Making Quebec the most powerful city in the world is a daring historical reinterpretation. But who says power, also says cruelty.
With The Blood Blue Empire, Vic Verdier, writer’s name for Simon-Pierre Pouliot, engages in a whole exercise: applying science fiction to the past, mixing up our historical references, reinventing our time, and inserting bloody doses of fear and horror into it .
There is something to be stunned!
It all started with the discovery, a few centuries ago, of blue diamonds under Quebec City. The wealth of the city becomes such that it is transformed into a city-state towards which, in the 19th century, the whole world begins to converge and where scientific effervescence reigns.
But the production of wealth comes with great social inequalities and the Church – we must keep a fund of truth! – has the elect in his hand.
Dissent will take shape, embodied by a man who claims to be the True Messiah. His disciples multiply and they can be identified by a sign: a hole in the left hand, like Jesus crucified. And they don’t hesitate to strike to fight what they call the Great Evil.
The Church is preparing its response thanks to Professor Paul Raumeo, a genius geneticist who developed the Orléans Mastiffs, dogs as intelligent as they are formidable killers.
The professor also has Victor Notre-Dame to his credit, a creature of whom we do not know if it is a failure or a success, but who wants to jump into the fray. The Saint-Jean of 1887 gives him the opportunity. It will be terrible.
A story of revenge
The story is told in two stages: in 1887 and a hundred years later, in 1987, because the battle of the past had repercussions, until a final which will make you shudder.
Several characters also deliver their version, but this choral form disperses the story. It would have been better to focus the eyes, favoring that of Father Black, at the 19e century, and the student Marie, in the 20e.
However, it is the details of this revenge story that captivate.
At the end of the 19e century, we find Duplessis as archbishop and Taschereau as head of government; the CAQ is the avant-garde Congress of Quebec; machines serve coffee; the construction of the metro is supervised by the engineer Eiffel and the architect Taillibert; Darwin established his Graduate School of Evolutionary Sciences in Quebec …
In the 20th century, transport problems were resolved thanks to the aerobus which circulated above the city; the Web starts from Quebec and imposes itself worldwide in French; the Sovereign Militia, and its cyborgs, is the largest army on the planet; the J film seriesacques LeBon 007 triomphe…
The Blood Blue Empire first appeared in 2014, winning the Jacques-Brossard Prize for the best science fiction and fantasy novel. The 2021 edition is a revamped and definitive version, which hasn’t lost any of its deliciously ironic and above all, ferociously creepy tone.
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