Novel review: S.M. Stirling - Under the Yoke (1989)
…So the Draka are not different from other people because we violate the Golden Rule, or Bentham's derivative idolatry of 'the greatest good for the greatest number.' Everyone does. We do not violate them, we reject them.
Others have conquered and ruled; we alone conquer for conquest's sake, and dominate for no other purpose than Domination itself; the name we half-consciously chose for our state is no accident. We, and we alone, have spoken aloud the great secret: that the root function of all human society is the production and reproduction of power - and that power is the ability to compel others to do your will, against theirs. It is end, not means. The purpose of power is power.
The Draka will conquer the world for two reasons; because we must and because we can. And yet of the two forces the second is the greater; we do this because we choose to do it. By the sovereign Will and force of arms the Draka will rule the Earth, and in so doing remake themselves. We shall conquer and beat the Nations of the Earth into the dust and reforge them in our self wrought Image; the Final Society, a new humanity without weakness or mercy, hard and pure. Our descendants will walk the hillside of that future, innocent beneath the stars, with no more between them and their naked will than a wolf has. THEN there will be Gods in the Earth.
Been reading this one for some time already. And it made me think a lot, which explains this large article. I'll divide this review into two parts, discussing the artistic and entertainment merits of the novel then its ideas together with my thoughts not adulterated by any "power level hiding".
Because this is one of the rare novels exploring very unusual (bordering on esoteric/taboo) positions in a way that can give a hard reality check to receptive readers, like the infamous Starship Troopers.
Before the review proper, some tips to do something about that "receptive" part:
- Read the classical Vae victis anecdote and reflect on what defeat truly means outside of the Care Bears' world.
- Then, if you have a few minutes, you might give Might is Right a glance with an open mind. As non-constructive as it is, the truth it asserts simply can't be denied in good faith.
- And maybe, just maybe, try to put the knee-jerk, brain-overriding part of your morality away in a shoebox for a moment.
The novel §
Like the aforementioned Heinlein masterpiece, the ideas are mostly what this is all about. Plot, characters and universe being mostly vehicles for those. Well, in the case of Under the Yoke, you also get some pretty decent military action (sometimes a tad too descriptive) and a straightforward spy/guerrilla story.
The universe is an "alternate history" one (cf Wikipedia, really) and basically an exercise in thinking what Sparta 2.0 conquering post-WW2
Europe
would look like, complete with a slave-based society allowing its free citizens to
focus on strengthening of the body and mind and military service. Interesting idea.
The writing itself is quite good, rarely breaking the flow despite the written Afrikaans accent and some slightly confusing point-of-view switches during the latter third.
The ideas §
So, let's start by calling out most of the reviews I've read on the Interweb: if you consider that the Draka are "villains", congratulations, you have the ideological maturity of a Marvel adult! Anyone with more than two neurons to rub together can see that the Draka are written to be truly beyond good and evil. Especially the Shrakenberg.
In fact, the slight touch of decadence given to (some of) the Draka feels more like an excuse for the author to protect himself against accusations than a thought out addition to the lore.
At times I found myself longing even for the provincial drabness, prudery, piety, and hypocrisy that had driven me to New York and then Europe in the first place. Here were a people genuinely without bourgeois sentimentality or moralism, and I found I liked the result far less than I might have expected.
But revulsion could never be unalloyed. Savagery and depravity, yes. An icy concentration on the means of power that both awed and disgusted me; so much human energy and intelligence, wasted. Yet. unwillingly. I also had to concede the Domination's accomplishments. Far too many humane and rational men had neglected and despised military power, and left us helpless before totalitarian aggression. The Draka were never helpless; not simply because they were militarists, but because they refused to delude themselves to avoid effort and pain. Their aristocrats were mostly honest and honorable men by their own standards; however brutal and regressive their code, they lived by it, worked for it, were ready to die for it. They dreamed grandly, and accomplished much: if their serfs were so much machinery, so many work-animals to them, then they were carefully tended machinery and well-kept animals. There is no substitute for freedom; I kept my faith that we would solve our problems through it but I was sometimes uneasily aware that there were some in the US.—share-croppers, slum-dwellers, the peons of the Guatemalan coffee fincas—who might have been willing to change places for the assurance of food and medicine and a roof. Nor was all of the surplus squeezed from the workers spent on war and repression and luxury. The Draka truly loved beauty and hated ugliness and vulgarity and waste. Much that they built and made had a haunting loveliness. In the end only this was certain: these were not my people, and I wanted to go home…
Is it a dystopia? Maybe for the enslaved, but what's good for humanity and/or the world as a whole isn't always what's good for parts of it; yes, even if my own life in that fictional world wouldn't be a happy one. You gotta think bigger, sometimes.
But even for said enslaved, power through unadorned violence — the iron fist without the velvet glove — rather than underhanded methods like dysgenics, subversion, almost religious glorification of hedonism and equality, democracy as illusion of choice, etc… doesn't sound exactly worse to me. Or maybe I'm wrong and Brave New World, Harrison Bergeron and The Marching Morons are just misunderstood utopias.
Now for a finishing potpourri of uncomfortable truths I thought about while reading:
- The existence of slavery has historically been the overwhelming norm, we're currently living an exceptional era that could collapse tomorrow and the first world has forgotten this.
- I have no doubt that most would readily accept slavery when confronted with Draka ruthlessness, after registering that reality isn't a movie and you don't get anything by playing hero; the 2nd epilogue describing a fast transition from slavery to a relatively comfortable serfdom with savant use of carrot/stick and hierarchy amongst said serfs makes it even easier to picture.
- Almost all fiction heroes value freedom over life, but in reality, there's a point where pride turns into stupidity. This novel explores that idea in depth.
- Intellectualism, not intelligence, will be our downfall. It is regressive, mollifying and the best way to setup for a very rude awakening from harder people (NB: Frank Herbert's favourite subject).
tl;dr if you have an open mind and like fiction that makes you think, go for it.
