Review: Justin Wise

Paul Toplis, Justin Wise (Kindle 2020)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54841408-justin-wise?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=e8FSALD1X5&rank=2

A funny, alternate history of just about everything, and crazy ancient technology changes the world

Sports minister Peter Cole arrogantly gets people’s names wrong. His garrulous driver Reg continually shows him up as a prat. Justin Edward Wise, known to his friends as Eddy, knocks on the sports minister’s car window. He’s 47 years old, yet he can beat any world record either running or swimming.
His family and friends watch, astounded, as he wins 16 Olympic gold medals. As it happens, his freakish prowess was magically acquired when he went back in time (actually, mentally accessed his ancestral memory), and learned secret skills from the Druids.
As we all know, the Druids didn’t leave any written documents, but it turns out the Druids did record information, which Eddy still remembers how to read. Yes, Virginia, the Druids did possess the secret to perpetual motion, and other fabulous stuff. Eddy, his wife and his three friends plot to replace automobile engines with a device that can run for six months at a cost of a few quid.
Justin Wise goes on to do astounding things, change the world, even, all using skills he learned from the Druids.
Right from the first paragraph, the story starts out humorously. Not funny haha, but a quirky, kind of old-fashioned humour, which I loved.
A good portion of the text is devoted to recounting the history of the Druids, details of Eddy’s sports games, the recording dynamics of his music, the mechanics of the perpetual motion motor, the manufacturing process and the financial arrangements of Eddy’s new company. These bits leave behind some of the humour, but in its place are quite informative.
This does mean that large chunks of the book are devoted to info-dump, not leaving a lot of room for action or character development, but it’s great fun. My disbelief was thoroughly suspended. I cannot say the same for Justin’s political programme, which naively assumes that the British and US states are the world’s good guys and the Chinese are the baddies. Dirt is also dished on Julius Caesar, Nazi gold thieves and other baddies of history.
What’s really fun is the (pseudo) historic/scientific explanations for miraculous elements in Celtic mythology, Lemuria and Atlantis, Stonehenge, the ancient library of Sais, the Giza pyramids and their F-sharp resonance, Boudicca and Anna of Arimathea, the Trojan War, King Solomon and his cedar trees, ancient civilisations lying under the Antarctic ice, genealogy and John of Gaunt, and the tale of a prehistoric war between moon-worshippers and sun-worshippers—both sides possessing atomic bombs. The explanation for what caused the destruction of Atlantis is particularly innovative.
A great read, particularly if you’re a fan of alternate history.