The Peshawar Lancers

Lore & Background

The story details a world where a heavy meteor shower, known as 'the Fall,' impacted with catastrophic force across much of the Northern Hemisphere in 1878, creating a massive dust cloud that blots out the sun. This causes the collapse of Industrialized civilization, as crops cannot be raised in winter-like conditions that lasted for three years. The British Government, under Queen Victoria and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, evacuates the population of the British Isles to colonies in India, Australasia, and South Africa. After martial law breaks down in 1881, Disraeli is killed by rioters and becomes a martyr. The British Isles are abandoned, initially becoming home to degenerate cannibalistic savages, and are only cautiously recolonized in the 20th century. By the time normal weather returns, nine-tenths of the former UK population, and millions of others worldwide, have died.

Reader's Guide

The Peshawar Lancers is significant as a nominee for the Sidewise Award for best long-form alternate history, a genre that explores historical what-ifs. The novel's worldbuilding presents a 2025 where the Angrezi Raj, centered in India, is the most powerful nation, alongside other surviving empires such as the Russian Empire (centered in Samarkand and worshipping Chernobog), the Empire of Dai-Nippon (Japanese-ruled China), the Caliphate of Damascus, and France-outre-mer. The novel features innovations like the airship and Stirling engine, while the airplane and internal combustion engine remain undeveloped. The protagonist, Athelstane King, is an officer of the Peshawar Lancers, a regiment guarding the Raj's northern borders, and becomes involved in political intrigue, chases, and exploration. The novel pays homage to and satirizes the styles of Rudyard Kipling and H. Rider Haggard, incorporating elements of colonialist attitude, cultism, and fantasy. Its legacy includes a related novella, Shikari in Galveston, set in the same background but several years earlier, published in the collection Worlds That Weren't.

Did You Know?

• The novel's point of divergence is a devastating meteor shower in 1878 that causes a three-year winter.
• The Angrezi Raj is divided into three main viceroyalties: India, the Cape, and Australia.
• The Russian Empire in the novel worships Chernobog and uses the Sisterhood of True Dreamers for prophecy.
• S. M. Stirling also wrote a novella, Shikari in Galveston, set in the same background and published in 2002.