The Peshawar Lancers

If you could imagine that Western Europe fell and moved the Raj to India full-time, you then have the idea of what this story is about. Throw in a few better weapons and some story of the end of civilization and you have "Four Feathers" or "The Man Who Would Be King". If you stretch the idea of the "bad" satanic Russians who employ "Hassassin and Thugee" you have the makings of a really good "Indiana Jones" spin-off.

This book is for people who like their "Westerns" as "Easterns" and all the "stiff-upper" lip, Imperial Indian service, Gurkhas, Sihks and Lancers, this is for you. The ending was a little too "pat" but, it fits in with the genre and in this case "the non-damsel in distress". Stirling also wrote a short-story about two of the characters that is include in a collection "Worlds that Never Were".

Once again Stirling has produced an excellent book. However this is not a "world" book, like his utopian Island series of Dystopian Draka series. (This series is a dystopia, something which a certain earlier reviewer has failed to notice. Please learn to distinguish between the views of an author and the views of one of his characters. Especially when that character is the villian.). He has written an action adventure.
This is a story in the style of Kipling. A victorian melodrama. However it is set in an alternate world devistated by a meteorite impact. It is a tale of high adventure with a motley crew of heroes battling against a sinister conspiracy of racists and barbarians controled by a sinister devil worshiping cannibal. (Note to some, it is possible to tell who the bad guys are if you think about it.)
Do you want high adventure? Do you want a fascinating world and well developed and complex cultures? Do you want to see good triumph (something not garantied from this author)? Then buy this book.

While not quite up to the military fiction qualifications of his sometimes writing partner, David Drake (but then who else is?!?), Sterling delivers a summer-time reading delight - just make sure that you're covered up with SPS 30+ if you'e planning to read this by the pool or on the beach.
I won't go into details, as they've been covered in other reviews, except that he does leave room for sequels ("The montain in the sky..."). You will not find this on your "New York Times Book Review" Best Seller lists, any more than you would expect to find anything by Rudyard Kipling.
This is all quite non-pc, but a jolly good read. It's Kipling and the "Great Game", John Masters and Talbot Mundy all wrapped up an a book that will delight anyone with any knowledge of India during the 19th and early 20th Centuries, as well as those of us who appreciate a good alternative history.
And there are also some very serious (and fairly realistic) occult goings on - nothing which would bother the average OTO member, but quite nasty for the rest of us.
Bottom line - if you like Kipling, then buy this book! If you don't like Kipling, then you are wasting your time reading these reviews.

One word of advice. Before you begin reading this book, go to the back and read the Appendices. They will give you enough of the backstory to enjoy the book a little more. It was a little difficult trying to imagine all of the historical changes that had happened to be able to follow this alternate timeline but once I read the appendices, the story was much easier to follow.
Stirling has once again written a very original story and created a vibrant world with very believable characters and events.

Airships! Analytical engines! Adventure! Evil cannibalistic cults whose members are all Caucasian (for a change)! True love triumphant! Stroppy women who rescue as often as they get rescued!

This was a very fun book, and I hope that Stirling at some point writes a sequel.

Steve Stirling's Peshawar Lancers starts off with an interesting premise: that European civilization is nearly destroyed in 1878 when a disintegrating comet rains down on the northern hemisphere. Unfortunately that is where the innovative ideas end. Instead of seeing how the rest of the world develops in that power vacuum Stirling assumes that British simply relocated to India and gives us a rehash of the Flashman novels. Peshawar Lancers takes place about 150 years after The Fall (as he calls it) and there has been very little technological, sociological, or geopolitical change in that period. It seems that Stirling wanted to freeze history rather than explore the genuine alternative history that would arise in his scenario.

Just finished reading the book and liked it very much. What struck me was the clever use of local lingo,example: "shabash" for one. I have heard that often in my family as well as "acha" and other such whats. The writer got the perspectives of Pathan and Pashtu correctly as well, as the Brits always called the Pashtun/Pahktoons Pathans.
I especially like that Stirling has created a new world/alternate timeline in which anything can be written about. He can go forward, backwards or sideways, describing the descent of the Americas into oblivion, the rise of Dia-Nippon, the episodes of the Second Mutiny, the tribal conflicts for resources (loot) amongst the Afghans or Europeans, the internal workings of Brazil, a future history in the 22nd century, whatever.
I will be waiting eagerly to see if he pursues this in the future.

Mr. Stirling follows up his "Islanders" series with another outstanding "alternate" history novel. Set in an universe in which the Northern Hemisphere is largely destroyed by a series of comet strikes this book has great character development, a nice twisty plot, a writing style that has elements of Kipling and Doyle, and fast moving action. What else could one ask of a novel? As you turn the last page you wish there was more to the book or that the sequel was immediately at hand.
If you like a very well written adventure, buy this book.

S.M. Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers is a thumping good read in the best Kiplingesque tradition. Brave English officers, loyal Indians, beautiful and clever ladies and a touch of the psycic powers - all well handled. And the background premise, the earth in the aftermath of a comet strike in Victorian times is well done. But, the villians! Czarist Russians as devil-worshiping cannibals is a bit too much.
I could not help but wonder if Stirling was more inspired by the over-the-top diabolist Rasputin in the otherwise excellent animated movie Anastasia than by the historical "great game" of the Victorian Era.
As I say, a good read, but not up to this author's supurb "Islander" series or his excellent villians in the "Draka" novels.
Eugene S. Erdahl

An interesting premise, but the book suffers mostly from cliched, cardboard cutout characterization. Plot is kind of straightforward, there's no real surprise or much in the way of plot twists. Not very original, apart from said premise. Not much in the way of atmosphere or cultural verisimilitude. India serves as an exotic background but does not take much of a role otherwise. I got the impression that much of the Indian dialogue and cultural background presented in the novel was gleaned from secondary sources, i.e. the author read some books but didn't actually go to the country, which might have given him a different slant on the back story. The ending wraps up way too neatly, a typical Hollywood style guys-get-the-girls and everyone lives happily ever after (fishing for a movie option, perhaps?).
Not recommended. Not even a good beach read. Pretty bad photograph of the author on the back page of the paperback edition, to boot ("worst photograph ever!").
I'm with the reviewer who recommended the Flashman series. Far superior.

Stirling's book is practically impossible to put down, almost as if it was cemented to your hands. It was the first book I have read of his, but it definitely will not be my last. I plan to read all of his books.
This story is made so great by the details of the culture, but the plot and the characters are superb also. Everything about this book is great. Believe me, you should definitely read this book.

The Peshawar Lancers is an very good story of alternate history. Although there is one particular premise I disagree with, everything else has been spot on. I won't call it flawless, but there's a lot to criticise about Shakespere too. I will say that I was very pleased with the book and don't regret the days of harrassing bookstore clerks with "Is it here yet?"
To the poster who said he was tired of Mr. Stirling's "racist totalitarianism" - The Domination is a dystopia, you twit! Go bother George Orwell over his lust for a police state.

Peshawar Lancers is an interesting departure for Stirling. While its plot and characters are the same as nearly every other novel by the author, his oppressive, racist, totalitarianist rhetoric is considerably toned down in this novel. Athelstan King, the main character of the book, is the same mild-mannered, career solider, son of landed gentry as featured in nearly every single Stirling novel. Also, unsurprisingly, the Empire in which he fights for, Victorian era society made up of English refugees from a Europe ravaged by a destructive meteor shower -- transplanted to India, rules benevolently over a grateful population of servile dark-skin pheasants. Gone in this novel, however, is the "White-make-right", Nazi-inspired, racial musing of a Blond Master Race (not complete gone, but not insistently dwelt upon). The "Angrezi Raj" seems to be a progressive, liberal (almost) society, in which the rights and property of all its citizens are protected. The other mainstay of nearly all Stirling's publications, the Lesbian-warrior-sexual-carnivore, a character more akin to a "Dear Penthouse" inspired adolescent stroke fantasy, is also, gratefully, absent. Peshawar Lancers shows how the culture and religion of India influences the transplanted English aristocracy, and how they change over time to resemble the Brahmin castes who they have merged with.
The author's prose is wonderfully descriptive, and the story is quick moving and entertaining. The villains are completely evil and unsympathetic and get their reward in the end. The characters are exotic and for once likeable (sadly still one-dimensional with no development). The best part of Peshawar Lancers, like all of Stirling's fiction, is the bold colorful description of a fictional society quite different from our own.

Certainly not up to the standard of Fraser's excellent Flashman series! I can't help but think it must be intentionally paying homage to its superior, and to other Northwest Frontier fiction and nonfiction. The "native" detail which impresses some reviewers could have been lifted straight from Fraser and from John Masters' autobiographical "Bugles and a Tiger". But where Stirling seems to be winking at us is in naming the Pathan who eventually accompanies the Anglo-Indian protagonist and his Sikh brother-in-arms: Ilderim Khan. As any Flashman fan knows, this is the name of Flashman's alter ego when in disguise as a Pathan. After encountering this character, it's rather hard to think the rest is anything but a bit silly.

I read this book, and got completely enthralled. Stirling created an anazing alternative world. I found the mixing of Indian and Anglo cultures fascinating. The fact that the transition was so gradual that the "New British" did not even notice the change fascinated me. I dearly hope more books set in this world are forthcoming.

After reading his Island trilogy, I was disappointed by this effort.
It seemed juvenile and simplistic. I reminded of the movies serials I watched as a child. The characters were two dimensional and uninteresting.
I expect more from this author.

Even before I was halfway through this book, I knew why it some of the plot and the characters seemed familiar. They have a definite resemblence to George MacDonald Fraser's "Flashman and the Great Game." The Russian Count, the faithful Pathan servant Ibrahim Khan, the main character's native squeeze, the Thugs. Need I go on?
This novel was entertaining, but Flashman and the Great Game is a much better book, without the silly premise.

Lots of blood-and-thunder. I especially enjoyed the alternate world of India following the loss of Victorian England.
I would have liked a bit more about the loss of England; however, that given was, like the rest of the book, very well written and enjoyable.
I heartily recommend this title.

A good book in the recent trend in alternate history works. How anyone could get enough into a complex society like the Indian caste system to project a plausible extension from an early history catastrphe plotline is beyond me. It comes out as a great story, though.

Stirling puts together his usual entertaining story, unfortunately, also with his usual casual racism. His nostalgia for the old British empire is unsurprising, given his attitudes about the superiority of Europeans in general and the inferiority of Muslims in particular, and it screams out very loudly in this book.
The main difference between this book and most of Stirling's imperial fantasies is that the main character isn't a violent bisexual/lesbian. If you like Stirling, hey, he's here in all his glory.