Europe in Autumn

By: Dave Hutchinson

Narrated by: Graham Rowat

Rudi is a cook in a Krakow restaurant, but when his boss asks Rudi to help a cousin escape from the country he's trapped in, a new career - part spy, part people-smuggler - begins. Following multiple economic crises and a devastating flu pandemic, Europe has fractured into countless tiny nations, duchies, polities and republics. Recruited by the shadowy organisation Les Coureurs des Bois, Rudi is schooled in espionage, but when a training mission to The Line, a sovereign nation consisting of a trans-Europe railway line, goes wrong, he is arrested and beaten, and Coureur Central must attempt a rescue. With so many nations to work in, and identities to assume, Rudi is kept busy travelling across Europe. But when he is sent to smuggle someone out of Berlin and finds a severed head inside a locker instead, a conspiracy begins to wind itself around him. With kidnapping, double-crosses and a map that constantly re-draws itself, Europe in Autumn is a science fiction thriller like no other.©2014 Dave Hutchinson (P)2017 Recorded Books

Fragmentation politics

Dave Hutchinson’s Europe in Autumn is the first in his fractured Europe series. Following a devastating flu pandemic, Europe fragments into an ever-increasing number of tiny polities. This makes travel and any movement difficult and sometime treacherous. Rudi is a cook, but with an unusual pedigree that makes him ideal for smuggling and trafficking for a secretive society. What begins as a relatively benign activity gradually comes in contact with and even more secretive society with an agenda that places Rudy in danger.

Hutchinson fashions what may be perceived as an alternate, but dystopic history for Europe. He blends an espionage theme with a sci-fi / fantasy mashup reminiscent of Mieville’s The City and the City.

The narration is well done with understandable European accents. Pacing is smooth, but a tad on the slow side.

Strong Start, Weaker Finish

I wanted something that was a different flavor than the normal science fiction and fantasy that I typically read, and this book with its combination of science fiction and espionage seemed like a good deviation.

It starts off slow, but still interesting, but as others have mentioned, I reached a point about midway through the book where I seriously questioned whether there was actually an overarching, coherent plot.

Close to the very end of the book, what I'm guessing is the actual plot finally manifests, and to be honest, I did not care for it.

Obviously I won't spoil what happens there, but the plot development to me is so inconsistent with the overall setting of the book that it kind of threw me for a loop.

I love the narrator, but I won't be continuing on with the series. The writing is just to meandering for my tastes.

Almost. But not quite.

If only Mr Hutchinson we’re as clever as his mother supposed, then the novel’s premise might have matched its execution. Alas...reality intervened. This was a trite, wandering, morass of a novel executed semi-competently. An editor and some actual revision might have saved it.