Roma Eterna

De: Robert Silverberg

Narrado por: Stefan Rudnicki

From multiple Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Robert Silverberg, Roma Eterna takes an in-depth look at an alternative history in which the Roman Empire survives into the twenty-first century and beyond.

What would happen if Imperial Rome never fell? Roma Eterna, spanning fifteen hundred years of global history, follows the reign of the Roman Empire from its inception to the present day. Empire continues to expand, creeping across the globe and through the annals of history from the conquest of the Mayans to the first circumnavigational voyage, and finally the attempt of the Hebrews to flee Rome’s tyranny by escaping to another planet.

Originally published as a series of short stories, Roma Eterna presents a powerful new world written by an endlessly imaginative writer.

©2003 Agberg, Ltd. (P)2025 Blackstone Publishing

I give this a B-

Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen
1813 - Thomas Egerton, Publisher (Public Domain)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young woman, being a bibliophile in want of classic romance, must read Pride and Prejudice.

When one is reviewing a book as classic and well-respected in the canon of English literature as Pride and Prejudice, it can be a bit daunting. After all, this is a book so familiar that they’ve made many, many films, miniseries, and even YouTube series on it (go see Hank Green’s The Lizzy Bennet Diaries to see a modern retelling of this story). Pride and Prejudice practically invented the genre of Regency Romance. Everything from your grandmother’s mildly scandalous Harlequin romance to Bridgerton owes a debt of gratitude to Miss Austen’s timeless work. Much like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have come to define fantasy writing, Pride and Prejudice has left a massive influence on not just literature, but film as well. Ever read about the “spunky, but warm-hearted woman who is ‘not-like-other-girls’?” We have to thank Elizabeth Bennet for that! And while it is true that Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are themselves a play on another trope (see Shakespeare’s All's Well that Ends Well and Beatrice with Benedict), they are the best-known and most enduring enemies-to-lovers literary trope.

We all know the story by now - pretty, witty Elizabeth Bennet, the second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, is insulted by handsome, but haughty, Mr. Darcy, who thoughtlessly dismisses her at a dance. Unfortunately, for Darcy, he comes to realize he spoke far too hastily, as he begins to fall for Elizabeth’s charms. But it is too late, as Elizabeth has stubbornly decided that he is, in fact, the most prideful of men and the last man she could be prevailed upon to marry. Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s elder sister, Jane, is falling in love with Darcy’s best friend, Bingley, a man who has been wealthy by trade, but who is looking to enter into the class of landed gentry to which the Bennets and Darcys belong. Bingley’s two sisters, however, find the Bennets completely unsuitable to align their up-and-coming family with. The fashionable Bingley women find them all to be too coarse, vulgar, and entirely not up to the standards of the ton. In some ways, they aren’t wrong; even Elizabeth finds her family ridiculous. Everything comes to a head when a stranger, Mr. Wickham, wanders into town, bearing with him confirmation of all of Elizabeth’s worst suppositions of Darcy and his pride, just as Jane and Binley are separated by the prejudices of his sisters and Mr. Darcy. How will our young lovers ever figure this out? Will they end up together? Will the Bennets still make a fool of themselves? Can a person really change so much as to overcome both their pride and their prejudice?

While many think of Austen’s masterpiece as a romance - and it is, when you get down to it - at its heart, it is actually a satire, poking gentle fun at the upper-class society in which Austen was frequently a part of. The Regency era in British history is a period of deep class stratification. Those who lived on the top, the nobles and landed gentry, may have the wealth and title to do whatever they want, but society has created a web of etiquette and expectation around them. They are supposed to behave and act in certain ways, primarily as they see themselves as being the elite. A gentleman, for example, would be expected to behave in a proscribed manner, to never lose his temper, and to act stoically and above it all - see Mr. Darcy’s behavior at the beginning of the story. This is supposed to distinguish him from the plebian masses. It is a lesson that his family, including the formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, would have repeated to him ad nauseam. There is an expectation of superiority.

But human beings rarely act in such a superior manner, which is perhaps part of Austen and Elizabeth’s point. She is a part of the same class as Darcy, albeit not nearly as wealthy. We find that even among the wealthy and elite, there is deep stratification, particularly around things like the amount of wealth one holds and the way one acts and behaves among the elite. While she does not have the expected education of the Bingley sisters, she has been taught to act as an appropriate young lady, but she chooses not to let those strictures define her character to the point where she is haughty and unpleasant. Elizabeth is completely and wholly herself, but never goes so far as to be vulgar, crass, or unpleasant. In short, she has found a pathway to her own individuality even within the strict confines of Regency society. She is authentic, understanding, and human.

The fun part of Elizabeth and Darcy’s journey is in the journeys each takes, wrestling with their own flaws and insecurities against the backdrop of this drawing room etiquette. Neither of our protagonists is a perfect paragon. Both are judgmental, prideful, and quick to assume they understand other people and their motivations, often to disastrous consequences. One need not look further than how they misjudge each other, but there are some other notable examples - Elizabeth’s frustration with Charlotte’s marriage choice, her opinion of Wickham, Darcy’s interference in Bingley’s love life, and his interactions with almost everyone in Meryton. These show the flaws in our characters, but they are understandable flaws, ones we would recognize in ourselves, even if we are neither rich nor landed. All of us have been guilty of snap judgments and looking down on others for small slights. Perhaps this is the genius of Austen, as these foibles are so relatable, we cannot help but like and root for our pair to get over themselves, learn their mistakes, grow up, and get together.

Austen’s take on marriage in her world is an eye-opening one. While romance and felicity in marriage are sort of the norm in romantic comedy nowadays, there was a time when love was the last thing on anyone’s mind when it came to marriage. Particularly on the level that Elizabeth and Darcy inhabit, marriage was a contractual interaction, a way of linking families through wealth and land, and providing better social connections and ensuring financial security. This is certainly the place Darcy is at before he meets the woman with the enchanting, dark eyes. He believes he must marry to help boost his family name and status in society. In fairness, Darcy isn’t the only one who believes this; even Elizabeth and Jane discuss the matter, waxing poetically about how they would like to marry for love, but recognizing the situation with their father’s estate and its entailment may not allow for it. Once Mr. Bennet dies, the financial fortunes of the Bennet women are uncertain at best. This explains Mrs. Bennet’s hysteria - well, part of it, anyway. Her push to get her daughters married off to eligible men, as vulgar as it may appear from the outside, comes from a place of insecurity and fear for the future. As a woman who married into this class from a lower class, I get Mrs. Bennet’s worries. She secured a marriage that provided her with a certain rank and lifestyle. It would crush her to lose it, or to see her daughters fall out of it.

Where does Austen fall in the middle of all of this social commentary? Frankly, I feel she tends to fall with her heroine, Elizabeth. While Jane’s starry-eyed romance is fine, and Charlotte’s practical match is understandable, underneath it all, I can’t help but wonder if Austen may have wished for a bit of Lizzie’s fortune, finding a wealthy man who fell for her despite himself. In truth, Elizabeth and Darcy do have something of an ideal relationship, working through spitefulness and hurt to come out on the other side as friends who understand each other better, eventually to lovers and husband and wife. And considering how marriage can be at times, they likely are the best of the couples presented in this story, the ones who know the value of reconsidering first impressions and reevaluating harsh words, to learn and grow as a couple, and eventually understand each other better.

There is so much to wax on about in this book! I’ve not even brought up the wit of Austen’s humor! Mary, carrying on about pride being unseemly in a woman, all smug about her recitation of other people’s words, is one of my particularly favorite examples. The truth is, so much of this book is wonderful, and I really can’t find fault with it, save that it is old, and thus the English can be a bit tedious at times. But that is a small complaint that can’t be helped. Shakespeare is tedious, too, but I still read him! I can’t wait till future generations try to read our texts and tweets! Overall, this is a nearly perfect book for me, funny, witty, heartbreaking, and romantic, all in good measure. I own that it isn’t a book for everyone, and that is fine, but for me, I think Miss Austen couldn’t have done better if she tried.

An Inspiring Alternate History

As a staunch atheist, I was surprised by the probability of an immortal ancient empire which could have emerged and developed under a global polytheistic but tolerant society despite its multitude of disparate, contradictory mythological creeds... Indeed, notwithstanding some occasional brutality, such a relatively peaceful, united world might have subsisted without global wars and countless genocides.
As such, this intriguing plot confirmed my life-long belief that humans should not have evolved whilst enslaved by the shackles of merciless monotheistic "One-True-God's" of distinct persuasions and rituals, the intolerance of which have been plaguing our known universe with monstrous divisions, mass murder, rape, and destruction for millennia.