Just Finished Reading… Wages Of Sin By Harry Turtledove. Perseus Books, 2023

 

This is the latest novel by the “Master of Alternative Universe”. In this case, the “what if…?” is “what if HIV arrived in Europe in the 16th century?”

In 1509, some Portuguese traders buy slaves in Africa, to take back to Lisbon. One of them is a beautiful teenage girl, who is passed around the crew. She has been raped by her captors before being sold. So… 

In 1851 - not the Victorian era, but the reign of King Michael III - England is very different from the one we know. AIDS, known as the Wasting, is common enough that strict measures have been  taken to control its spread. Victims are branded with a W as a warning to others not to sleep with them. Women are forced to wear burqas when they go out, to avoid tempting men - which doesn’t stop them from being groped and catcalled in public. England is still Catholic, because Henry VIII died of AIDS  - no surprise there - before he could break from Rome.

Not a world we would like to live in!

The novel is seen through the eyes of engaged couple Peter and Viola. It is an arranged marriage, but the young couple are willing. She is a doctor’s daughter in Salisbury, he is studying law in London. Most of the novel is about what is happening with each of them. Peter is trying to avoid temptation despite his randy room mate’s regular brothel attendance. Viola is frustrated by having no freedom, though her father is very supportive of her. 

She writes a book. 

I found it very readable and finished it quickly, but if you are expecting adventure like that in such other books as The Guns Of The South, you won’t find it here. There is no uprising, no cure found for the disease, no change of society. It’s just a story about what it might be like to live in that one. 

Interestingly, Viola’s novel, inspired by the travel tales she loves to read since she can’t actually travel, is about what it might be to live somewhere where the Wasting hasn’t taken hold.

Recommended. The book is available in both Apple Books and Kindle ebooks, or in print.