So, of course, when I heard about Through Darkest Europe, I wanted to read it as soon as possible. It is set in a timeline where the philosophical underpinnings of the Christian and Muslim worlds are reversed. Thus in this alternate history, Islamic theologian al-Ghazali advocates for a more rationalist Islamic religion that promotes learning and science. This causes the Muslim nations of the Middle East and North Africa to be the center of the developed world, the drive behind all modern technology and the ones who explored/colonized the planet. Meanwhile, St. Thomas Aquinas promotes Christian fundamentalism, which means that over time Western Europe falls behind the rest of the world and Christianity remains mostly isolated to a single continent.
The plot itself involves two investigators from the Maghreb (which appears to be a powerful state located in North Africa), a Muslim named Khalid al-Zarzisi and his Jewish partner Dawud, being sent to the Grand Duchy of Italy (minus Sicily). They are there to help the Italians deal with the Aquinists, a fundamentalist Christian sect that preaches a new "Crusade" against the godless Muslims and all of their modern trappings, like tolerance of other religions and feminism. As you can expect, it hits the fan fairly quickly and Khalid and company now have to figure out how to stop an all out religious war from spreading across the world.
Through Darkest Europe reminded me a lot of Matt Ruff's Mirage, which I didn't read, but I did read about the setting. In that book it was North America that was the stand in for the Middle East, while in Turtledove's book its Europe. Frankly, I find Turtledove's switch to be more plausible and to be fair he did do a good job with the world-building, even if there was some parallelisms (we even got a Hitler analog because alternate history). Nevertheless, the cultural changes this Muslim majority world instituted (from the style of business dress to polo being the world's most popular sporting event) were fun and believable.
Honestly the part of the story I had trouble with the most were our heroes. I just found them to be passive observers at best who were only there to tell the reader what was happening at the time. They mostly just reacted to what was happening around them and the "advice" they gave to the Italians about how to deal with their terrorist problem was often of the "well duh" variety. They were still likable characters and I did care what happened to them, I just wish they did more to drive the plot forward.
So yeah Through Darkest Europe wasn't one of Turtledove's best, but it wasn't the worst either. If you are a big Turtledove fan, then I recommend you check it out. If not, maybe check some of the other Turtledove novels I mentioned before reading this one.
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