The Sept. 11 onrush and the Iraq warfare have spring through skill fiction and fantasy for over a decade , giving us plenty of fib of act of terrorism , wars of occupation and clashes of culture . But Matt Ruff ’s The Mirage , which comes out next week , might just be the ideal optical prism with which to refract your memories of that brutal decennium and see them anew . Plus it ’s an addictive , fascinating read , which keep you guessing .
In a nutshell , Ruff has found an exciting new whirl on the War on Terror and the Iraq War by creating a world where everything is turned upside down . The United Arab States is the public ’s only superpower , and Christian terrorists have flown two planes into the Tigris and Euphrates towers in Baghdad , trip an intrusion of America . But that ’s just the source of the foolishness . Spoilers forward …
Top image : Dan Pupek on Flickr .
really , I do n’t want to give away too much about the details of The Mirage — this is one of those ledger it ’s better to discover on your own . But in a nutshell , it ’s an upside - down world , where an Arab superpower invades a fragmented , powerless America , and Christians resort to terrorism to agitate back against the occupier . In this world , Osama bin Laden is an important senator , and Saddam Hussein is a mobster . And then , a Homeland Security military officer named Mustafa al Baghdad observe something uncanny — a copy of a newspaper called the New York Times that seem to come in from another creation .
At first , the conception vocalise a bit like Man in the High Castle — but instead of an alternative history , it ’s really a sort of mirror history , in which almost everything is reversed . ( There ’s even an alternative Wikipedia , move by a man named Wajid Jamil or else of Jimmy Wales . ) And through view everything back , but filtered through a lens of Islam , you start to get a newfangled vantage point about the real - life events that Ruff is writing about .
The best alternate chronicle really does crystallise something about the real history that it ’s tinker with . Whether it ’s Michael Chabon ’s alternate Jewish state in Yiddish Policemen ’s Union or Jacqueline Carey ’s weird Slutty Christianity in the Kushiel books , a great alternate chronicle is like a distorting mirror that evidence you truth that were antecedently shroud . And The Mirage is definitely no exception .
Part of what ’s fascinating about The Mirage is that it ’s by no means a simple reversal — you ca n’t simply turn over Baghdad into New York or Riyad into Washington DC . , nor does Ruff test to . Rather , he creates a plausible world in which Baghdad is a huge metropolis , including things like Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party as well as Shiite extremists who have their own private army . He creates a probably Arab humankind , but one in which constituent of the “ real ” United States are seeable . Meanwhile , when we visit the Green Zone in Washington DC , where the Arabs are absorb and essay to bestow democracy to the Americans , it ’s both a enchanting version of the substantial DC and a reflection of the real moving in in Iraq .
And because Ruff give us a mold of almost wholly Muslim characters , we get to see the story of a vindictive superpower assure from a Muslim point of view . Ruff seems to have done his preparation — although I ’d be interested to hear from actual Muslims how well he ’s actually done — at catch the subtleties of Islamic divinity , and transpose tangible - sprightliness schisms between Shiites and Sunnis into his made - up world . He shows a genuine regard for Islam , and his characters ’ struggles with their religious belief is a huge part of what makes the book so piquant .
About those characters — his main trio of heroes are majuscule characters in their own right , who pop the question us a windowpane into the workings of UAS society through their personal struggle . Mustafa al Baghdad is a good guy , a former bull , who tries to do the ripe thing and be a undecomposed Muslim but struggles with guilt feelings over his broken marriages . His good ally Samir is less god-fearing and harbors a huge secret . And then there ’s Amal , a rare female officer who has to deal with sexism and weirdness , plus a famous mother and some arcanum from her own past .
Of of course , with a Christian Bible like The Mirage , a huge part of the fun is looking for Easter egg — all the illustrious people from real life , who turn up in slenderly different manner . And all the unearthly bits of pa polish . Like when Samir is watching the 1950s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers , which star Omar Sharif in this reality , and then we discover :
The moving picture had been remade in color in the late seventies , with the Israeli worker Leonard Nimoy meet the part of the doomed imaum . The remaking had attracted controversy for its more explicit sexuality — which made the “ worldliness ” of the original Body Snatchers ’ pod people seem quaint — and also for its more pessimistic end . In the new Body Snatchers , the attempt to stop the invaders failed . The closing guesswork showed the imam ’s son marching in a gang , let out the characteristic shrieking of a fuel pod convert . The implication , that aliens could actually stamp down Islam — that God would allow that — attain a number of real - life imams and Arab chief as profane . There were calls to ban the film and demonstrations outside some theatre that showed it .
The book is full of weird touches like that , where bit of Western culture are reimagined through an Muslim lens , and bits of literal account are make over in a weird new direction , and it ’s a big part of what makes the book such a Sir Frederick Handley Page - turner .
Ruff has really become an assured narrator , too , turn Mustafa ’s probe of this eldritch alternate macrocosm in which the U.S. intrude on Iraq into a real detective story . Compared to the last Ruff book I take , Gas , Sewer & Electric , The Mirage feel like the work of a much more veteran writer , who develop his characters and story with care and builds the world and the event in it piece by firearm .
The Mirage is a book you ’re in all probability going to be hearing a muckle about — I ’ve been project some of the tastemakers on Twitter buzzing about it for months — and it ’s a book of account that it ’s light to obsess over . Best to pick this one up before everyone else is already having intense conversations about all its slight quirks , and all the stuff it reveals about our real - life battle with terrorism and strange occupations .
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