Civilizations

Very rare for me not to get on with a book and to abandon it halfway through, but this was the situation with Civilizations. I had very much enjoyed Binet's HHhH and Seventh Function, but this work was panned by the critics, and rightly so. It imagines a counterfactual where Columbus had failed to discover America and the Incans, followed by the Aztecs, instead come and conquer Europe. It's an intriguing concept, but Binet's execution borders on the tenuous and it was hard to feel much emotion towards the characters or even contemplate their believability. Maybe not being a fan of historical fiction didn't help either. Gave up on about page 150 (halfway).

By Laurent Binet