The Empress of the Last Days

by Jane Stevenson

Book Overview

The Empress of the Last Days is the final volume of the remarkable trilogy that began with Astraea and The Pretender. A group of friends, Corinne, Theodoor and Michael, bring together their talents... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618149147
• ISBN13: 9780618149148
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

DaVinci code without the sinister elements

This book is a novel of ideas, but also reads like an academic mystery novel, somewhat akin to the "DaVinci Code" without the sinister elements. Reading it was a unique experience for me, because I had read Stevenson's first novel, "The Winter Queen"; this definitely lends an extra dimension. The academics unravel some of the story of that first novel, speculate about the rest, and also learn about the ultimate fate of its primary character and his descendants. While a novel of ideas, the main character, Michael Foxwist, is competently developed, and the writing is good. Perhaps because I am not British, I found the ending somewhat disappointing: the different views occasioned by the discovery of the "true" heir to the British throne just were not that interesting, the scene in which Michael and Natty view the painting was not very moving, and the whole novel becomes kind of pedestrian at the end, as Michael and his fiancee are destined to find career bliss. Still, "The Empress of the Last Days" is an intriguing, and informative, work. It is informative about academic politics in two different European cultures, resources for historical research, and Barbadian culture and tourism, among other things.

Historical trilogy ends in modern academia

While each of the books in Stevenson's trilogy can be read on its own, this last offers a richer experience if read in the context of the other two. The first volume, "The Winter Queen," set in the 1600s, chronicles the relationship between the former Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia and Pelagius, an African prince kidnapped and sold into slavery, but free at the time he meets Elizabeth. They married secretly and had a son, Balthasar, whose life is the subject of the second book, "The Shadow King." "The Empress of the Last Days" takes place in 2002. It involves a circle of European academics who come upon a trove of 17th century papers in Holland, including a theological journal by Pelagius and his catalog of West Indies plants and their uses. The rest of the papers include a never-before-seen play by the English writer Aphra Behn, and a miscellany of papers from a printer, Petrus Behn, who seemed to specialize in political satire and pornography for an English clientele. Corinne Hoyers, the Dutch Ph.D student who first reviews the papers, has no idea how these items came to be jumbled together, but readers of "The Shadow King" will know that Aphra Behn, wife of Petrus, stole Pelagius' books from Balthasar. Corinne turns over the Aphra Behn material to a young Oxford don, Michael Foxwist, who subsequently discovers Pelagius' marriage certificate and Balthasar's baptismal record hidden in the binding of one of Pelagius' books. Being English, he instantly sees the significance of this - Elizabeth Stuart's legitimate male heir should have inherited the throne of England - and the succession should never have been diverted to the Windsors, current holders of that chair. As Britain rather half-heartedly gears up to celebrate the present Elizabeth's Jubilee amidst the latest wave of scandals and tawdry gossip, Michael discovers a more legitimate heir - a young black female scientist in Barbados. Michael does not, incidentally, share any of this - from the discovery of the documents to his meeting with Melita Palaeologue, the rightful heir - with his Dutch colleagues on the project. When he does finally get around to telling them of his discovery, they are not in the least perturbed, which strikes one of the book's few wrong notes. Stevenson may be trying to make the point that the British royal dynasty is of interest only to Britons, but our own tabloids can attest the to the speciousness of that claim. Besides, Stevenson has been at pains to point out that academics are a cutthroat lot, in fierce competition for prestige, jobs, money and important finds. Documents challenging the succession of the major reigning European monarchs are good for all of the above. And a man who would keep such a secret from his colleagues would sound alarm bells of mistrust to an already paranoid confraternity. Melita, a plant biologist, also remains unimpressed with her claim to royalty. From her point of view, "this whole idea's almost like an insult. In terms of geneti

Slow Start, Good Read

The first five pages of this book were an incomprehensible mishmash of garbled descriptions and pointless descriptions of some lame Christmas celebration. It went from that dreadful start into a very densely written & interesting book following the search by several historical academicians to track down the trail of Elizabeth of Bohemia, her shadow husband, and their son. One researcher tracks the family to Barbados and finds the "heiress" to the throne. Some of the discussions pertaining to modern beliefs and cultural stereotypes are hard to follow, but interesting. After a slow start, the novel picks up the pace and the reader becomes interested in next round of research and what it will reveal. Interesting overall. I might think differently if I had read the first two books in the trilogy before reading this one.