Tomorrow Knight
Reviewed date: 2025 Apr 7
Rating: 2
156 pages
My verdict
Tomorrow Knight is not a satisfactory story. It's a setting and a series of events. It feels like the prelude to a story. It's got four characters who could presumably be interesting in the sequels, if this were an origin story for a series and not a stand-alone novel.
Still, it's got some great scenes and I enjoyed reading it.
Holy Crusade
Lance Corporal Carl Frederic Allan is a member of His Most Imperial Majesty's Holy Crusade, fighting the Horde of Allah. He really is. But this crusade is one small part of an entire planet of people devoted to ritualistically reenacting scenes from history. That brings to mind the Frames from The Probability Man and Planet Probability by Brian N. Ball, although in Tomorrow Knight the performance is for the benefit of alien watchers called Guests, not for the enjoyment of the performers themselves.
Alyssaunde
Carl fights the Saracens, takes a black Knight prisoner, rescues King Hiram VI from six black Knights, and passes out. After the battle he meets a Guest: a human girl in a flitterboat, who introduces herself as Alyssaunde. Later, back at Bivouac Area Charlie, Hiram VI promotes Carl to knight-brevet for his heroism in battle.
Nighttime raid
Unusual flitterboat activity alerts Carl to a Saracen nighttime surprise attack. He awakens the troops but there is no time to organize a defense, just time to run into the forest and hope to live. Carl is wounded. Alyssaunde rescues him and bandages his wounds. She explains a little about his world: Earth is divided into twelve areas, and each area is divided into sectors. Carl’s area, which contains the Holy Crusade and the Horde of Allah, is Area One Sector Seven. Bivouac Charlie is at grid coordinates A-stroke-nine. Altogether, 01:07:A/9.
Different O'Malley and Chester A. Arthur
Carl and Alyssaunde are kidnapped by a couple of renegades, Different O’Malley and Chester A. Arthur. The two renegades force Alyssaunde to fly the flitterboat beyond the sectors to the Outland. Along the way, they explain to Carl about the Earth’s setup. It’s one big amusement destination for alien Guests. People like Carl are the entertainment. A small ruling class called the fives, of which Alyssaunde is a member, run the planet. Alyssaunde objects that she too is a prisoner of her position: as a woman she’s expected to look pretty. The man have all the power.
When they arrive in the Outland they are immediately captured by Inspectors who have been trailing the flitterboat. Alyssaunde is whisked away to her father, and Carl is arrested for the crime of leaving his sector.
Devil’s Island
Carl, O'Malley, and Arthur are sent to Devil’s island as prisoners. Arthur reveals to Carl that they are not on Earth. For one thing, Earth has a single moon; this planet has two. The three determine to escape not just their island prison, not just the historical reenactment sectors, but the whole planet. And furthermore, to find the real Earth, which is their heritage as human beings.
Confederacy
The three awake one morning to see prisoners from Devil’s Island being shackled and painted black. They are destined for Atlanta to be sold as slaves in the old Confederacy sector. The three clobber the Confederate soldiers assigned to accompany the prisoners, don their uniforms, and take their place. Once in “Atlanta” they get caught up in a slave revolt—apparently great amusement for the watching Guests. They are saved in the nick of time by the Confederate army. Then they slink away, taking a train to escape to the neighboring sector.
In one of my favorite exchanges of the whole book, Carl and Chester have this conversation in the aftermath of the slave rebellion:
"If the Guests knew about it in advance," Carl said, "then it must have been instigated from outside."
"That's right," Chester agreed. "It's authentic history, there were slave revolts; and it's a good show. The Guests eat things like that up."
"Hundreds of people will get killed," Carl said, "on both sides."
"Probably," Chester agreed.
"We could have been on either side," Carl said. "We could just as easily have ended up as slaves as disguised soldiers."
"Easily," Chester said.
"The slaves don't have a chance," Carl said, "and it's not even their own revolt. There's something wrong with that."
"I'm convinced," Chester said.
"But what can we do?" Carl asked.
"Get off this planet," Chester said. "Find Earth—the real Earth. See if they know what's happening here."
"Perhaps they don't care," Carl said.
"Perhaps they merely don't know," Chester said. "Perhaps we can find somebody who does care. Besides, we can't stay here."
"What a strange thing that is," Carl commented.
"What's that?"
"To look at a whole planet and say, 'We can't stay here.' And, I suppose, to have somewhere else to go."
Spies, spies, criminals, fugitives-at-large
Later they are mistaken for Union spies and nearly hanged, but escape across the barrier to the next sector (WWII France) where they are captured by the Maquis and nearly executed as Nazi spies.
They’re arrested by Inspectors and taken to see the Governor-General. Alyssaunde (who is his daughter, naturally) rescues them, and the foursome steals a spaceship (the Governor-General’s, naturally, and Alyssaunde is a trained pilot, naturally) and head for the real Earth.
The end
Abruptly the book ends.
I wonder if there was supposed to be a sequel. This story is unfinished.