boston and London and the decadent political and social manoeuvres of Louis XIV at Versailles, while doom looms in the form of a comet which has alchemically been summoned to destroy London. There are many marvelous inventions, especially weapons, as a decidedly alchemical version of contemporary science permeates this particular reality. Intriguingly, and not without some actual historical basis, Keyes' Franklin is a libidinous fellow who finds himself en boudoir with several of the older ladies. The bedroom scenes are generally handled with tenderness and taste. NEWTON'S CANNON is a fast, diverting read and a fine example of speculative fiction at its best. If you enjoy Harry Turtledove or even actual history such as the works of David McCullough or Stephen Ambrose, you'd likely enjoy Keyes' lean prose and strong plot.

An interesting premise.......2007-06-28

Gregory Keyes has really made a very interesting start with the first book in his "Age of Unreason" series. "Newton's Cannon" starts with young Benjamin Franklin stifled by his apprenticeship to his cruel brother. During his spare time he experiments with a new aether-technology, a cross between alchemy, science, and some supernatural elements (the exact workings of it is pretty vague). Soon Franklin becomes involved in a massive conspiracy in the European war between England and France. Meanwhile, Louis XIV has commissioned a new and terrible weapon to use against his British foes, but is being manipulated by forces no one but the eccentric Sir Isaac Newton understands.

I enjoyed the book, and look forward to continuing the series later on. I am not sure about the science involved, it seemed a bit fantastic to me. I am under the impression that while the type was researched and explored, it isn't real; hey, the book is located in the science fiction section for a reason I guess. The historical elements are also taken rather loosely, but it's alternate history, so I can forgive it.

Young Benjamin Franklin (about 14 years old here) is characterized more like a highly intelligent Tom Sawyer, always in some sort of trouble or mischief, though always well meaning. Sir Isaac Newton was the most interesting character in the book, though I thought criminally underused. The great Sun King, Louis XIV was pathetic and unlikable. Adrienne de Montchevreuil is supposed to be a fierce modern woman, but to me seemed too helpless and too willing to be used in everyone else's schemes and self pitying to be portrayed as strong.

The action was alright, though I thought it was kind of tame.

Despite these flaws, I liked it, and am really looking forward to continuing the series.

Tightly woven tale of alternative history.......2006-10-13

Young Ben Frankline is a printer's appretice trapped in seven years servitude to his older brother. Adrienne is a poor young noble woman highly educated in secret, and the object of the lust of the aging Louis XIV of France. Both are caught in a plot to use alchemy to change the tide of a war that could see the conquest of France by the English. Full of well drawn, deep characters (many of whom are drawn from real history or classic literature) and a fast paced story-line Newton's Cannon is a great start to a new fantasy/historical series.

A warning for those with kids. Fourteen-year-old Ben Franklin is a bit over-sexed with women twice his age. There is nothing explicit, but as a parent I want to know this kind of stuff. Everthing else about this novel is PG.

Enjoy!

A Near Miss.......2006-06-26

Newton's Cannon (1998) by J.Gregory Keyes - 355 pages - rating: 6.5/10

A young adventurous Benjamin Franklin must flee Boston to seek out Sir Isaac Newton and hopefully save London from imminent total destruction.

I love this author's writing style - interesting new ideas, exciting and smooth - BUT, he has completely BLUNDERED with respect to structure. For some utterly incomprehensible reason - perhaps forced upon him by an over zealous editor - the plotline is fractured - in the WORST possible manner - into two separate lines.

The author will literally end a chapter RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ACTION and start up the next chapter in the middle of the action in the second plot line. You will not only find yourself to be enormously FRUSTRATED by this interruption and destruction of an exciting moment but you will find it necessary to flip back to the end of the previous chapter to try to reconstruct where it was you were when you were interrupted the last time. The sad thing is the author does this at the end of EVERY CHAPTER. It drove me nuts.

I don't mind multiple plot lines. I've read several books written in this fashion. Most books written post 1985 are done in this way. The problem was that Keyes chose to switch plots at precisely the wrong time.

Why did I give this book a 6.5/10 instead of a 3/10 given this enormous annoyance ? Well the writing is very good and so is the plot but the bozo ruined it with this silly little trick of his.

Claus Kellermann
2006 June 25
Sci_Fi_Researcher@yahoo.com

What if Alchemy worked?.......2005-09-02

What if Newton - who was interested in such things - deduced the rules for it as here he did for physics? And what if this new science created new weapons for the wars of the 18th century?

That's the basic premise of the "The Age of Unreason" series. All four books are out now and my basic review is that the series has been excellent, and I highly recommend it!

Keyes has an excellent book here. In many ways, it is similar to "Celestial Matters," where Richard Garfinkle took the idea of "What if Aristotelian physics was real" and ran with it, creating an alternate world where that science ruled, creating an Earth - and a history - wildly different from our own.

Here, Keyes is asking "what if the alchemists were right?" - but unlike "Celestial Matters," the POD is close enough to the current events of the story that the world, while changed, is still recognizably our 18th century world. And because it is recognizably our world, Keyes gets to use real historical figures as his characters - Franklin, Newton, Louis XIV, etc. - and he does so very well.

He also seems to have a good grasp on the changes his POD would render to the world. The new alchemical miracle machines (such as ever-glowing lights, the aetherscreiber, and even a steam-engine of a sort) are just beginning to make their way into common use. There are groups (mostly religious) opposed to them as "magic," there are others - such as Franklin - fascinated by the new "science" and it's possibilities.

And it seems that along with the Philosopher's Mercury, "demons" may walk the Earth...

I loved the book. If it's got any real problem, it's that it's the first book of a series - and because of that Keyes is introducing almost too much stuff to us, stuff that will be useful in the rest of the series, but here make the book a little cluttered. We've got the primary story of Louis, Franklin, and the weapon (of which I will only say the primary creator of which - Fatio - chuckles when he thinks how appropriate it is to call it "Newton's own cannon"), but then we've also got a secret society of women - the "Korai" - playing their little power games with some of the main characters, "demons" running their own mysterious plans, and - heck - even a brief walk-on by Blackbeard the Pirate, of all people (well, "limp-on," actually). It's all just that close to being too much.

However, as I said, I loved the book and read it and all the rest of the books in the "Age of Unreason" series. This is Alternate History writ very large - and very strange...

The Cunning of Unreason: Making Sense of Politics

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Not for the Uninitiated

The Cunning of Unreason: Making Sense of Politics
John Dunn
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0465017487

Book Description

An essential guide to political theory by one of the world's eminent theorists.

John Dunn is the founding father of the Cambridge school, which introduced an approach to political theory that emphasizes the importance of historical context in the formation and interpretation of arguments and ideas. The Cunning of Unreason makes a powerful case for the application of the Cambridge school approach to the current political climate.

Emphasizing the tempering influence of actual social and political circumstances, as well as the enduring relevance of great political thinkers from Aristotle to Marx, Dunn addresses contemporary debates about democracy, corruption, globalization, and the recent trend toward conservatism.

Customer Reviews:

Not for the Uninitiated.......2000-11-01

Dunn is a Political Theorist at Cambridge who makes good in this book on the Theorist part of his academic title. Informing us at the outset that he's writing a book for the general reader about how to think about politics, his prose style (which employs parentheses to a fault) nearly defeats both him and us. Oracular, dense, he is prone to starting paragraphs that state there are such things as "three factors one must explore when thinking of government as coercive structure based on the provision of security for it's citizens." He writes sentences so long and so carefully balanced in tone that you forget what he's talking about before you get to the end of the sentence. Not really for the general reader in other words.

And yet...once he gets away from discussing great political thinkers from the past (and how to think about what they thought, and how to decide what makes them applicable) and gets down to describing a case study -- how Margaret Thatcher got into power and stayed in power -- he's quite readable.

Here's a passage about Thatcher that shows both Mr. Dunn for good and ill:

"In the case of the global neo-liberal agenda of the 80s and 90s (of which Reagan and Thatcher were prominent and consequential exponents), its public impact across large areas of the world, from some of the richest states to some of the poorest, depended both upon ideological impetus and upon drastic shifts in the international context in which the national economies operated.

"There were close and obtrusive links between these two factors throughout, since the agencies of international economic coordination were often potent vectors of the the conceptions of sound policy, and the ways in which they operated, and the institutional changes which they brought about, themselves brusquely altered the incentives faced by governments and economic actors across the world.

"Thge ideas themselves were in no important way novel(though their expression was naturally more up to the minute). What had always been less than engaging about them, and what had long proved ineffectual, remained just as engaging, and very often every bit as ineffectual. But ideological infection and institutional change, both carefully planned and essentially inadvertent, reinforced each other massively. What was evidently going on was a single interconnected process, a vast tipping in the balance of advantage between one set of ways of organizing production, distribution and exchange, subordinated, at least in intention to the pursuit of social welfare through public policy, and another set of ways of organizing production, distribution and exhange which had far weaker connections with the goal of pursuing social welfare, more especially through public policy." pg. 173-4

Book Description

Our daily news bulletins bring us tales of the wonder of science, from Mars rovers and intelligent robots to developments in cancer treatment, and yet often the emphasis is on the potential threats posed by science. It appears that irrationality is on the rise in western society, and public opinion is increasingly dominated by unreflecting prejudice and unwillingness to engage with factual evidence. From genetically modified crops and food, organic farming, the MMR vaccine, environmentalism, the precautionary principle and the new anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation movements, the rejection of the evidence-based approach nurtures a culture of suspicion, distrust, and cynicism, and leads to dogmatic assertion and intolerance. In this compelling and timely examination of science and society, Dick Taverne argues that science, with all the benefits it brings, is an essential part of civilised and democratic society: it offers us our most hopeful future.

Customer Reviews:

A useful antidote to unreason.......2007-03-07

Dick Taverne has worked in industry, law and government and is now a Liberal-Democrat member of the House of Lords. In this useful book, he looks at the connections between science and democracy and at fundamentalism's threats to them both.

His theme is, "If you abandon any concern for evidence or pretence at reason, you open the door wide to more dangerous charlatans, the peddlers of racial hatred, or those other devotees of the irrational, the religious fundamentalists who seek a return to the days when religious dogmatism ruled and freedom of thought was suppressed."

In his chapter on medicine, he praises osteopathy for being properly regulated in Britain, unlike most other kinds of alternative medicine. He notes that some alternative practices, like aromatherapy and Indian head massage, are pleasant and harmless.

But Taverne condemns Ayurvedic medicine and homoeopathy for diverting patients away from good medical practice. He points out that anyone with cataracts who chose the Ayurvedic remedy - `brush your teeth and scrape your tongue, spit into a cup of water and wash your eyes with this mixture' - would not get better. Similarly, homoeopathy, based on the `law of infinitesimals' - the more a medicine is diluted, the more effective it will be, i.e. less is more - would not help anyone with a serious illness.

He notes that herbal products are unregulated (unlike pharmaceutical drugs), so users risk adverse effects. Tests on the most popular herbal products, arnica and echinacea, proved that they don't work and are no better than placebos.

Taverne then looks at the scare about the MMR vaccine, started by Dr Andrew Wakefield's speculations that autism might be due to bowel disease, which might in turn be due to the vaccine. Wakefield produced no evidence, instead calling a press conference to denounce the vaccine. The media danced to Wakefield's dramatic tune and ignored all the proof that the vaccine did not cause autism.

In a section on genetic modification, Taverne makes a good case for the safety and utility of GM foods. Even America's finest lawyers cannot find evidence of damage to health, and absence of evidence of harm is evidence of absence of harm.

On global warming, he again warns against media hype. He points out that all the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's global warming predictions depend on its unbelievably high forecasts of economic growth in the Third World.

In Taverne's last chapter he writes, "politicians do in fact compromise, listen to the other side, and are willing to modify their own position in the light of public discussion and public reaction." We know that members of the House of Lords can be a little divorced from reality, but did Lord Taverne not notice Thatcher or Blair?

As he notes, "Authoritarian institutions ... press on with mistakes long after they have begun to produce unintended and harmful consequences." Mistakes like privatising our National Health Service, devolution, EU membership, occupying Iraq, deindustrialisation, destroying the apprenticeship system? Perhaps he should check his own assumptions against the evidence.

Delightful reading on an important topic.......2005-06-07

This is a marvelous book that traces the role of reason and science in the creation of free and democratic societies, and then warns that radical environmentalism (what he calls "eco-fundamentalism"), by standing in opposition to reason and science, poses a grave threat to our freedoms. The author covers a wide range of topics but is especially good on biotechnology (genetically modified crops), where he carefully presents the cases for and against this new application of science ... and concludes that the former is much the stronger. The book is a delight to read, with the author sparing us the sometimes tedious analyzing and arguing that other books devoted to debunking environmentalism fall victim to. I highly recommend it.

A Calculus of Angels (Age of Unreason Quartet 2)

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A Calculus of Angels (Age of Unreason Quartet 2)
Greg Keyes
Manufacturer: Tor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Newton's Cannon (Age of Unreason Quartet 1)

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Newton's Cannon (Age of Unreason Quartet 1)
Greg Keyes
Manufacturer: Tor
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ASIN: 0330419978

The Shadows of God (The Age of Unreason, Book 4)

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The battle for America, with the demons winning.
Things come to a conclusion, even if somewhat unsatisfying.
The Design of the Apocalypse
No place to go but down
Exciting conclusion--powerful characters

The Shadows of God (The Age of Unreason, Book 4)
J. Gregory Keyes
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 034543904X
Release Date: 2001-07-03

Book Description

BOOK FOUR: THE SHADOWS OF GOD

As the armies of the Malakim advance, led by a child of bright and burning power, Benjamin Franklin must summon all his ingenuity for the desperate attempt to preserve, not just the freedom of his country, but its very existence. For behind the wars of humanity there are other wars, fought by aetheric beings of immense strength and conviction.

The Malakim may be angels . . . or demons. All that’s certain is that when the war in heaven is over, there won’t be much–if anything–left of Earth.

As the ruthless forces of Russia lay waste to the New World, English troops make landfall in the east, determined to reconquer the colonies. Trapped in between lies a motley collection of Native Americans, ex-slaves, and refugees of the European catastrophe, led by Franklin and the Choctaw shaman Red Shoes. In that struggle, Red Shoes may prove his most potent ally . . . and his most dangerous threat.

In this stunning conclusion to The Age of Unreason trilogy, the balance of power lies with Adrienne de Montchevreuil, whose grasp of science is the equal of Franklin’s, and whose magic may be stronger even than that of the Choctaw. Only with her help can they hope to defeat the Sun Boy and his Malakim masters. But Adrienne has a shocking secret of her own, calling into question where her true allegiances may lie . . .

Customer Reviews:

The battle for America, with the demons winning........2005-06-20

The Shadows of God, the conclusion of J. Gregory Keyes' "Age of Unreason" series, is a thrilling ride through war, mysticism, and a little bit of love. The characters have been through a lot in the last 15 years or so, and this is the culmination of everything. While the ending is not quite as good as I would have hoped, Keyes still manages to keep the reader intrigued, racing to the end to see exactly how it turns out. While not completely unpredictable, there is enough uncertainty for the story to keep a hold of the reader.

Ben Franklin has finally made it to the French court in the New Orleans area, where the former Duke of Orleans is now the only remaining French king. He's trying desperately to set up an alliance among all of the former colonies. Meanwhile, Russian forces continue to hem the colonies in on the west while English troops come from the east. The demon-like Malekim, are making their final play for dominion on the Earth, and if humans manage to even come close to stopping them, they will unleash a horror that has never been seen before. The key to everything could end up being Adrienne de Montchevreuil, a French sorceress who may know more science than Franklin and more magic than Red Shoes, the Choctaw shaman who may or may not be on the side of good. Will they all be able to stop the Malekim while there is still enough left of the colonies to celebrate the victory?

This entire series has been a fascinating alternate history with sorcery and alchemy playing a major part and historical figures we're all familiar with mixing with characters that Keyes has made up. The Shadows of God continues this, though the story has gone so much more beyond alternate history that it is almost unrecognizable. Instead, it's a fantasy with historical trappings, with Franklin, Tsar Peter, and Voltaire being the only recognizable historical figures left. This is not a bad thing, as Keyes once again does a wonderful job of characterization. I said in my review of Empire of Unreason that Red Shoes had become thoroughly uninteresting. This time, however, Keyes succeeds in grabbing the reader's attention with him again. He's fighting an evil that he has absorbed within him, that has caused him to do terrible things. How he deals with this, with the help of Grief, his lover, made me want to read his sections of the book again (unlike the earlier book).

Once again, Franklin and Adrienne are also extremely well-done. Also well done is Oglethorpe, the general of the colonial armies who are fighting the invading English and Russian troops. He shows a lot of intelligence in his battle tactics, using the resources that he has been given (a couple of airships, some magical guns) to their utmost. He's also learned to deal with his prejudices and command a mixed group of men (escaped and freed slaves, Native Americans, and some colonists). Before leading the army, he had been a slaveowner, but the escaped slaves become some of his best scouts, and it's interesting to see the change in his perception as he sheds his English sensibilities and becomes an "American."

I really like how Keyes has created a number of interesting characters, but he resists the urge to get inside all of their heads. For most of the first three books, the only viewpoint characters have been Franklin, Adrienne, and Red Shoes (Red Shoes being introduced in A Calculus of Angels). Oglethorpe is introduced in Empire of Unreason and also becomes a viewpoint character, but that is it. Instead, Keyes manages to show us what's inside the characters by their actions and words, rather than thoughts. The king of New France is a great example of this. We can tell that he is horrified about what has happened to his old country, and he certainly doesn't want the responsibility of bringing New France up by its bootstraps, but he is a patriot and willing to do whatever is necessary for the good of his people. He loves science but can be blinded by his subordinates when it comes to politics. All of the characters are three-dimensional despite us not being able to hear what they think.

The only exception to this, and it leads into the other fault with the book, are Tsar Peter and Charles, King of Sweden. Peter gets a little more characterization when he's rescued, but once the final battle begins and Charles shows up (his sworn enemy), they become nothing but bluster and ultimately the interest plummets. The results of their final battle are completely predictable (only the magnitude of what happens is in question). Their characterization is a symptom of the fact that the ending just becomes one huge battle with flashes of characterization from a few sources. There's nothing wrong with having a big battle at the end of a book, and Keyes does a decent job describing the action, but it seemed like a sidebar to the mystical element of the story, giving the characters something to drive them to the conclusion rather than something to care about itself. We're already told that the Malekim will do something drastic if their human pawns' plans are defeated, so dramatically the battle doesn't really serve a lot of purpose.

That being said, The Shadows of God is still riveting for the most part, and a fitting conclusion to the entire story. The ending, while slightly predictable, leaves things in an interesting way. It doesn't call for a sequel at all. Instead, it's more of a "these characters have a lot of work ahead of them" feeling. It's satisfying to see the old friends you've been reading about for four books finally getting a rest. At least those who survive, at any rate.

David Roy

Things come to a conclusion, even if somewhat unsatisfying........2003-03-13

Better than the last book. Things come to a conclusion, which is good because its the last book. Things are also more fully explained for example the nature of the Malakim and the sun boy king. The very end is a bit disappointing in the way he decides to bring about a "happy ending" and bring everything to a resolution. Though to be fair I couldn't see that there was much he could of done different other than destoying the world, which doesn't happen. I give it a B-.

The Design of the Apocalypse.......2002-11-05

Nothing makes a series more frustrating for a reader than extended delays between volumes. Unfortunately for me, not only was J. Gregory Keyes a long time in issuing this last volume in the 'Age of Unreason Series,' marketing for it was so poor that it was a year before I actually found it, and even longer until I finally started to read it. Given the scope of the series, this nearly caused me do decide not to read it.

The key of the problem is that the cast of characters is immense, and seems to include everyone of note in Europe and North America from Isaac Newton and Ben Franklin to Tsar Peter the Great. At the beginning of 'The Shadows of God' Keyes spends about 40 pages re-introducing his characters. Before I gave up counting he had mentioned thirty major characters and a host of lesser. Moreover, while diligent in the matter of name-dropping, Keyes makes no effort to provide continuity between this volume and its predecessor.

As such, it was a while before I remembered that Keyes had Newton discover the existence of the Malakim, angels who intersected with the human world and whose powers could be harnessed. As he and his student Ben Franklin move across Europe, great powers are set in motion, eventually leading to London's utter destruction by an aimed meteor, and a Russian attempt to conquer the world. With Europe in tatters, the action shifts to the new world, where men battle men and Malakim, and everyone who can tries to destroy their enemies and take the earth for their own.

In North America, invading armies of the Malakim inspired Sun Boy and James Stuart, pretender to the English Throne prepare to overwhelm the indigenous races and colonists from New England to New France. Ben Franklin is the ringleader in for those who oppose the Malakim as he tries to deal with overpowering magic, traitors on every side, and the rulers of New France, Sweden and Russia. With his family life in a shambles, and his imagination stretched to its limits Franklin must prepare to fight a battle that truly is the apocalypse.

This is primarily alternate history, based on the thesis that Newton's discoveries were of the laws of magic rather than those of science. Misled into thinking that the Malakim were harmless, Newton did not realize that these were the fallen angels, stranded on earth by God, and that many of them fiercely desire the end of man. The fascination of a new scientific system, and Keyes' great writing are what keep the series moving, and this volume is no exception, despite the slow start.

The book probes the possibility of a universe based on and entirely different meta-narrative and the effects of that world on those that people it. It also questions the significance of good and evil and God's place in the entirety of corruption. Keyes created a high action plot while taking the time to investigate philosophical and emotional considerations. In the end, I found the story very satisfying, but be warned that 'The Shadows of God' would be nearly unreadable for someone who has not read the first three volumes. It is unfortunate that Keyes will probably never get the recognition he deserves for this work of science fantasy. If you have the opportunity and the time, you will find the series well worth reading.

No place to go but down.......2002-07-28

DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK
GO TO THE LIBRARY AND BORROW IT FOR FREE
IT IS NOT WORTH IT

It is a sad thing when an author starts a series with a great idea, like rewriting history with a different set of scientific laws, but then doesn't know how to finish the story. I originally bought the first two books in the series by accident but was happily surprised when I finally sat down and read them. Then when the third came out I was excited to continue the journey, but upon finishing I was somewhat let down. But now, even though I still have 50 pages left, I have been sorely let down.

Keyes seems to have lost track of his characters, giving them outlandish abilities which work in no logical sense. The great powers of the Earth find themselves prostrate over their own minor problems which they never got around to dealing with earlier on in the series. And further, this is the point which angers me the most, the French witch Adrienne becomes a sad copy of Franks Herbert's, Lady Jessica of the Dune series.

She is supposed to be a being not born on chance, but of a breading program monitored over centuries to produce a superbeing. HELLO? This a complete copy off of his plot thread, used to fill in a story loop hole so large a small moon could easily fall into it.

The philosophies brought about have become more mundane with each page. The ideas never coming to any sort of fruition understandable by any sensible reader. The lead characters have lost the readers attention, and have become less important than the much more interesting less brooding supporting cast.

How sad it is when an want to be writter has a good idea but no story arch.

Exciting conclusion--powerful characters.......2001-09-04

Russia and England, dominated by angels working to destroy humanity, are on the verge of success. Only a small group of Americans, including European exiles, Indians, and colonists, now stand against them. In an alternate reality, Isaac Newton discovered not only science but also magic and the world must now face the consequences.

Led by Benjamin Franklin, the resistance gathers in Louisiana for their final confrontation. Franklin builds fabulous machines that might just be able to slow the angelic forces, but outnumbered as his men are, they have little chance for success. Especially as he can't really trust even those who are supposedly on his side.

J. Gregory Keyes does an excellent job creating characters that the reader can believe in and identify with. From Franklin himself, torn between love for his wife and desire for other women; Red Shoes, the Indian shaman with a snake in his soul; to Addrienne de Mornay de Montchevreuil, who still loves the son she bore and who now threatens the universe.

The depth of these characters makes it easy for the reader to care about the novel, about the adventure, and about the danger that Franklin's small band of outnumbered soldiers and mages must face.

Customer Reviews:

ONE STRANGE RIDE.......2003-09-17

"Land of Unreason" first saw the light of day in 1941, in a shorter form, in "Unknown" magazine; it was later expanded to novel length. Just as there is a genre of science fiction known as "hard" sci-fi, as typified by the works of Hal Clement and Larry Niven, this novel impresses me as a "hard" fantasy novel. Not only do authors deCamp and Pratt usher us into Fairyland, and show us the court of Oberon and Titania, but we are also shown all manner of elves, sprites, nymphs, fairies, ogres, kobolds and the like; even a leprechaun and a unicorn are thrown into the mix.
This journey into the fantastic begins when Fred Barber--an American vice-consul in Spain who has been injured during World War II and who is convalescing on the Yorkshire moors--impulsively drinks the milk that his hostess has superstitiously left for the fairies on St. John's Eve. He is kidnapped by a fairy named Sneckett and brought to Oberon's palace, where he is given the task of going to the Kobold Hills and preventing the kobolds from making metallic swords (a substance that no fairy can touch). Thus, Barber begins his picaresque wanderings, and the reader is propelled into a very strange world indeed. Fairyland has been going through a series of so-called "shapings"; even the normally bizarre physical laws of the realm don't apply anymore. In his travels, Barber encounters a talking whirlwind, an apple-tree sprite, a monster from a plum tree, and two-headed eagles. He resides for a while with a marooned, 19th century farmer from New England, and is transformed into a frog and, later, a batlike creature, all leading to his ultimate transformation. The reader will never be able to guess where the story is going next; it's one darn thing after another for poor Fred Barber, as he tries to find his way back home.
Perhaps I have not adequately suggested, in this capsule description, what a very strange book "Land of Unreason" is. At times I was reminded of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland"; at others, of David Lindsay's weird-in-the-extreme "A Voyage to Arcturus." All feature crazy worlds where the physical laws of our reality are in abeyance; all feature strange characters and even stranger events. "Land of Unreason" even pays homage to Carroll's work, in making Titania's footmen liveried frogs. This is one very bizarre book indeed.
I should also point out to prospective readers of "Land of Unreason" that both deCamp and Pratt were history buffs, and that perhaps the most impressive single aspect of this novel is the seemingly authentic medieval manner in which the characters converse. The authors have obviously done their homework, to say the least. Readers of this book will run into many obscure Scottish words and archaic language, as well as loads of unusual English. This reader is a professional copy editor, and even I had to resort to an UNabridged dictionary repeatedly to look up words such as "nympholept," "strappado," "rounce," "jobbernowl," "equerry," "yataghan," "lambrequin," "armet," "thill," "armigerous," "anlace," "cousin-german," "alate," "oriflamme," "crapulous," "catenary," "pule," "thrip," "gramercy," "widdershins," "adossed," "barry-wavy," "stirk," "wight," "springald," "bedad" and "metic," among others. The book is a challenge in this respect, but, as always, a little research on the part of the reader will be repaid with a deeper appreciation. On the down side, "Land of Unreason" contains many plot points that lead nowhere, and the denouement--for me, anyway--is something of a letdown. This reader was thoroughly entertained while reading the book, but was ultimately left with the feeling that he'd read a piece of well-crafted piffle. I should perhaps also mention that this novel has been included in James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock's overview volume "Fantasy: The 100 Best Books." I'm not sure that it deserves inclusion, but it certainly does make for one strange ride.

3 Titles By George O. Smith : The Fourth R - The Path Of Unreason - Complete Venus Equilateral

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3 Titles By George O. Smith : The Fourth R - The Path Of Unreason - Complete Venus Equilateral
George O. Smith
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: B000TPF1ZK

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A Calculus of Angels (The Age of Unreason , No 2)

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Quite nice
What's the alchemical sign for fun?
better than book 1
The best Science fiction I have ever read
Far better than Book 1!

A Calculus of Angels (The Age of Unreason , No 2)
J. Gregory Keyes
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0345406079
Release Date: 1999-03-30

Amazon.com

What if Isaac Newton had discovered that alchemy works? J. Gregory Keyes has based his Age of Unreason series on an alternate 18th century shaped by a "science" that grew from Newton's discovery of "philosopher's mercury," which "can transmit vibrations into the aether" and thus "alter the states and composition of matter." In A Calculus of Angels, Keyes continues the tale he began in Newton's Cannon. It's a satisfying sequel that nevertheless leaves the reader impatient for the next book.

Two years have passed since the asteroid struck. The weather is unnaturally cold, the skies perpetually overcast. England is devastated, the French government has collapsed upon the death of Louis XIV. Peter the Great, now inspired by the guardian spirit who preserved Louis, has marched his armies westward into the Netherlands and France. In the New World, the abandoned colonists send a delegation including Blackbeard, Cotton Mather, and a Choctaw shaman named Red Shoes to find out what's happened. In Prague, Newton and his apprentice, Ben Franklin, seek to protect the city from aetheric attack. The mathematically gifted Adrienne de Montchevreuil is also back and expanding her knowledge of the mysterious malakim who inhabit the aether and menace mankind.

Keyes creates a very believable mixture of history, fantasy, and plausibly imagined historical characters. Each book has been exciting, suspenseful, and beautifully written. No admirer of alternate history should miss this series. --Nona Vero

Book Description

Newton's Cannon, the critically acclaimed first volume in J. Gregory Keyes's Age of Unreason series, brilliantly combined the best of alternate history, fantasy, and science fiction in a bravura reimagining of the tempestuous eighteenth century. Now, Keyes triumphantly adds to his masterpiece in the making . . .

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

1722: A second Dark Age looms after the devastating impact of an asteroid, unnaturally drawn to Earth by dire creatures who plot against the world of men. Yet this destruction is just the opening salvo in a war of annihilation.

Sir Isaac Newton and his young apprentice, Benjamin Franklin, have taken refuge in ancient Prague, seeking the secrets of the aetheric beings whose vast powers and new sciences have so nearly destroyed humanity . . . yet who may prove to be its last, great hope.

But their safety is tenuous, as Peter the Great marches his unstoppable forces across Europe. And half a world away, Cotton Mather and Blackbeard the pirate lead a party of colonial luminaries back across the Atlantic to discover what has befallen the Old World. With them sails Red Shoes, a Choctaw shaman whose mysterious connections to the invisible world warn him that they are all moving toward a confrontation as violent as it is decisive . . .

Customer Reviews:

Quite nice.......2007-03-11

A refreshing look at combining the historical and fantastical, and does quite a good job at muddying plausible and inplausible sciences of the 18th century till even the reader easily gets pulled into what may, or may not be grounded in actual real world science. Characters are mostly believable and easy to identify with, and the author pulls bits of reputed character traits for historical characters while taking an absolute and fun literary license with the rest. All in all, a good and fun book, well thought out, and moves though at a brisk pace while maintaining enough depth to satisfy even a jaded, more adult fantasy/science fiction reader.

What's the alchemical sign for fun?.......2005-03-31

A Calculus of Angels, the second book in the Age of Unreason series by J. Gregory Keyes, does exactly what a second book is supposed to do. It builds on the first book, giving us more insight into the greater problem that the series addresses, as well as moving all the characters forward. The alternate history that Keyes has built is fascinating stuff, much richer than the "what if World War II turned out differently" that many authors use. A Calculus of Angels is a wonderful mixture of sorcery, alchemy, and science. Keyes also adds a few more characters to the mix, making for a much deeper story.

We are a few years removed from when the great comet hit London and wiped out much of western Europe. Those in the Americas, not having heard anything from Europe in quite a while, are ready to join forces (French, English, and Native) to send an expedition to find out what is happening. Meanwhile, Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, is on the march to conquer what is left of Europe. Sir Isaac Newton and his young apprentice, Ben Franklin, are in Prague, attempting to figure out what is really going on. Adrienne, former lover of King Louis of France, is on the run from the remnants of the French nobility, all vying for what's left of the French throne. What spirits are using the world to fight their own war against humanity? Are these spirits religious in nature, servants of God? Or are they trying to fight everything that humanity holds dear? Who controls who? And will Peter be able to conquer everything in his path with the mysterious flying ships that he wields? All will come together in one city, one fatal encounter that could decide everything. And what does Adrienne's child have to do with all of this?

A Calculus of Angels is a much better book than Newton's Cannon, mainly for its broader scope. The first book was pretty narrow, concentrating mainly on Adrienne and Ben Franklin. This one covers a lot more ground. Ben and Adrienne are still prominent, and they get a lot of development, as Ben chafes under Newton's refusal to tell him what Newton is researching and Adrienne learns her place in this spiritual war that is going on. But Keyes gives us more storylines to follow as well. There is the expedition from the Americas to discover what is going on. This party gives us a wonderful character in the Choctaw shaman, Red Shoes. It also gives us Cotton Mather, Blackbeard (former pirate and now governor of a small colony) and the French governor of Louisiana, Bienville. It is through them that we see most of the devastation that covers Europe, especially Great Britain.

While Mather is a bit of a stereotypical religious figure, he does have his moments where he is surprising. The others aren't quite as well-drawn, though they serve their purposes well in supporting Red Shoes and getting him where he needs to be. Especially good is the scene where some of the ship's crew take Red Shoes for a night on the town, and he sees the deadness in the girl that is given to him, even as the others finish their night of debauchery. This highlights the other world that only he can see, and gives us a great bit of his character.

Probably the best scenes in the book, however, involve young Ben as he tries to make his way in Prague. Newton is being very uncooperative and Ben is trying to do his best to fit in. He is an intelligent young man himself, and he's invented many toys for the King to play with, but he knows that Newton's holding something back. The interplay between the two is wonderful, especially in their final scene together as Newton realizes just how much he's hurt Ben. Once Ben and the others leave Prague, it's not quite as interesting, and the scenes in Venice drag a little bit. Still, he's the most important character in the book, and he carries it well.

The only thing that really mars the book, and it's a small thing, is how everybody ends up in the same place at the same time. Considering the number of storylines that are going on, this stretches the coincidence just a little too much. Once they are all there, it makes for a riveting conclusion as Ben tries his best to outwit his opponents and survive himself. The ending is a bit predictable, but it leads into an epilogue that really makes you want to read the next book to see where the story goes from here.

One aspect of Newton's Cannon that I hated was the way Keyes began chapters in the middle of action and had the characters reflect back on what happened to catch the reader up. Keyes still does this occasionally, but it's not quite as noticeable this time. This really adds to the strength of the book, as the prose flows a lot better. The prose is rougher than it is in Keyes' Kingdoms of Thorn & Bone series, but it's earlier in his career, so a bit more acceptable. Keyes has taken an interesting premise and spun half of a very interesting tale. I'm looking forward to the next one.

David Roy

better than book 1.......2004-02-03

Book 2 of the Age of Unreason

"A Calculus of Angels" picks up two years after the events of "Newton's Cannon". To give a quick recap of what has happened before, this novel is set in the 18th Century, but one that is no longer recognizable as the 18th Century. Isaac Newton discovered something called philosopher's mercury, a substance that has allowed science to go into a entirely new direction and it truly did change the world. The heroes of our story are Ben Franklin, who is the apprentice of Isaac Newton, and Adrienne, a brilliant scientists struggling with the societal strictures of being a woman. Two years prior to "A Calculus of Angels" someone had called down a comet and destroyed London completely. There are forces in the world that are similar to Angels or Demons (depending on how you are looking at it) called the Malakim. They are part of the hidden powers that are permitting these wonderous scientific devices.

This brings us to the second novel (more or less). France no longer has a central authority after the death of Louis XIV. Tsar Peter the Great, of Russia, is marching his armies East to build an Empire. A delegation from the American Colonies is sailing to Europe to discover what happened (after the Comet hit, there were natural disasters and all contact with the continent ceased), and the delegation includes Cotton Mather, Blackbeard the Pirate, and a Choctaw named Red Shoes. Ben Franklin is in Prague trying to defend the city from an attack similar to the one that destroyed London, and he no longer trusts Isaac Newton. Adrienne is learning more of the Malakim and her journey takes her across Europe in into the circle of powerful men.

This is a difficult book to really describe because it is so complex. The series begun with a true history of our world, but with one event (Newton's discovery), it changed the entire landscape so that even while real men and women are in the novel, they are in entirely new situations that will shape the characters in ways that we could never have expected. While I enjoyed the first book, I feel this novel is where the series really begins to pick up. I had to force myself to keep going at times in "Newton's Cannon", but here I just wanted to keep reading to see what happens next (and also to figure out exactly what is really going on here). Greg Keyes does an excellent job of building this world and the strange twist on our own. I don't think that anyone should pick this one up before reading "Newton's Cannon", but I do feel that the quality has increased in the second book and I'm looking forward to reading book three (of four).

The best Science fiction I have ever read.......2001-11-07

This book is amazing. If you haven't read the first one; you need to. If you have then you don't need my review.

Far better than Book 1!.......2001-08-21

I have to break with the other reviewers on this one and strongly disagree. Most seem to think that it falls short in comparison to Book 1, but for myself, that simply isn't the case.

In Book One, by simple neccesity, much of the story had to be devoted to establishing the given circumstances of the world these characters inhabit, but here in Book Two the story is free to explore the inner motivations of the characters and the relationships between them. The action is constantly moving forward and as the events unfold and storylines begin to weave together toward the climax I found myself frustrated by every interruption, which was not always the case with Book One. Further - when there is discussion of the sciences that govern this fascinating world, I found the theories and concepts more intriguing than in Book One - and now they aren't spoken of simply as lofty concepts, now there is desparation and personal attachment (sometimes literally) for the characters to the concepts being explored.

The more I read this series, the more it captures my imagination.

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