A revered social visionary once observed “who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.” How easy it is to guide people towards your desired goals if you control their perception of where they began! Alternatively, poorly documented or entirely forgotten history can leave people rudderless on the currents of destiny.
Perhaps some examples would help.
Hegira by Greg Bear (1979)
Hegira is far vaster than fabled Earth. Hegira hosts a myriad of nations. Hegira is ancient. Distance implies isolation. Isolation plus time would ensure extreme divergence… had the people who created Hegira not taken steps to provide a common history, in the form of vast archives erected at regular intervals across Hegira’s surface.
Thousand-kilometer-tall obelisks are engraved with human history and knowledge, with the earliest and most primitive at the bottom, and the most recent at the top. Cribbing from the obelisks offers technological shortcuts, the key to imperial supremacy. Thus, there is incentive for nations to familiarize themselves with the common past. Less clear, the future. Too bad for the Hegirans, as that future is about to become the survivors’ present.
On the one hand, Hegira’s designers had clear reasons for designing their megastructure the way they did. On the other, their approach seems needlessly convoluted and inhumane. It’s almost as though their purpose was to provide a pretext for thrilling adventures.
Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi (1996)
Wandering bodyguard Balsa sees the carriage conveying Second Prince Chagum tumble into a raging river. Prudence dictates she leave the boy to his fate. Nevertheless, Balsa rescues Chagum. Her heroism wins Balsa a central role in a national crisis.
Chagum hosts a demon, or so his father the Mikado believes. Thus, to avoid scandal and to save the kingdom, near-fatal accidents have been arranged. Chagum’s mother, the Second Queen, wishes to save her son. Against every cautious instinct, Balsa is convinced to protect the boy—a nearly impossible task, given that Balsa has been denied certain critical, strictly need-to-know, information.
New Yogo’s royals have been careful to curate an official history that suits propagandist ends. The fellow quoted at the top would approve! To this end, certain embarrassing (directly relevant to the plot) truths have been suppressed. New Yogo’s neighboring nations might glare disapprovingly, if later volumes did not establish that this sort of self-flattering historical revisionism is rife on this continent.
Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle (2000)
Ash keenly desires a principality of her own. Her army means it is in the interest of the local nobility to provide Ash with title and lands, lest she simply take them for herself. Charles the Bold provides Ash with the status she craves, but with a catch in the form of an arranged marriage to the unlovable Fernando de Gui. Destiny provides Ash with a distraction in the form of invasion by the seemingly unstoppable Visigoths.
Centuries later, a historian wrestles with Ash’s history. Certain details beggar belief. The accounts must have been embellished…except, as the historian discovers, they have not. History is far less linear than scholars would like to believe.
Many content warnings would be justified, here. Gentle may be the least aptly-named author in speculative fiction. However, unlike other authors I could mention, the unpleasant bits of Gentle’s tales are in no way gratuitous.
Daemons of the Shadow Realm by Hiromu Arakawa (2021 onward)
Skilled hunter Yuru lives in a peaceful rural village. Of the outside world, he knows little, save that he does not wish to travel there. To leave would be to abandon his sister Asa. Asa cannot travel, as she is permanently ensconced in the village prison.
In the wake of a violent attack on the village, Yuru discovers that the village elders have withheld facts, even outright lied to Yuru. Yuru is one half of a treasure the world craves. Asa is the other half. However, the woman Yuru knows as Asa is an imposter. Reuniting with his sister and coming to terms with the world as it is requires learning to navigate an entirely unfamiliar modern world.
For a few pages, I thought maybe this was another pleasant rustic tale like Arakawa’s Silver Spoon. Then the dismembering began. The tone is closer to Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist, except somehow even more violent.
The Melancholy of Untold History by Minsoo Kang (2024)
- A prank somehow escalates, transforming four gods into bitter enemies who pursue a relentless feud for centuries.
- A storyteller, having delivered all his ruler demanded, finds himself slated for death.
- Bereavement leaves a historian unable to savor his moment of triumph.
Three different narratives unfolding in three different settings, yet somehow inextricably entangled.
Some readers may struggle with the intricate structure of the book. Persevere. Kang’s examination of how nations create history, and how this plays out on various personal levels, is a delightful fable.
Perhaps you have your own favorite examples of histories obfuscated, misplaced, or created out of whole cloth. If so, comments are below. Regale us with new books for Mount Tsundoku!
