I Read Books: Ash, A Secret History

Almost 20 years on, Mary Gentle’s Ash: A Secret History, a book I fell in love with at the time. It’s a novel that begins as historical fiction complete with a framing story about re-discovered documents. It then slides into secret history, alternate history and fantasy before finally exposing itself as science fiction at the end.

Ash is a mercenary in a weird 15th century Europe. How weird? The Visigothic Caliphate of Carthage invades Europe, its intention being to bring Burgundy to its knees. (Burgundy is, of course, a real country wiped out from history slightly before we got the idea of nation-states sorted out).

Ash is a woman in charge of soldiers and a tough warrior herself (warrior women being another real phenomena often wiped from history for some reason; Gentle’s dissertation was on this topic, which she gives to one of the narrators of the framing story). There’s fighting and cross dressing and weirdness and even some magic.

I still like this book, and despite the near future sections now being set in the past, I think it stands up pretty well.

Read This: For a great Fantasy/Historical/Weird read
Don’t Read This: If you like actual history or not a lot of swearing and violence