Empire of Unreason

May 1, 2000
Keyes's latest addition to his distinguished Age of Unreason series is a disappointment. Set, like its predecessors, in the 18th century, the book explores a world that's been knocked out of whack by Isaac Newton's alchemical discoveries. European leaders, thirsting for power, have devastated the European continent and plunged the northern colonies into a new Ice Age. Meanwhile, malevolent spirits called the malakim are plotting to destroy all of humanity by pitting one faction of mankind against another. Keyes (A Calculus of Angels) guides readers through this world via three separate stories of alchemy and intrigue. One concerns the secret, anti-malakim American Junto, a considerably outnumbered society made up of American Indian tribesmen, liberated black slaves and European intellectual refugees (like Voltaire), spearheaded by Newton's former apprentice, young Benjamin Franklin. Then there's Red Shoes, a Choctaw war prophet who's heading west to slay the malakim-sent dreams that are threatening humanity. Finally, in St. Petersburg, there's a beautiful scientist named Adrienne de Mornay de Montchevreuil who's playing a dangerous political game of Russian roulette with the factions clamoring to replace the missing czar, Peter the Great. She manipulates individual malakim and leaves Russia to search for her son, Nicolas, the prophetic Sun Boy rumored to be leading the malakim in a crusade against civilization. Although embellished by clever sidelong portraits of European and American thinkers of the real Enlightenment--including Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus and Russian Prince Menshikov--this intermediate stage of Keyes's fantasy saga lacks the driving brilliance of its two predecessors. Even Keyes's attempts to compensate for the absence of suspense (via thrilling set-piece nightmares and battle scenes) don't save the book from its hazy, diffuse plot.