The book opened with the author announcing that she wanted to rewrite the genocide that happened when Belgium ran roughshod over the people of the Congo Free State in pursuit of rubber, which was an entirely new and terrible eye-opener for me. In this revisionist steampunk history, horrified missionaries band together with secular British technocrats to purchase vast tracts of Congolese land, providing a haven for Congolese fleeing the brutal rubber farms, building prostheses for the many who had hands cut off by the corporate mercenaries (a thing that actually happened! The mass amputations, not the prosthetics), and banding together with local leaders to defend themselves with airships and other technologies. It would have been a fine enough ride to leave it there, but then the book fearlessly dives into the consequences: at what point would the king and his people begin to chafe under the well-intentioned rule of their white saviors? What would the consequences be around the world, for their allies as well as those seeking to take advantage of their resources? And at what point would the alliance between the missionaries and the technocrats break down, as they begin to pursue their differing priorities? It’s a phenomenally ambitious book with a wonderfully diverse cast in all aspects. It does drag a bit in places, but nothing feels forced about any of the character interactions, and the whole is very detailed and very well thought out.
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