Reviewed by Rich Horton at SF Site—The Home Page for Science Fiction and Fantasy

http://www.sfsite.com/04a/jf78.htm

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For those who may become disoriented, the following should help identify the places in this narrative with their corresponding locations in our own allegedly real world:

Fusang is roughly equivalent to California. (The term derives from an old Chinese story, and was often used in Gold Rush days.) "Kaafiristan," "Land of the Unbelievers," is both the general Arabic geographic expression for the North American mainland and, more strictly, the name of the region under actual or claimed Islamic rule—chiefly consisting of the lower Mississippi Valley and the Great Plains. At the time of this story (17th century) borders are still undetermined.

The cities of Dar al-Islam and Haiping occupy the sites of our New Orleans and San Francisco, respectively. The Great River is, of course, the Mississippi. The Long River is the Arkansas—the trading post would be somewhere in eastern Colorado—while the River of the South is the Rio Grande. The Peaku is the Pecos. Jezira al-Kebir is the island of Cuba.

The Indian pueblos mentioned are actual ones; Taos and Acoma in particular are still very much going concerns. The great pueblo of Cicuye was near present-day Pecos, New Mexico, where the ruins are still visible.

Most of the Indian tribes referred to should be readily identifiable. The Snakes are the Comanches—the term was current on the Plains well into the 19th century; "Comanchea" is a Ute pejorative. They should not be confused with the Shoshone Snakes who aided Lewis and Clark, though the two tribes were distant cousins.

You will be responsible for all this information on the final exam.

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Near the end of the Year of the Ox did Ogadai Khan fall sick, and it was feared he might not live; yet under the care of the Chinese physicians he at last recovered, and lived many years.

And in the Year of the Leopard did Batu Khan lead the Horde into the land of the Franks, which is called Europe. Great was the destruction and loud the weeping of the Frankish women; and when it was done, it was said that a blind man might ride a blind horse from Kiev to Granada without a stumble.

—from the Secret History of the Mongols,
author unknown

The departure of the Mongols, after little more than a century of occupation, brought no great surge of enlightenment to Europe; only a new Dark Age, darker than that which had followed the fall of Rome. And, even as the invaders withdrew, there came the Plague to further depopulate and demoralize the Christian world.

Thus Europe took no part in what I have called the Age of Discovery. Even as the Chinese and the Moors explored whole continents beyond the seas, Europe remained fragmented, backward, and racked by squalid petty warfare.

Some have speculated that, had the Mongols been turned back in time, history might have proceeded differently; that it might have been Venetians or Franks, or even Spaniards or Englishmen, who discovered and explored the New World. But of course such questions can never be answered…

—from A Short History of the World,
by Hamzah ibn-Rashid

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The Hilarious Cult Classic
in a "Directors Cut" Edition
including material cut from the original!

Meet Finn of No Fixed Abode—17th-century horse thief, dice mechanic, seducer, and flim-flam man extraordinaire—and journey with him through an alternate world in which the Mongols trashed Europe, leaving the Western Hemisphere to be opened up by the Arabs and Chinese. Meet Islamic Comanches, Apache mercenaries, a hang-gliding ninja, and a very crazy, very scary Cossack adventurer out to conquer the whole crazy-quilt New World—if Finn can't find a way to stop him.

"William Sanders' Journey to Fusang is a clever romp through maybes and might-have-beensópicaresque, witty, colorful. I like the way this man's mind works."

—Roger Zelazny

"I had a great time reading it, and unless you're obnoxiously serious about your literary forays, so will you."

—Orson Scott Card

"The most captivating SF adventure I have read in many a moon. And I have mooned quite a few."

—Algis Budrys

William Sanders is the author of sixteen published books. His short fiction has appeared in major SF and fantasy magazines and anthologies, and has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Hugo and Nebula. He won the 1998 Sidewise Award for Alternate History.