James Nicoll Reviews

Today’s review: The End of the Empire by Alexis Gilliland, published in 1983. I last reviewed this short novel a quarter century ago. I really hope I don’t recapitulate point for point my comments in the original review. I trust this is a fresh look.

The Holy Human Empire was neither holy, nor entirely human, nor an empire. The Holy Human Empire was as mortal as any institution. The government that once ruled many systems had been reduced to portions of a single planet. Soon, the empire would not even have that much¹.

Faced with certain defeat on Portales, the imperial fleet flees. Amongst the lucky few to escape rebel wrath, intelligence officer Colonel Saloman Karff.

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Alexis Gilliland is a four time Hugo winner — but not for his written fiction. Only his 1982 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer was for fiction; his fellow nominees were Robert Stallman, Paul O. Williams, David Brin, and Michael Swanwick ¹. You may have heard of some of these guys. When he won, Gilliland had just two novels in print ².

You may be wondering ​”How did someone with such a small body of work manage to win the Campbell?” 

Partly it’s because most Campbell nominees tend to have only small bodies of work when they win, due to the whole New Writer thing. Cynics might say that Gilliland’s long career as fan and lauded fan artist ensured name recognition. But I would credit his Campbell win to the fact that those two novels, The Revolution from Rosinante and Long Shot For Rosinante , really are fun little books, books I was certain I would not regret revisiting after a gap of twenty-two years ³.

(I do understand that’s like saying ​“Don’t worry, I know what I am doing” while playing with burning plastic.) 

They are also the first two volumes in the Rosinante Trilogy, the subject of today’s review. 

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