The Company of the Dead

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More than a century after it sank in the icy depths of the North Atlantic, the Titanic continues to fascinate. Many wealthy, influential people went down with the ship - people who might have shaped history differently, had they lived. What if the Titanic had sunk a few hours earlier or later, or even made it all the way to New York? What if a different set of people had survived? This 'what if' is at the heart of 'The Company of the Dead' - a sci-fi/alternate history novel written by David Kowalski. 

An inadvertent time-traveller, Jonathan Wells, is stranded in 1911, and despairing of ever making it back to his timeline, decides to right the wrongs that he knows are soon to come. His first stop? The RMS Titanic. Hoping to avert the disaster and to save the ship, he hands the ship's lookout a pair of binoculars and the Titanic succeeds in navigating past the iceberg it was supposed to hit - only to founder on another iceberg a few hours later. The Titanic sinks, despite Wells' well-meant intervention - and Wells goes down with the ship, leaving behind a journal.

The year 2012 - the world is hurtling towards a nuclear holocaust and total oblivion. This is a world in which Astor becomes US President in 1912 and keeps the United States out of the Great War. Germany and Japan prevail, and rule the world between them. The monarchies in Germany, Japan, Russia, France and Italy are flourishing. The United States is no longer united - led by Texas, the 2nd Confederacy has successfully seceded, and the Union and the Confederacy are 2 separate nations. Feudalism is rampant, and there have been no civil rights or suffragette movements. World War II never happens, and Hitler is simply a mediocre Austrian painter. And Joseph Kennedy, grand-nephew of JFK - who, by the way, never becomes president, but is still assassinated in Dallas - is the only man who can turn back the clock and set things right, even if it means erasing his own existence.

From the Titanic to Roswell and then back to the Titanic - the book takes the reader on an incredible journey. The author lovingly and meticulously outlines this new alternate reality - and while the rich detail is to be commended - it eventually ends up being the iceberg on which the novel founders. At 750 or so pages, this is a hefty book, and almost 400 of these deal with conspiracies, double-crosses and treachery - it's almost too hard to keep track of the good guys from the bad!  After a point, I didn't even care about who was fighting whom, and why - I just wanted to get back on the Titanic!! The concept is so intriguing and the book is well-plotted - it is simply not as crisp or fast-paced as it needs to be. 

Be it a novel, movie or a TV series - the central conceit of time-travel is to not change anything. In this book, well, the whole point to time travel is to change history - and that makes sense, doesn't it? What's the point of time travel, if you can't change history - besides, doesn't history change the minute a time traveller shows up in the past? And although I believe that most of history's 'what-ifs' are best left unanswered - wouldn't it be cool to go back in time? Where would I go? And what would I change? I'll think about it while you dive into 'The Company of the Dead'!! Happy Reading!!