![]() Not a numerous people, the Draka can only enjoy their aristocratic life on the backs of others. To this mix, add a love of Greco-Spartan society, a good bit of nationalistic fervor, aristocratic decadence, and some of the writer’s favorite pulp tropes, and you have a fever dream of a South Africa which not only survives but becomes the final society of the human race.ĭid I mention they were slavers? Called serfs, the Draka conquer not only for territory, but also for human chattel. Later, remnants of the Southern Confederacy would find refuge in the Cape and bring along their plantation culture. The Domination, the state of the Draka race, as explained in fictional primary texts interspersed throughout the books, is formed by American loyalists and French Royalists after their respective revolutions, joining the Dutch Boers in South Africa. The Draka series presents an entirely illiberal vision of the world, a society built upon the rejection of revolutionary values and defining itself by virile colonial expansion. So what if that never happened? What if the opposite occurred? The last muscular vestiges of European colonialism were swept aside and the great revolutionary values of freedom, equality, and fraternity were more firmly ensconced. On its other end, too late to directly inspire Stirling but pertinent all the same, South Africa saw the dismantling of its apartheid system - the Afrikaaner leaders were set aside, the rainbow nation begun, and integration into the enlightened order commenced.īoth of these events are considered great victories for the liberal world order. 1980, after the tragic end of Rhodesia, saw the beginnings of the Mugabe regime - minority rule was ended, mass democracy ushered in, de facto dictatorship inaugurated, and the white settlers who had built the nation expelled. The 1980s were bookended by a pair of radical changes for the peoples, especially the white Boers and African British, of Southern Africa. Released at the end of the 1980s, its primary focus is a reimagined South African state, one changed early on to become an empire that, by the time of the books, is a world power and ultimate conqueror of the globe.īefore discussing the books, one must comment on their obvious inspiration. SM Stirling offers just such a challenge in his Draka Series. While fictional alternate history isn’t quite what we want to teach in school rooms, the big questions such works propose - What if Napoleon III had defeated Bismarck? What if Mary I’s child had survived? What if Theodore Roosevelt had won a third term? - force us to break out of the current sense of inevitability and offer us a chance to rethink what could be.Įven if what could be may be a horror to most. And yes, even an alternative for our history. An alternative for how we live, an alternative vision for where we’re going. Whatever political label one chooses to use, the political aims of any sort of dissident movement really must be an alternative to the current way of things. It is a time capsule representative of the acceptable spectrum of discourse in fiction during the 1980’s, and while I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet, each of my friends that has read the book loved it. Draka unapologetically handles issues like Totalitarianism, Slavery, and Colonialist Expansionism. The writer goes by “Lycurgus of Sion” series is a cult classic which could never be released to acclaim in the current year. Check them out at their website, or their authors on Amazon. ![]() ![]() They’ve stayed incredibly stalwart against all odds throughout the madness of the last 10-20 years and when I rag on traditional publishers, I never mean them. Draka was published by my friends at Baen Books. Foreword by Aristo: I have some friends who write over at a traditional Catholic focused publication called Middle Earth Magazine They are avid fiction readers, and one by one, they keep reading and raving about this series, The Domination of the Draka, and one of them wanted to guest review it. ![]()
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