The Steel Tsar

Oswald Bastable #3

by Michael Moorcock

Time travelers Oswald Bastable and Una Persson visit a time stream where the Russian Revolution never occurred

Genres: Science Fiction, Steampunk, Fantasy, Fiction, Alternate History, Time Travel, Science Fiction Fantasy

159 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 1981

About the author

Michael John Moorcock is an English writer primarily of science fiction and fantasy who has also published a number of literary novels.

Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.

During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

I happened across this the final volume of nomad of the time streams series, apparently it has been substantially revised in later versions, when I was an adolescent. I have no idea whether the edition I read was the original or improved, I doubt it matters a great deal. It is the kind of thing that is fun in its own way with convenient deus ex machina plot devices to tie divergent plot elements into a more or less unified story.

The general idea is that the author is editing manuscripts written by his grandfather - Oswald Bastable - who is transported through a series of parallel universes, forced to live through the first half of the twentieth century repeatedly, this seems to mean experiencing multiple permutations of world wars and the repeated destruction of Hiroshima by a nuclear bomb. During which process he develops from a being the typical empire-man of the late-Victorian/Edwardian era and develops a broader outlook.

In short this is your everyday kind of anarchist adventure story with a social conscience and a moral message.

The focus of the previous volume in the series, The Land Leviathan is race, with Gandhi's harmonious and pacifist, socialist, state of Bhantustan contrasted with the expansionist New Ashanti Empire which eventually launches a massive attack on North America with the intention of ending slavery in the USA. A cheap flexible, transferable energy is the catalyst of the breakdown of all established states into a savage war of all against all in this alternative vision of the world before WWI.

This final book ends on the steppe of southern Russia/Ukraine where Joseph Stalin - the eponymous, er, hero of the tale - is leading an insurrection against Kerensky's well established socialist Republic.

A similar confusion of potential histories and diverse political alternatives forms the backdrop to The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the 20th Century and it turns out towards the end of The Steel Tsar that Una Persson has a political ideal driving her to to plunge repeatedly through twentieth century history which is to create a just society without martyrdom and self-sacrifice, a triumph of collective co-operation rather than lone acts of heroism. In this she is repeatedly disappointed.

I must warn readers that the front cover is deceptive, bomb wielding demons are not a feature of the narrative, but there are Zeppelins.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Steel Tsar is likely plagued by its origins: Moorcock was in a bad place in life when he wrote it. Its first half reflects that. It's a boring picaresque story with a weak setting and no particular point.

It picks up in the second half, when we're suddenly thrust into soviet politics that are a clear sequel to his work in Byzantium Endures and (in the revised edition) threads that spin out of the Second Ether.

If the first half of this story were largely cut, it'd be a better book.

[Jorge Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this trilogy and now I'm looking at the rest of Moorcock's multi-verse of books and I'm not sure where to go next as it's vast. The Dancers at the End of Time got a mention in this so think I'll see what's going down there. Anyway, Airships!

[Zéro Janvier · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai eu un peu peur en commençant ce troisième et dernier volume des aventures d'Oswald Bastable. J'y retrouvais les travers du tome précédent, avec un récit qui présente de fortes similitudes avec celui du premier tome. Heureusement, la suite permet de retrouver un véritable élan et la fin offre une très belle conclusion à la trilogie. J'ai globalement pris beaucoup de plaisir à lire ces trois romans qui mêlent habilement uchronie, steampunk, aventure, et réflexion politique.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moorcock brought his Oswald Bastable trilogy to a satisfying conclusion with The Steel Tsar. The metatemporal adventurer winds up his steam-punkish adventures in a more thoughtful and quiet fashion than one might have expected, but with plenty of thought-provoking encounters in an alternate series of 20th centuries in his role as a member of the League of Temporal Adventurers. He's out there still, I believe, somewhere in Moorcock's Eternal Champion multiverse, living happily ever after.
The first two books had wonderful covers with nice, serious art on their first US paperback editions, but this one, sadly, did not. It's a kind of comic Stalin piece that doesn't fit the story well. The trilogy has been published together in a single volume as Nomad of the Time Streams.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moorcock is great...this is of course in the old style of sci fi and fantasy, a regular guy cast adrift in time (though not space), trying to make sense of the new worlds around him, trying to break free from his limiting beliefs and ways of seeing the world. Like the other two books in the trilogy of manuscripts recovered, this one looks at war, human nature, politics...the anarchist makhno makes an appearance, that was very exciting. Very enjoyable and thought provoking.

[Jay Daze · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the 1981 Granada Paperback Original which probably means that my review is of the unrevised edition of The Steel Tsar.

My enjoyment dropped for the third and final installment of The Oswald Bastable Trilogy. First, it is a BAD sign that Moorcock feels the necessity to write in that Bastable has selective amenisia. Is it there to reset Bastable, like some sort of sitcom character?

The book has some interesting things to say about history:

"It was human idealism and human impatience and human despair which continued to produce terrible wars. Human virtues and vices, mixed and confused in individuals, created what we called 'History'. Yet I could see no way in which the vicious circle of aspiration and desperation might ever be broken. We were all victims of our own imagination."

Which I enjoyed the first time it was said in the book, but less the second time, and by the third time I was rolling my eyes with impatience. Yes, yes, you've said this already. It seemed clumsily didactic from a writer as talented as Moorcock.

There was also a scene while bombing the Cossacks where the characters have one of those 'only happens in books' conversations where they discuss the various reasons why the Russians want to give away there freedom. It is one of those bald thematic conversations that I felt Moorcock was able to steer away from in the other books by having Bastable actively oppose the anarchism and anti-racism initially.

Finally, for me the titular Steel Tsar, Joesph Stalin isn't very interesting, not complicated like the Black Atilla and T.A. Shaw were in the other two books. Yes, I would be horrified by a sympathetic Stalin, but structurally having a black hat evil villain in this book weakens it in comparison to the two books that precede it.

But this is, no doubt, a cunning plot to make me track down what I hope is the revised novel.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in March 2000.

The final Oswald Bastable novel is, unfortunately, the most disappointing of the three. In it, the hero once more finds himself involved in a cataclysmic war in an alternate universe. This time, the First World War hadn't happened, as Britain and Germany became allies while France declined as a power. Then Japanese imperialism, symbolised by the destruction of the modern showpiece of enlightened colonialism at Singapore, leads to war, and Bastable joins the Russian airship navy. (The success of airships is common to all the Bastable alternate histories.) There, he is imprisoned by the rebel leader Dugashvili, known as 'The Steel Tsar' (and of course, Stalin means steel and Stalin's real name was Dugashvili).

Neither the background nor the secondary characters are as
interesting or as convincing as in the previous novels. Dugashvili is a convenient evil megalomaniac, followed by others for their own ends or because they too are on the brink of insanity. He makes the plot rather two dimensional, unlike the far better (fictional) 'Black Atilla' character of The Land Leviathan.

[Cécile · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, although it was a somewhat anticlimatic conclusion to the series. It's the shortest and least developped in terms of world-building, and as Bastable appears to have finally lost his pigheaded sympathy for imperialism, you do notice that there's not much left to his character.

On the other hand, it makes absolute sense that this would would be anticlimatic in some ways, instead of a grand finale full of fireworks. The whole point is that history is going through the same hoops whatever the alternate dimension, and that Bastable is going to have to go through the same nightmare over and over again, and only hope to change things one tiny step at the time. So it does make sense to show him once more in a situation where he's mostly powerless, only starting to grasp a little bit more of the big picture. Therefore I'm still going to say that this book is a success, in its way. It makes its point and contributes to the trilogy.

It's just too bad that in the end, it is a little dull compared to the other two. But on the whole, I think this was a very worthwhile trilogy, not so much for its literary qualities, but for the thought experiment. You may agree or not with Moorcock's views in general, but they're not that mainstream in SFF, and I think they're worth the stop.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the last book in the trilogy concerning the time hopping Oswald Bastable and are all collected in the book The Nomad of Time, or if u get a more recently published copy, it is now called A Nomad of the Time Streams.

This trilogy in its entirety, including this last book is exceptional. The foundation of these 3 stories is that they are a threateningly engrossing politically focused declaration of human nature resplendent with air ships, zepplins, alternate histories, anarchy and various disguised and undisguised figures in world history. I don't want to say much about the plot seeing how this is the 3rd book of 3 and it would spoil things for someone starting the 1st book, but i will say this is an early trailblazer for the steampunk genre and a must read for lover's of steampunk or time travel.

[Roger Whitson · Rating 2 out of 5]

The last two books of the Nomad in Time series are exciting enough. However, I'm not sure I'd recommend anyone read them other than completists. This final chapter is fun and there are great scenes, but the ending veers off into metaphysical speculation a little too much - and still does not adequately explain what's happening in the series. The best book of the series, by far, remains the first one. Books 2 and 3 seem to me simply experiments in different formations of human suffering. Further, Moorcock's powerful tract against imperialism in the first book is almost entirely eclipsed by his philosophical and political speculation in the third.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is probably my least favorite of the Nomad of the Time Streams series. Bastable finds himself in the Great War of 1941 in which he joins the Russian Imperial Airship Navy and finds himself coming face to face with a rebel named Dugashvii, the Steel Tsar also known as Joseph Stalin. An interesting mix of ideology and the consequences of actions.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not quite as good as the second one. It was still a pretty nice book, but it seemed a little incomplete and rushed in some manner. I am curious now because wikipedia claims the Omnibus version has a few more chapters.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Worst of the trilogy

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW: So, in this third installment of the Nomads of the Time Streams trilogy, our protagonist Oswald Bastable "washes up" in an alternate 1941 in which a world war is raging, particularly between a Japanese empire and a Russian one. Although it is said that the war was begun by the bombing of the Japanese air shipyards at Hiroshima, it is eventually revealed that this was accomplished using an atomic bomb, causing much musing from Bastable about the inevitability of apocalyptic war and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in any alternate timeline. Regardless, Bastable and his companions fall in with a Cossack leader among the Russians, a former Georgian priest called Djugashvili, now known as the Steel Tsar (astute observers will note that this was the given name in our world of the man who chose to call himself Stalin, the Man of Steel). The Steel Tsar is megalomaniacal and intends to, by show of force, make all of Russia submit to him. There is a fiddly bit about an actual steel robot, like a gigantic icon of Djugashvili, and plans to set these ACTUAL steel tsars in every village of Russia to reinforce his reign, but this seems a distraction from the real plan, which is to demonstrate the use of more atomic bombs! If the first book dealt with colonialism, racism, and the "Yellow Peril"; and he second book dealt with colonialism, racism, and Africa/Black Lives; this third volume deals with the "Red Menace," fear of socialism and the abuses to which it is put, and the long shadow of atomic Armageddon in the Cold War, as well as what it means when atrocities are carried out in our name, and social responsibility. There is a great bit here: "How can we both bear responsibility for the destruction of Hiroshima?" . . . "Because we are all, in a sense, responsible for such great evils," [Una Persson] said . . . "It is . . . a shared responsibility . . . Our own actions can lead to something like a Hiroshima , to the rise of Djugashvili" . . . Great stuff! Incidentally, there is also a lot of musing about the nature of fate, and free will, and across multiple alternate timelines in a potentially infinite multiverse, whether human nature condemns us to certain outcomes. Heavy stuff!

[Ivan Lanìa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Non ho resistito e dopo aver letto questa estate The Land Leviathan ho deciso di completare la trilogia del capitano Bastable con questo The Steel Tsar , pur sapendo bene che i pronostici non fossero buoni: notoriamente Moorcock ha creato questo romanzo partendo da scene tagliate del primo episodio, The Warlord of the Air, la prima stesura venne fuori disastrosa, e l'ha riscritto in gran parte per integrarlo "meglio" entro la macro-saga della Gilda degli Avventurieri Temporali (in cui ricadono anche i bellissimi Behold The Man e Breakfast in the Ruins and other stories). Ora, questa gestazione infelice sicuramente si avverte nei tempi narrativi del romanzo, che sulla carta presenta i canonici tre atti ricalcati sul secondo tomo (Singapore, Rowe Island e l'Ucraina) ma in realtà è nettamente bipartito con l'accetta fra la claustrofobica avventura di Bastable in Asia Sudorientale, che ha molto del romanzo esistenzialista di terribili tensioni sociali entro una città micro-cosmo (non dico Lo straniero, ma quasi), e una vicenda più convenzionalmente hollywoodiana di battaglie fra dirigibili e automi nei cieli d'Ucraina, palesemente ricalcata su certe situazioni di The Warlord of the Air... ma ciò non è necessariamente un male, perché se il primo "episodio" è un fenomenale Moorcock che scrive narrativa "di costume" e "di maniera", il secondo "episodio" gioca a proprio vantaggio le somiglianze con il primo romanzo per costruire un notevolissimo sviluppo caratteriale di Bastable e una risoluzione convincentissima del suo conflitto personale, decisamente superiore al climax analogo vissuto da John Daker in The Dragon in the Sword. Certo, questo impianto lascia un po' spiacevolmente fra parentesi gli eventi del secondo romanzo, in relazione alla trama generale, e appiattisce l'antagonista di questo tomo, lo Zar d'Acciaio Josef Dzhugashvili, in una caratura un po' piatta di mero antagonista, ben meno interessante dei suoi due predecessori piacevolissimamente antieroici, il generale O. T. Shaw e l'Attila Nero – ma in compenso abbiamo sul campo due comprimari carismatici quali Nestor Makhno ed Elric di Melniboné sotto il suo simpaticissimo alias di Monsieur Zenith, che personalmente ho amato sia per i messaggi morali positivi che portano sia per il bel lavoro di costruzione organica del Multiverso moorcockiano. E il finale degno di The Warhound and the World's Pain è stato la ciliegina sulla torta.

Grazie capitano Bastable della compagnia, grazie compagno Moorcock per questa fantascienza libertaria "leggera" che fa squadra con quella aulica della compagna Ursula K. Le Guin.

[David B · Rating 3 out of 5]

The third and final adventure of Michael Moorcock's dimension hopping hero, Oswald Bastable, is a disjointed narrative in two parts. The opening sequence, featuring a group of disheartened and frightened men awaiting their fates on an island that has been forgotten in a world-wide conflict is pretty suspenseful. The second part, featuring the villain of the title, is frequently entertaining as well. One scene, which features a battle between dirigibles and men on horseback, rises to the level of high adventure. Unfortunately, the character of Una Persson, another interdimensional traveler who makes brief appearances in all of the Bastable books and is well-developed in none of them, figures prominently in the climax. There is also some sketchy mumbo-jumbo about a council of people who have the power to travel between dimensions. Could have been better.

[Estott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like the previous volumes in this trilogy the book started out very well. Unfortunately mid way through it turned into an ideological talk session. There are occasional good scenes, but the villain is drawn in broad dull strokes this time: Moorcock usually likes to give his "villains" some admirable or at least human qualities, but this time around his villain is based on Joseph Stalin, so he's a clumsy monster who doesn't even get a good death scene.

There are hints dropped here and there that Moorcock was intending to continue Oswald Bastable's adventures through alternate time scenarios, but he hasn't - and I'm not planning to go through Moorcock's other works to follow the intersecting threads of such characters as Una Persson - who started out as a character with intriguingly obscure origins but ended as someone who was still obscure but no longer intriguing.

[Jag]

6/10: Better written than the trash before. You can tell that this was written around the same time as "The War Hound and the World's Pain" which is an 8/10 however, steel tsar is nowhere near as good. The book is split into 2 parts and the entirety of part 1 is ass. Part 2 is also really bad but luckily the last 3rd (last 2 chapters; ch7 and ch8) picks up and becomes entertaining. It covers similar topics to "The War Hound and the World's Pain" but goes through it quickly. It also finally introduces the Steel Tsar which is a pretty cool idea. Problem is that 111/155 pages are trash. Can't recommend a book that takes 111 pages to get somewhat entertaining. I will not remember this book even though the latter half is actually good which is sad.

It could've been so much better but because the first 2/3 suck its a 6/10 and the last 1/3 is like a 7/10.
I've realised I hate steampunk and alternative history. Glad Bastable got with Una Persson tho.

Very cool that Moorecock comes up with all these worlds. His settings and ideas are very unique. The fact that he kinda fathered steampunk is cool.

[Jim Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moorcock, when he decides to, can tell a rip-roaring action-packed story. This book is part of a series about time travelers (but it can be read on its own), where Moorcock imagines an alternative 20th century where airships rule the skies, Russia never had a Communist revolution, and the American South remains independent after the Civil War. But these alternative histories are not at the center of the story, rather it's Oswald Bastable's adventures through Asia and Russia that keep the reader's interest (Moorcock's discourses into the political philosophy of Anarchism can be skimmed). The point of the book is that no matter how many different universes humans live in, they are basically the same in all of them, unable to avoid the disasters of nuclear bombs or constant warfare.

[Pádraic · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent a good deal of the start of this one confused, for Bastable appears to have travelled to yet another time stream by the time the book starts, yet never talks about when or how. It doesn't help that the goodreads blurb here is just straight-up wrong. Nevertheless this is still just as engaging as the previous books, with its airship-heavy alternate history adventures, and Moorcock's skill for tight plotting and his greater understanding of political viewpoints and their consequences than most of his contemporaries in the field makes it a fun time. Even a second-tier Moorcock is better than the vast majority of what the genre can offer.

[Leif · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another day, another silly DAW cover. Sometimes I wonder how closely the artist read the novel. The robot had a sword, not claws. This is unacceptable. Did Donald Wollheim really approve this one?

Now, really: As enjoyable as the other books in the Bastable chronicles.

There is better Moorcock work to read, I think, but these stories DO have dirigibles as the primary war-making machines. How novel.

[Ben Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a strange one in that it doesn’t really feel like the climactic end of a series. Rather it feels like a stand alone novel that sets the character up for possibly future adventures.

It also drops us into the middle of the action. There’s no set up this time. That aside, like the previous two it’s a fun, creative story that isn’t too challenging.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing. Readable but not nearly as much so as the previous two volumes. Too much setup. Too much inaction. A pretty good air battle though. And it did take place in 1941, which was needed for a popsugar challenge. And I'm glad to have re-read some of my Moorcock's at long last. There were bits and pieces of cleverness here. There were possibilities. But mostly a miss.

[Arthur B · Rating 2 out of 5]

By this point the series is clearly running out of ideas. (Also, come on Mike... "Tsar Wars" is right there and you don't go for it? Coward.) Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...

[Iain · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the sequel/series-driven world of modern fiction and filmmaking, one wonders if Michael Moorcock was ever approached by a film-studio with an offer to turn this three-book series into a film-saga (and to write more to keep the Hollywood gravy-train rolling).

[John Bleasdale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bastable finds himself part of another war but his knowledge of time travel has increased and his understanding of time deepened.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in the style of 19th-century adventure fantasy, this doesn't exactly hold up, but the worldbuilding is so neat that it's worth reading anyway.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

A pretty decent start turned into anticlimax. And Stalin was there I guess

[Brandon B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Same old same old stories as the previous books but leaning into more of the time travel stuff.