The Quarter Century Project - Ash - A Secret History by Mary Gentle

Publisher – Gollancz

Price – £3.99 kindle ebook

For the beautiful young woman Ash, life has always been arquebuses and artillery, swords and armour and the true horrors of hand-to-hand combat. War is her job. She has fought her way to the command of a mercenary company, and on her unlikely shoulders lies the destiny of a Europe threatened by the depredations of an Infidel army more terrible than any nightmare.

Ever had that sensation of hearing history is not as you were taught at school? Vikings don’t wear cow-shaped helmets; women were warriors in various cultures, people did know the world was round thousands of years ago etc etc. In some ways a small syllabus is never going to get all the nuances but it’s also a reflection that history is not nearly as fixed a point as we think. Facts change, interpretations of evidence are refined and refined again. Some things are found out not be true – I’m still sore about there being no King Arthur and Camelot. All of which comes to mind with my reading the winner of 2000 British Science Fiction Association Award - the spellbinding novel Ash – A Secret History by Mary Gentle which plays with known history, dances with fantasy and mixes with science fiction with wild abandon. Safe to say it holds up as a classic!

Pierce Ratcliffe a 2001 medieval scholar is working with his publisher on a new translation of the legendary Ash a 15th century mercenary captain of some renown and adventures for which various texts are around sometimes contradicting each other and even recorded history. Pierce has a new previously undiscovered document to add new revelations to the legend.

Ash grew up in a mercenary band a standard part of the scenery in 15th century Europe where wars between various fragmented countries, civil wars and invasions all made fighting quite profitable provided you stayed alive. Ash grew quickly to the life, has a fine tactical ability that matches her courage and fighting prowess. By nineteen she heads a renown and tough company of several hundred (plus its entourage to feed and armour it). A simple siege of the town of Neuss in Burgundy though sets Ash on a collision course with the various great powers of the known world, discovering secrets about her own past and she finds herself in huge danger also fighting against the potential end of the world.

Back in 2001 the more Pierce investigates a strange series of coincidences appear, documents and evidence is changing – new insights, startling revelations and discoveries may mean history is more alive than people think.

It sounds a big story and at 1632 pages it is! By the way ever mention this book to everyone someone will always tell you it was in the US badly divided into four volumes with weird cliffhangers. And yet….quite unusually when it comes to large tomes for me – I flaming loved this! Gentle creates a novel that is very much having its cake and eating it. It is spectacularly inventive, exquisitely plotted and in the central character of Ash we have a fantastic foul-mouthed, brave, smart, fierce and often flawed central character who over the course of the book we get to understand all their aspects and by the end we will be huge fans of her all the way to the story’s impressive end. I remember enjoying this when I read it many years ago but this time with an older set of eyes I can get re-impressed by the skill this story develops to make it work so powerfully.

So much to discuss but one key factor is that the historical Ash segments of the book are very much focused on making us feel that we are in the period living next to Ash. It helps that our ‘translator’ is telling us that they’re using modern language and terms to help tell the story to modern readers. We see the battlefields, hear the cannons, feel the blows reigning down and have to walk around in the mud and blood. Gentle makes you feel like you’re there - it is absolutely critical to the wider story that we see Ash as a real person and we really do. It gets back to the way certain legends (and Pierce does say Ash is a bit like King Arthur) that they’re so interesting you want all the tales we hear about them to be real. For the first hundred pages we’re following Ash growing up and then being a mercenary leader; we’re totally embedded as if we’re in a full historical set period novel….indeed throughout little footnotes explain terms and historical context (or discrepancies) and then Gentle throws in a golem and no one from the leaders of Europe to the soldiers in the ranks blinks an eye.

Yep you heard! Magic exists in this world and indeed we soon find out its related to the Visigoth Empire of Carthage – who everyone in the period knows about…except in 2001 its known that didn’t acruelly exist. Gentle creates a growing dissonance which we get expanded upon through regular email chats between translations that Piece and his editor send each other. This story feels so real and yet things aren’t following the known history of the period. This is where the tit le of the Secret History comes into play and the reader gets into the dilemma. The Ash story like all the best stories feels real; as fantasy fans we love the idea of magic but what is going on with these modern scenes – are we going meta?

This gets as to why I loved reading this so much. A bit like the central theme that history is always changing so is the book. Historical action adventure turns fantasy turns soon after into SF the blur of magic and technology gets really mixed and every few hundred pages revelations change our previous understanding of events or characters. This is an immense standalone but at the same time quite episodic and it is all interesting enough to hold our attention because you want to get to the truth of things.

Part of this pull is Ash and her crew. Gentle with Ash I think has created a remarkable character (particularly for the turn of the last century). Ash got into her position because she is very good at what she does…indeed Pierce notes other famous woman of the age. While some do indeed mock Ash as a woman having an army at your command means people in power if not fully respect her know not to annoy her. We see someone who knows they’re a soldier and how Ash sees the world and what she does as her career is a key part of the book – seeing tactics and making sacrifices of people you know. She’s not merciless but she knows that’s what she has to do to win. Over the book Ash gets quite a few challenges – an arranged marriage to navigate, her army being removed from her imprisonment and then in the final acts managing a very complex siege situation while the known world faces a huge threat. By the end of the book as a reader you know Ash on a very personal level. They’re rather brilliant, flawed and ultimately so human. Its not all about Ash we get to know lots of key members of the troop from Ash’s various lieutenants to the drunken doctor Florian who may or may not be rather more posh than they like to hint and her counsellor/confessor Father Godfrey who treats Ash with affection just as much as annoyance – both of whom have a key plotline running alongside Ash. We care when people are in trouble, when they die and most of all they seem less bloodthirsty killers but more professionals with dirty jobs to do – bonds between them shine and while Ash is the star these people too you can see fighting one minute or performing bawdy songs and a type of panto the next make it another vivid component of the book’s success.

Action fans will not be disappointed. We go from skirmishes to troop invasions, cavalry charges and then to battlefields and one of the best sieges I’ve read for a while in a book. Gentle delivers scenes again with colour (often blood) and noise but also explains tactics – it all adds to that necessary need for us as the reader to see these encounters as real. Absolutely critical to the modern parts of the book where we have academics and scientists trying to explain why things are no longer adding up…and then mysteriously are. Yes, I’m coy to not spoil you but it’s a humdinger of an idea and there are enough clues in this review for you to ponder...

Does it all stack up twenty-five years later? Pretty much. I was a little disappointed that early on in the book there is mention of child rape and ultimately it feels rather unnecessary - there is a fairly flat plotline that that event started Ash on her path, but it really wasn’t needed and one particular slur from the army about the eventual enemy feels a little out of date these days. But the vast majority of the book really does still work. It holds its own easily with more modern fantasy novels and that it also has a fine science fiction concept behind it makes it another story that shows genre boundaries exist to be played with. It has great characters, surprising plotting and while it’s a book you do indeed have to take your time with I didn’t feel I was trudging – I felt like I’d been on an epic adventure. There are few books like this. Its superb and strongly recommended!