Erik Graff's Reviews > The Alteration

This alternate history novel was given me as a birthday gift. Well chosen it was. It is cited by Philip K. Dick as "possibly the best" of the genre and introduced in this edition by William Gibson--both of whom appear, indirectly, within it. Dick, I'd imagine, liked its context, that being of a contemporary western world dominated by a reactionary and repressive Roman Catholic Church. Gibson praises it, exaggerating a bit, as representative of steampunk literature. I note it as being erudite, subtle and ironic.

My major complaint about this novel is that its portrayal of its protagonist, a ten-year old boy, is hard to believe. A gifted singer and composer, a junior Mozart as it were, young Hubert is also gifted in speech and manner, so much so that he seems at times an adult in disguise.