Pavane by Keith Roberts
Paperback - 285 pages new edition edition ( 9 November, 2000)
Millennium Books; ISBN: 1857989376
Review by John Berlyne

Sadly Keith Roberts died in early October shortly before the Gollancz/Millennium release of Pavane as part of their SF Masterworks series.

By all accounts Roberts was a difficult man - I refer particularly to the obituary that appeared in the November issue of LOCUS - and though he had a prolific output as both a writer and artist, Pavane, written in 1968, is generally regarded as his most significant work.

The pavane is a slow and stately court dance and as such this novel is aptly titled. It begins with a short prologue in which Roberts describes the death in 1588 of Queen Elizabeth, at the hands of an assassin. With her death England succumbs to the Spanish Armada and the country's subsequent history is one of Catholic rule.

The rest of the novel is told in six chapters - or "measures" each of which looks to be a self-contained short story. I say self-contained because it takes some time before one sees where Roberts is heading with all of this. It isn't until quite away in that we see how each of these tales are linked.

The rule of the Rome has given rise to a very different England. One where much technology is held back by the church as heresy. Hauliers ferry goods from place to place in huge steam driven wagons. Communications are carried throughout the land via huge semaphore towers operated by the dedicated and mysterious Guild of Signalmen. This is a pre-industrial revolution England though the time frame sets the novel in the latter part of the twentieth century. Underneath this exists something akin to Blake's vision of Albion. A kind of ancient spirit of the land that gives strength to it's inhabitants and ultimately leads to rebellion. Purists might justifiably argue this makes Pavane more fantasy than SF.

There is some really lovely writing in Pavane. Roberts's talent clearly lay in description and setting - there are wonderfully evocative depictions of an alternative south west England where the landscape is dotted with hamlets and castles. Conversely there seems comparatively little dialogue in each story (with the exception of the latter two) and the net result left me feeling that characters were driven by the story and not the other way round.

Pavane feels rather old fashioned but not necessarily dated and certainly it deserves it's reissue.