Recent Books (Fiction)

  • Joe Haldeman: Marsbound

    Joe Haldeman: Marsbound
    Martian colonies are an old subject for SF, and this novel is in some ways an old-fashioned treatment, with the traditional elements of young settler, contact with Martians, and an alien menace. The plot and characters are so well done, however, that the story is fresh. The flavor is Heinleinesque, but the heroine is no Podkayne of Mars. (*****)

  • Neal Stephenson: Anathem

    Neal Stephenson: Anathem
    If you have not a smidgen of interest in how Platonic philosophy relates to the "many worlds" version of quantum mechanics, you still may like this novel, though you'll probably wish that the characters talked less. Persevere. After a slow start, the story grows compelling, and the intellectual dialogues turn out not to be digressions. (*****)

  • Charles Stross: Halting State

    Charles Stross: Halting State
    A bank robbery inside an on-line RPG leads throws a misfit programmer and an introverted forensic accountant into a real life game, international intrigue and each other's arms. May be the first readable novel ever written in the second person singular. 2008 Hugo Award nominee. (****)

  • John Scalzi: The Last Colony

    John Scalzi: The Last Colony
    Space opera in a universe much like a computer game setting. The super-soldiers of Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades, now retired, find themselves at the focus of a galactic war. Helped by luck, enemy idiocy and aliens ex machina, mankind survives. 2008 Hugo Award nominee. (****)

  • Joe Haldeman: The Accidental Time Machine

    Joe Haldeman: The Accidental Time Machine
    Maybe all the variations on time travel are played out, but Joe Haldeman makes the old tropes enjoyable in this story of a down-on-his-luck grad student who invents a time machine without really trying. The resolution of the ensuing paradoxes comes very near to being credible. (****)

  • Ian McDonald: Brasyl

    Ian McDonald: Brasyl
    Three Brazils - past, present and future - twined together by a multiverse-wide conflict. The heroes are mostly antiheroic, and the milieu is more frenetic than credible, but it's no surprise that this novel is a 2008 Hugo Award nominee. I much preferred River of Gods and the author's other future-India tales. (***)

  • Connie Willis: All Seated on the Ground

    Connie Willis: All Seated on the Ground
    Connie Willis's annual Christmas story; a comedy about alien visitors who act much like annoyed maiden aunts. Making contact is a twin triumph of civility and true love. The story is also a good test of your knowledge of Christmas carols. 2008 Best Novella Hugo Award nominee. (*****)

  • Robert Ferrigno: Sins of the Assassin

    Robert Ferrigno: Sins of the Assassin
    The middle volume of a trilogy about a near-future, Moslem-dominated U.S. Most of the action takes place in the independent "Bible Belt", where resistance to Islamic domination is sometimes heroic and sometimes pathological. More of a pure thriller than its predecessor but good on its own terms (****)

  • Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen's Union

    Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen's Union
    I either mildly like or sharply detest this blend of hard-boiled detective story and alternate history; I'm not sure which. The setting is as grotesque as Gormenghast, the prose is as overwrought as Clark Ashton Smith's, and the hero cop makes Philip Marlowe look like a gentleman. The book oozes atmosphere, but maybe it's a little toxic. 2008 Hugo Award nominee. (***)

  • Mike Resnick: A Club in Montmartre: An Encounter with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

    Mike Resnick: A Club in Montmartre: An Encounter with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
    Something different from this SF great's facile pen: An historical novel about Toulouse-Lautrec and the creation of his famous Moulin Rouge poster, seen from the point of view of a waif sheltered by the troubled artist. One in a series called Art Encounters, aimed at YA's but instructive and entertaining for anyone. (*****)

  • Connie Willis: D.A.

    Connie Willis: D.A.
    Connie Willis sends up overfamiliar "space academy" stories with this one about the only girl on Earth who has no desire to enroll. Then she is informed that her "application" has been accepted. Is it a weird mistake? A devious plot? Can she get out? Funny, though the moral is rather pat. (*****)

  • Kathleen Ann Goonan: In War Times

    Kathleen Ann Goonan: In War Times
    The author builds this multiple universes story around her father's World War II diary, which is at least as interesting as the energetic, but not wholly coherent, main plot. The ending is a JFK assassination theory with a Ron Paulian(!) twist. Also included is more than I wanted to read about the WWII jazz scene. Overall, a book I would have liked to like better and that others may enjoy vastly. (****)

  • Marie Phillips: Gods Behaving Badly: A Novel

    Marie Phillips: Gods Behaving Badly: A Novel
    Pagan gods lingering, with diminishing powers, into the modern world isn't a new idea, but this tale is a pretty good use of it. The personalities of Artemis, Apollo, Aphrodite et al. are deftly fitted into present day London. The humans in the story, a couple of shy underachievers, are a bit drippy, and the resolution to the gods' difficulties is one that would be highly unpleasant for us mortals. (***)

  • Alfred Duggan: Lord Geoffrey's Fancy

    Alfred Duggan: Lord Geoffrey's Fancy
    Perhaps the finest book of one of England's finest historical novelists. The setting is 13th Century Greece, where Crusaders fought each other and the shattered Byzantine Empire. The history is accurate, the writing graceful and the characters not merely modern people in fancy dress. (*****)

  • Clark Ashton Smith: The White Sybil and Other Stories

    Clark Ashton Smith: The White Sybil and Other Stories
    A slim, representative sampling of Ashton Smith's weird, richly worded fiction. The best pieces are highly readable today; the less good are at least entertaining and will enhance the reader's vocabulary. (****)

  • Robert J. Sawyer: Rollback

    Robert J. Sawyer: Rollback
    Life extension and first contact are the twin themes of Sawyer's latest novel. Intermixed is a good deal of thoughtful, though elementary, philosophical pondering. "Rollback" is a hugely expensive procedure for restoring youth. A benefactor offers it to the world's foremost SETI researcher after an alien culture replies to a message she sent 37 years ago. She will accept the gift only if her husband gets the treatment, too. Then things go wrong. High quality work by a first rate, if slightly didactic, writer. 2008 Hugo Award nominee. (****)

  • Michael Flynn: Eifelheim

    Michael Flynn: Eifelheim
    A double narrative: the appearance of shipwrecked aliens in a 14th Century German village and the 21st Century discovery of the event. The interaction between a brilliant human theologian and rather ordinary denizens of an advanced civilization challenges chronologically based prejudices. 2007 Hugo Award nominee (*****)

  • Vernor Vinge: Rainbows End: A Novel With One Foot In The Future

    Vernor Vinge: Rainbows End: A Novel With One Foot In The Future
    In a near future in which every crank can deploy WMD's that make contemporary Islamofascists look like schoolboys, a poet who has lost his talent and his spunky granddaughter find themselves up against a conspiracy to solve the world's problems by eliminating free will. The careful extrapolation is mixed with some silly ideas and burdened with a sentimental Alzheimer's recovery story. 2007 Hugo Award nominee (****)

  • Charles Stross: Glasshouse

    Charles Stross: Glasshouse
    Set after the post-Singularity future of the author's other writings, this novel follows a hero who must lose his memory and change his sex to infiltrate a recreated 1950's world that may be central to a plot to set up a dictatorship based on computer viruses. 2007 Hugo Award nominee (*****)

  • Peter Watts: Blindsight

    Peter Watts: Blindsight
    The exploration of a giant alien artifact twists that familiar subgenre with a plausible, though ultimately unconvincing, argument that human self-awareness is a deleterious evolutionary accident. Characters include a vampire, a linguist with multiple personalities, a couple of cyborgs and a narrator whose special skill is absence of empathy. 2007 Hugo Award nominee (****)

  • Naomi Novik: His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, Book 1)

    Naomi Novik: His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, Book 1)
    Horatio Hornblower in the skies. In a fantasy parallel world exactly like the Europe of the Napoleonic Wars except for the addition of giant dragons, stalwart Englishmen and their draconian companions thwart Bonaparte's foul designs. Fun but lighter than air. 2007 Hugo Award nominee (***)

  • Tim Powers: Three Days to Never: A Novel

    Tim Powers: Three Days to Never: A Novel
    Time travel, ghosts, Albert Einstein's daughter, ancient conspiracies, a blind assassin, a Mossad agent who will die if he hears the telephone ring: With his customary bravura and skill, Tim Powers fashions a coherent and exciting story out of a strange assortment of materials. (*****)

  • Tobias S. Buckell: Crystal Rain

    Tobias S. Buckell: Crystal Rain
    An inventive tale of a human colony isolated from galactic civilization, split between warring cultures and caught up in a vast conflict between alien races. Characters include an amnesiac ex-hero who wants to spend a peaceful retirement with his family, a quasi-human killing machine, a spy desperate to betray his masters, and a harried female dictator. Deserving of Hugo consideration. (****)

  • James Patrick Kelly: Burn

    James Patrick Kelly: Burn
    In a galaxy-spanning future, the planet Walden is a self-proclaimed "paradise" founded on simplicity and rejection of high technology. It also faces the problems of terrorism and disillusion, recounted through the story of a firefighter with a soul-corroding secret. A well-wrought picture of a distinctly odd society, with a plot whose moral dilemmas evade pat answers. Nominated for the Best Novella Hugo Award for 2006. (*****)

  • Rodney Bolt: History Play : The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe

    Rodney Bolt: History Play : The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe
    A pseudo-history springing from the premise that Shakespeare's flashy predecessor survived the famous Deptford brawl and fled to the continent, where he secretly wrote almost all of the Bard's works. A clever, tongue-in-cheek reworking of literary history, with the bonus of vividly recreating the milieu shared by many real Elizabethan exiles. (****)

  • Robert Ferrigno: Prayers for the Assassin

    Robert Ferrigno: Prayers for the Assassin
    A combination of suspense novel and a plausible vision of America after a Moslem takeover. It loses a star only because defeating the super-villain is just a trifle too easy. Review. (****)

  • Terry Pratchett: Thud!

    Terry Pratchett: Thud!
    After 30 books, one might fear that Discworld is in danger of fatigue. Au contraire, this witty, vigorous tale of the culmination of an ages-old conflict between dwarfs and trolls, with Sam Vimes and Ankh-Morpork in the middle, is one of the strongest volumes yet. (*****)

  • Neil Gaiman: Anansi Boys

    Neil Gaiman: Anansi Boys
    Calling this comic novel a "sequel" to American Gods conveys the wrong impression. Anansi Boys is smaller in scope, funnier and more humane, though it likewise tells a story of dwindling gods adrift in the contemporary world. Anti-hero "Spider" steals the show and begs to be played by Will Smith in the movie version. (*****)

  • Stephen L. Antczak: Daydreams Undertaken

    Stephen L. Antczak: Daydreams Undertaken
    15 SF tales, mostly from "little" magazines, in which weird events affecting weird people are recounted as if they happened every day. This volume may be a high-priced cult item 20 years from now. (****)

  • Connie Willis: Inside Job

    Connie Willis: Inside Job
    The editor of a paranormal-skeptic magazine and his beautiful assistant encounter a most unlikely ghost: ueber-skeptic H. L. Mencken. Connie Willis in her lightest, funniest vein. Nominated for the Best Novella Hugo Award for 2006. (*****)

  • Matthew Pearl: The Dante Club

    Matthew Pearl: The Dante Club
    Literary mystery involving Boston's post-Civil War intellectual elite in a series of atrocious murders inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy. Weak as a whodunit, strong on atmosphere. (****)

  • David Selbourne: The City of Light: The Hidden Journal of the Man Who Entered China Four Years Before Marco Polo

    David Selbourne: The City of Light: The Hidden Journal of the Man Who Entered China Four Years Before Marco Polo
    Supposedly the journal of Jewish merchant who visited China c. 1270, this historical novel uses an encounter between Judaism and medieval China as a springboard for a lightly disguised examination of contemporary political and moral issues. Since Selbourne is a fascinating thinker, his characters' thoughts are fascinating, too. (****)

  • Iain Pears: An Instance of the Fingerpost

    Iain Pears: An Instance of the Fingerpost
    Mystery set in Restoration England. The murder of an Oxford don is recounted from four widely different viewpoints. Heavy on period detail. Metamorphoses into theological fantasy at the end, which may displease some readers. (****)

  • Steven E. Plaut: The Scout

    Steven E. Plaut: The Scout
    Short novel based on the true story of an Arab scout in Israeli service. (****)

  • John Derbyshire: Fire from the Sun

    John Derbyshire: Fire from the Sun
    Three-decker novel about the contrasting, intersecting lives of a Chinese boy and girl, born in the same mainland village and brought to America by force of circumstances. Romantic and compelling. (****)

  • H. N. Turteltaub [Harry Turtledove]: The Sacred Land

    H. N. Turteltaub [Harry Turtledove]: The Sacred Land
    Third volume in a series of seafaring adventures set in the Hellenistic era. Ill-matched merchant cousins Menedemos and Sostratos seek profit in exotic Tyre and Jerusalem. (*****)

  • Robert J. Sawyer: Humans (Neanderthal Parallax, vol. 2)

    Robert J. Sawyer: Humans (Neanderthal Parallax, vol. 2)
    2004 Hugo Award nominee. Middle volume of a trilogy, and it shows. A novelette's worth of plot as man and woman from parallel worlds slowly and predictably fall in love. (***)

  • Terry Pratchett: A Hat Full of Sky

    Terry Pratchett: A Hat Full of Sky
    Ostensible children's book that will also appeal to adults. The education of a young witch — far more "realistic" than Harry Potter. (*****)

  • Lois McMaster Bujold: Paladin of Souls

    Lois McMaster Bujold: Paladin of Souls
    2004 Hugo Award Best Novel. A middle-aged heroine and worked-out imaginary paganism set this book apart from run-of-the-sword medievalesque fantasy. Hinging the plot on the nuances of a made-up theology was less clever. Sequel to The Curse of Chalion, with different characters brought to the foreground. (****)

  • Jasper Fforde: The Well of Lost Plots

    Jasper Fforde: The Well of Lost Plots
    Thursday Next continues her hectic adventures in a universe where books come alive, literally. Newcomers should start with The Eyre Affair (****)

  • H. N. Turteltaub [Harry Turtledove]: Over the Wine-Dark Sea

    H. N. Turteltaub [Harry Turtledove]: Over the Wine-Dark Sea
    First in a series of O'Brian-like nautical adventures set in the tumultuous times following the death of Alexander the Great. The Aubrey and Maturin are merchant cousins, devil-may-care Menedemos and intellectual Sostratos, who roam the Mediterranean looking for profit and girls, while avoiding storms, pirates and jealous husbands. Meandering plot but great fun. (*****)

  • Charles W. Chesnutt: Stories, Novels, and Essays (Library of America, 131)

    Charles W. Chesnutt: Stories, Novels, and Essays (Library of America, 131)
    Fiction and essays by a black American writer who deserves a wider audience. (****)

  • Dan Simmons: Ilium

    Dan Simmons: Ilium
    2004 Hugo Award nominee. The Trojan War, high-tech deities, robots from the outer reaches of the Solar System and an Eloi-like Earth combine in typically weird Simmons fashion. Alas, much waits to be explicated in the sequel. (****)

  • Harry Turtledove: Gunpowder Empire

    Harry Turtledove: Gunpowder Empire
    Debut of a juvenile series set in parallel worlds. 22nd century teen siblings, trapped without adult aid in a besieged city, must cope with the bizarre (to them) customs and prejudices of a never-fallen Roman Empire. [Rating is for 11-17 year olds; adults may find the book too didactic and unsubtle for their tastes.] (*****)

  • Terry Pratchett: Going Postal

    Terry Pratchett: Going Postal
    A small-time con man must choose between death and the Ankh-Morpork post office - and takes the more dangerous option. Big business, fraud, low-tech hacking, young love and general hilarity. Pratchett's best novel since Pyramids. (*****)

  • E. Viollet-Le-Duc: Annals of a Fortress: Twenty-Two Centuries of Siege Warfare

    E. Viollet-Le-Duc: Annals of a Fortress: Twenty-Two Centuries of Siege Warfare
    This combined novel and treatise traces the history of an imaginary French fortress from the 4th Century B.C. through the Napoleonic Wars, featuring detailed accounts of seven sieges. (****)

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Tuesday, October 31, 2006

If You Want to Look Beyond Next Tuesday

A week from this instant, I’m probably going to be feeling pretty grim about the 110th Congress. But politics – in the U.S. anyway – shares a characteristic with baseball: No matter how bad the last season was, the next one is always full of hope. Just in time to take advantage of the political equivalent of the Hot Stove League, 80Soft.com has released a new, much augmented edition of President Forever, a first rate (and amazingly inexpensive, just $19.95) computer simulation of American Presidential elections. Added are not only the 2008 scenario but also the races for the party nominations, which no game, manual or electronic, has made a serious effort to cover before.

I ordered my copy just a few minutes ago, so this isn’t a review. I will note, though, that the steady improvement in the company’s other products has been impressive. The last before President Forever was Prime Minister Forever – Canada 2006. (I’m happy to say that Stephen Harper got better results than I did.) Others deal with parliamentary elections in Britain, Australia, Germany and British Columbia. So far, however, Israeli politics remain impossible to reproduce using a device as logical as a computer.

Afterthought: How about a cross between two genres – a Palestinian election game in which the opposing parties deploy both ballots and bullets?

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Wargame Rambles

One of the great things about wargames is the reminder that our current era, despite the worst efforts of the Leftist-Islamofascist alliance, is a lot safer and more comfortable than most of the rest of human history. (Perhaps that’s one reason why it’s so hard to rouse Westerners to take the enemy seriously.) Here are a few notes on what I’ve been playing or looking at lately:

Continue reading "Wargame Rambles" »

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Your Own Canadian Election

80Soft.com is the only company, so far as I know, that produces computer games about parliamentary elections. Now that Canada is in the midst of another campaign, Prime Minister Forever – Canada 2006 has appeared, the latest in the oddly named series that has also covered recent elections in Australia, Britain, British Columbia and Germany. Comparing it to its predecessor of 2½ years ago, one sees a lot of worthwhile augmentations: minor parties (12 parties in all, with minors ranging from the Greens to the Christian Heritage), a long list of potential endorsers (major newspapers, business and labor groups, grass roots advocates of narrow causes) offering differing benefits (momentum, money, foot soldiers), a variety of forms of advertising, more detailed geographical differentiation (Ontario, for instance, is split into four regions, Quebec into three) and sundry lesser features. With just a little effort, one can customize game elements (e. g., by adding new endorsers, advertising options, key issues or special events) or create entirely new scenarios. The 2006 version comes with recreations of the 1993, 1997, 2000 and 2004 Canadian contests, as well as the current one, giving masochistic Conservatives a variety of frustrations to endure. All of this costs only $18.95 in Canadian money, which is very nearly the equivalent of free.

I haven’t yet had time to play a complete game, though I’ll certainly try to get in a couple before January 23rd. Regarding the outcome of the real life version, I have little optimism. As was readily predictable, Paul Martin’s Liberal Party has adopted Gerhard Schröder’s anti-American hysteria, reinforced by appeals to the most scoundrelly form of patriotism. As David Warren observes,

To be fair, Mr Martin and cronies have more reasons to cling, than the enjoyment of power itself. For if even a minority Conservative government can be formed, there may be three-party agreement to launch corruption inquiries that go far beyond the scope of the Gomery Commission. Billions upon billions are spent annually in other unaudited programmes, crying out for review. Remember this each time the Liberals sound desperate.

The OpinionJournal Political Diary (have I mentioned that it’s a mere $3.95 a month?) has more on Liberal anti-Americanism and the winding tendrils of the party’s corruption:

America-bashing helped to re-elect Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder when they were in tight re-election contests in France and Germany a few years back, and it now appears Canada’s Liberal Party prime minister, Paul Martin, is taking a page out of their playbook. He took advantage of the recent Montreal climate conference to lecture the United States to heed a “global conscience” and adopt strict standards in fighting global warming. This despite the fact Canada has a proportionally worse record than the U.S. on controlling greenhouse gas emissions [nearly twice as rapid a rise since 1990 – ETV].
His swipes at the U.S. in the run-up to Canada’s January 23 election elicited a sharp response from U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins, who told an Ottawa audience that incessant criticism of the U.S. could eventually damage the close relationship between the two countries. “Canada never has to tear the United States down to build itself up,” he said. “It may be smart election politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner. But it’s a slippery slope and all of us should hope it doesn’t have a long-term impact on our relationship.”
Mr. Martin seized on the remarks by the U.S. diplomat to retort: “That our friends do not like what we say – well, c’est la vie. I’m going to defend Canada and I’m right on softwood lumber and I’m right on climate change and I won’t let anybody tell me that I should not defend my country.”
It’s worth noting, however, that Mr. Martin has not been that eager to defend all Canadians. Chief among them is Maurice Strong, his former patron and until recently a top United Nations official who has been implicated in the oil-for-food scandal. Mr. Strong was also a key architect of the unworkable Kyoto treaty on global warming.
Canadian journalist Judi McLeod reports that Mr. Strong “has been missing in action” in this election campaign “and you can safely bet” that will continue to be the case until the actual vote. You can also safely bet that if Mr. Martin continues to bash the U.S. over Kyoto, he can expect return fire over his ties to Mr. Strong.

I doubt that the last bet is all that safe. The prime minister and his media megaphones will doubtless denounce criticism of Mr. Strong’s ties to Saddam Hussein as another instance of un-Canadian activities.

Despite hopeful polls showing, for instance, that the Conservatives actually lead the Liberals, however narrowly, outside Quebec (which the separatist Bloc Québécois will sweep) and that 58 percent of the voters think that it’s “time for a change”, I doubt that it will occur to enough to them that the way to get change is not to vote for the status quo. The Schröder strategy worked once in Germany and almost repeated its success. Hence, I am psychologically prepared for another victory of the kleptocrats, whether or not they can be vanquished on my computer screen.

Addenda: 1. A free demo version of the game is available from CBC.

2. The deadline for nominating candidates is January 2, 2006, and the confirmed list will be released on January 5th. As I understand it, 80Soft will then produce a patch with the final candidate list and (probably) other updates and modifications.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Clobbering Schröder on Your Computer

Illness having opportunely forced Jacques “Le Ver” Chirac to the sidelines, Gerhard Schröder has the EU division of the Race to the Bottom all to himself. The strident anti-Americanism that he displayed in his debate with CDU leader Angel Merkel last Sunday was, of course, the product of desperation. Barring an anti-miracle, his party will suffer a massive defeat “after seven years of economic bumbling and unfulfilled promises”. Schadenfreude is uncharitable, but it will be hard to resist on September 18th.

For those who would like to indulge the feeling in advance, Eighty Dimensional Software has just added Chancellor Forever to its burgeoning line of computer simulations of parliamentary elections. Previous games have been set in Canada, Australia, Britain and British Columbia. (There is also one based on U.S. Presidential elections, though I find it less entrancing than its siblings.) The German edition uses the same basic engine with several interesting additions. One is unique to Germany: the preposterous voting system that tries to meld proportional representation with first-past-the-post constituencies and succeeds in aggravating the weaknesses of both. Others are new features that can be retrofitted to the rest of the series, including multiple types of advertising and free television time.

The Deutsches Institut für Public Affairs is credited with assisting in the game’s development. It is presumably responsible for the large quantity of local information built into the scenarios. Disappointing, however, is the absence of real life media endorsements like those included in the British version. Trying to lure Axel Springer or Der Stern to one’s side would make for more flavor and better gameplay than is provided by random, and potentially unbalancing, generic “endorsers”.

In line with conventional wisdom, there seems to be little chance that a coalition of the CDU/CSU and the Free Democrats can avoid winning a majority in the Bundestag, though reaching the voting percentages needed for a high victory point total isn’t easy at all. For more competitive play (and for those who think that it’s bad luck to set one’s hopes too high), there is also a 2002 scenario, in which Herr Schröder can repeat his anti-U.S., pro-Saddam campaign. (This year he’s moved on to defending the Iranian mullarchy’s nuclear ambitions, which doesn’t seem to be playing as well.)

Eighty Dimensional Software’s prices are startlingly low for products of this quality. Chancellor Forever costs only $12.00 (in English) or €10.00 (in German), with discounts for owners of other games in the series.

Saturday, May 07, 2005

Eleutheria and Bavarokratia

I don’t believe that it is celebrated in Greece, where March 25th, the anniversary of the outbreak of the anti-Ottoman revolt of 1821, is regarded as Independence Day, but today marks the 173rd anniversary of formal Greek independence. On May 7, 1832, the Ottoman Empire agreed, at the Conference of London, to recognize Greece as a separate nation and give up efforts to reconquer its lost province. The Battle of Navarino (October 20, 1827) had made that outcome inevitable, but the Turks took their time about acceding to it.

The next year, a 17-year-old Bavarian prince, Otto of Wittelsbach, became King of Greece, inaugurating what is remembered as the “Bavarokratia”. It would not be far-fetched to say that his 29-year reign, ended by a coup in 1862, laid the foundations for all that is wrong with the Greek polity today: parliamentary manipulation, nat