After part of Europe is transformed into a wild and deadly jungle, a group of explorers travels up the river in search of new lands, unaware that a much larger battle is underway at the end of the universe.

The new lands and creatures were interesting, especially the deadly insects that created round nests that needed to be circumvented. Unfortunately, it grew stale quickly, and the journey up the river became one of biding time for nothing to happen. A couple of quick ambushes, a war and the discovery of a hidden city spice things up for a few pages, but are rarely used to their potential. I perked up when we diverted to an ancient alien archive at the end of time, but the rationale for not focusing on this seems to be that we can’t understand anyway, though the alternate Guilford seemed to know what was going on. The side characters who represented the bad gods were a welcome change until I realized they also weren’t going anywhere. The end of the book was a let-down, reducing a galactic war to a few bullet shots, to let the gods do the rest, unseen. Aside from a few good passages of strangeness, I can’t recommend the book.

I first saw this book as part of the Science Fiction Book Club decades ago, and put it on my list to borrow from the library, but never did. The cover is beautiful, and I imagine the book club description made it seem like a very interesting book, otherwise I’m not sure how I could have thought this was worth reading. The book is in the style of 1632, where an unexplained phenomenon changes the world, and people have to deal with it. In this case, another world is transported to Earth, replacing Europe. It’s called the Miracle, and drives a new wave of religious zealousness, just when science was taking hold of the world.

After the opening pages, the book fast forwards by a decade, to 1920. Nobody has fought in a world war, many people who would have died haven’t. Guilford Law is one of those people who would have been a soldier in the trenches. Instead, he’s a photographer and is selected to join a Smithsonian excursion to the mainland of Europe to explore and document the alien wildlife.

Unfortunately, the Miracle created a lot of strife. Britains decided to recreate the British Isles, and start building London again as it was in 1912. Other nationalities become predators, Patriots who don’t stand for people trespassing on their old nations. For some unstated reason, Japan is ready for war against the US, while the US is trying to impose Darwinia as a free land for everyone, without nations.

The expedition is doomed from the start. The scientists were peculiar, but most don’t last long enough to make an impression. One falls overboard and dies, their camp is attacked, and other men go crazy. In the end, only Guilford and Tom Compton survive, but they are a long way from home. They come across a strange city, where they wait out the winter, and explore a strange building, but are drawn away from it when they are attacked by strange people who heal quickly when shot.

The journey up the river was mildly interesting, as we got to see a lot of different kinds of life, especially the highly territorial insects, which could strip a man to the bones in seconds. But the trip got boring very quickly, and after a couple of chapters, there was nothing new. The alien city fortunately offered up a different exploration phase, but that too got old fast, especially when somebody is injured and they have to wait it out.

Guilford brought his wife and daughter to London to stay with her uncle. We don’t learn a lot about this new London, and only that Caroline has an affair with a man who is smuggling guns to the Patriots, after she thinks Guilford is killed. She eavesdrops on her uncle, to the undercurrents of war, which keeps Lilly awake at night. Her story wasn’t very interesting, even when the Americans strike first, war breaks out, and London is burned to the ground. She moves to Australia with her new boyfriend, and disappears from the story. Hers is not an interesting part of the book, and I think she’s only here to introduce Lilly.

Back in the US, there is a side story featuring Elias Vale, who can summon the dead, or so it seems. It’s never clear if he’s actually doing that, or if the alien god is making it up. Because he’s possessed by a creature who wants to disrupt the world. Elias calls it a god, and it’s essentially so advanced that it could be. Elias goes from person to person, working his way up the social ladder to the government committees populated by the vulnerable. The goal is to create war, and to stop as much as possible the exploration and exploitation of Darwinia. I was fascinated by the possession storyline, until it also got boring.

I had so much trouble getting into this story, that every new character had the potential to give it new life. Unfortunately, that new life barely lasted more than a couple of pages before it also fizzled. Se at the end of part 1, when we took an interlude to a galactic archive that contains the knowledge and wisdom of many galaxies, and can communicate across the universe, I perked up and became very interested.

Unfortunately, that story also grew stale after a short time. If I figured it out, because it was convoluted, the archive was corrupted by a chaotic AI, which started rewriting some of the history the archive had corrected. Souls of humans and aliens were fighting this AI, including the version of Guilford who died in the trenches of World War I. Apparently the story of Earth that exists is playing out in the archive, because the sun died billions of years ago already. The land of Darwinia was caused by a glitch when the AI rewrote some of Earth’s history, presumably transferring Europe somewhere else in the universe, or maybe not. There seems to be life on Mars now, too, as the planet is turning green over the years of this story. It’s almost like setup for a sequel as Guilford watches it ominously in the last pages, but I don’t think that materialized.

The battle between Guilford and Tom and their companions, possessed by the archive gods, against Elias and others possessed by the AI gods is for the future of the archive, and the truth of history as it was recorded. While the fortress in Darwinia is secured, the battle continues. The whole thing feels disjointed, and unfortunately very difficult and slow to read.