''Drakon'' is a
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
novel by Canadian-American writer
S. M. Stirling
Stephen Michael Stirling (born September 30, 1953) is a Canadian-American science fiction and fantasy author who was born in France. Stirling is well known for his The Domination, Draka series of alternate history (fiction), alternate history no ...
, the fourth novel in the
alternate history
Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, altern ...
series
The Domination
''The Domination of the Draka'' (also called the Draka series or the Draka saga) is a dystopian science fiction alternate history series by American author S. M. Stirling.
It comprises a main trilogy of novels as well as one crossover novel ...
. The novel was released in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
on January 1, 1996.
Plot introduction
Set centuries since the last war between the Domination and the Alliance, the Domination has conquered the
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
and the solar system, while the Alliance survivors have fled to the
Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri ( Latinized from α Centauri and often abbreviated Alpha Cen or α Cen) is a triple star system in the constellation of Centaurus. It consists of 3 stars: Alpha Centauri A (officially Rigil Kentaurus), Alpha Centaur ...
star system where they have started a new civilization called the United States of
Samothrace
Samothrace (also known as Samothraki, el, Σαμοθράκη, ) is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. It is a municipality within the Evros regional unit of Thrace. The island is long and is in size and has a population of 2,859 (2011 ...
.
The two societies have traded technology and skirmished some, focusing most of their efforts on colonizing all new habitable worlds they discover. Space combat has been rare since
faster-than-light
Faster-than-light (also FTL, superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light (). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero ...
(FTL) travel formerly has been impossible. Combat only occurred when colonists from both sides reached the same world, an incident that happened only once. (Stirling later said the Samothracians won due to their superior ship.) The Draka continued their enslaving any new intelligent species they discover, using
genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including t ...
to produce a meek and submissive version of it.
Plot
The book starts in 2442 A.D. somewhere in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
– thinly inhabited and with scattered remnants of the Americans having been quite literally bombed into the
Stone Age
The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...
– where Gwendolyn Ingolfson is ending a camping and hunting trip. On her way back to the civilization she contacts legate Tamirindus Rohm, who sends her to the Reichart Station to oversee the creation of a
wormhole
A wormhole (Einstein-Rosen bridge) is a hypothetical structure connecting disparate points in spacetime, and is based on a special Solutions of the Einstein field equations, solution of the Einstein field equations.
A wormhole can be visualize ...
generator. During a test of the generator an error occurs and before she can get clear she is caught by the wormhole and is sent to an alternate Earth, called Earth/2. The event is detected by the USSNF ''President Douglas'', which is an FTL starship of the United States of Samothrace utilizing wormhole technology and is positioned a tenth of a
lightyear
A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...
outside
Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...
.
Gwendolyn lands in a warehouse where a drug deal is taking place between 22 persons. They notice her and try to kill her, but she kills all of them instead and steals their money. Detective Henry Carmaggio arrives later on the crime scene where he learns that most of the victims died from blunt trauma or as a result of cutting blows from a bladed weapon honed to an unnatural sharpness. They also find an arm that does not belong to any of the victims and appears to be from an animal.
Meanwhile, Gwendolyn tries to figure out where she has ended up and learns that she is in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 1995. She quickly learns that not only did she travel back in time but also to a parallel Earth, one where the Domination of Draka never existed. She hides out for a while in various apartments, after killing the owners. Carmaggio is constantly one step behind and during his interviews with the victims' acquaintances he meets Jennifer Feinberg.
Gwendolyn decides that she needs to figure out a way to contact her Earth. In an effort to make her stolen drug money look legitimate she decides to go to
Cali
Santiago de Cali (), or Cali, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, and the most populous city in southwest Colombia, with 2,227,642 residents according to the 2018 census. The city spans with of urban area, making Cali the second ...
,
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
where she recruits her first followers. Gwendolyn also starts a company named IngolfTech to use as a front to sell high technology to raise the capital necessary to build the equipment necessary to contact her Earth.
During the same time Kenneth Lafarge comes to Earth/2, ending up in a cornfield somewhere in
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
. He starts with trying to contact the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
, explaining why he is there and who Gwendolyn is, but everyone thinks he is insane and he is forced to fight his way out. However, this makes Carmaggio look deeper into Gwendolyn and her business, but he still cannot do much. At the same time he and Jennifer Feinberg start to develop a relationship.
Jennifer follows her boss and a few other co-workers down to the
Bahamas
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...
where IngolfTech's headquarters is located. Lafarge learns about Gwendolyn's location and also travels there, attempting a sneak attack on her headquarters. He is forced to retreat, however, when he is unable to fight off both the security and Gwendolyn herself.
Lafarge returns to New York and contact Carmaggio and explains everything to him. Carmaggio agrees to help him stop Gwendolyn and recruits some of his colleagues as well. Lafarge provides them with a small number of
plasma rifle
A directed-energy weapon (DEW) is a ranged weapon that damages its target with highly focused energy without a solid projectile, including lasers, microwaves, particle beams, and sound beams. Potential applications of this technology include we ...
s he has built with local technology.
Gwendolyn returns to New York and buys the warehouse where she first came to Earth/2 and the area around it. She intends to open up a wormhole there and let through large numbers of soldiers to take over Earth/2. During a brief contact with Earth/1, she learns the Samothracians attacked Earth but were beaten back "only just." Both Carmaggio and Lafarge decide that this is their best and only chance they have to stop Gwendolyn. They attack the warehouse and fight Gwendolyn and her security forces. Lafarge and Gwendolyn battle, damaging the wormhole generator and making it explode. Only Carmaggio and Jennifer survive.
Afterwards Carmaggio and Jennifer take over IngolfTech, thanks to Lafarge hacking Gwen's records and creating a fake will. At the same time, two of Gwendolyn's followers are traveling under the sea in a secret submarine and with them a cloned baby of Gwendolyn.
Main characters
*Detective Lieutenant Henry Carmaggio: The main protagonist of the story, he is a detective at the
NYPD
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
whose investigation of Gwen's first murder leads him into doing everything in his power to prevent Gwen from conquering the Earth. After Gwen's death he becomes the owner of IngolfTech and decides to sell the advanced technology brought to this Earth by Gwen.
*Gwendolyn Ingolfsson: A genetically engineered Draka and the main antagonist, she is accidentally sent to Earth/2 when supervising construction of a wormhole generator. She tries to recontact her Earth to bring about the conquest of Earth/2.
*Kenneth Lafarge: A Samothrace agent, sent to Earth/2 to stop Gwendolyn, teams up with Henry Carmaggio. Distant relative to Chantal Lefarge (
''Under the Yoke'') and Frederick and Marya Lefarge (''
The Stone Dogs
''The Stone Dogs'' is a science fiction novel by Canadian-American writer S. M. Stirling, the third book in the alternate history series, The Domination. It was first published in paperback by Baen Books in August 1990. It was a preliminary nomin ...
'')
*Jennifer Feinberg: Girlfriend of one of Gwendolyn's victims, she later starts to have feelings for Henry Carmaggio and the two marry at the end of the novel.
Postscript
A framing device included in the collected edition, ''The Domination'', is set several years after the events of Drakon. By that time Carmaggio is the wealthiest man in the world and is living in an orbital habitat. In the story he introduces a young scientist in his employ to the company's real secret: that they are
reverse engineering
Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...
technology instead of making new discoveries and that he hopes to allow them to advance Earth technology to be able to stave off a Draka attack.
Film adaptation
In a 2002 interview, Stirling said that out of all of his novels, ''Drakon'' would make the best movie and he would want
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post-New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability w ...
to be director. No information has been released on whether ''Drakon'' has been optioned, however.
References
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drakon (Book)
1996 Canadian novels
1996 science fiction novels
Alpha Centauri in fiction
Novels by S. M. Stirling
Canadian alternative history novels
Dystopian novels
The Domination series
Fiction about wormholes
Novels about genetic engineering
Novels about extraterrestrial life
Baen Books books