The Steel Tsar is a sci-fi/alternate history novel by Michael Moorcock

Michael Moorcock

Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....

, first published in 1981 by Granada. Being a sequel to Warlord of the Air

Warlord of the Air

The Warlord of the Air is a 1971 British alternate history science fiction novel written by Michael Moorcock. It concerns the adventures of Oswald Bastable, an Edwardian-era soldier stationed in India, and his adventures in an alternate universe wherein the First World War never happened...

(1971) and The Land Leviathan

The Land Leviathan

The Land Leviathan is a sci-fi/alternate history novel by Michael Moorcock, first published in 1974. Originally subtitled A New Scientific Romance, it has been seen as an early steampunk novel, dealing with an alternative British Imperial history dominated by airships and futuristic warfare. It is...

(1974), it is the final part of Moorcock's A Nomad of the Time Streams

A Nomad of the Time Streams

A Nomad of the Time Streams is a compilation volume of Michael Moorcock's influential early steampunk trilogy which Moorcock began in 1971 with The Warlord of the Air and was continued by its 1974 and 1981 sequels, The Land Leviathan and The Steel Tsar. The trilogy follows the adventures of...

trilogy regarding the adventures of Cpt. Oswald Bastable and which has been seen as an early example of steampunk

Steampunk

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...

 fiction.

Plot summary

In a story introduced by the ubiquitous Una Persson (who is also found in other works by Moorcock), the trilogy's hero, Cpt. Oswald Bastable, finds himself in an alternative twentieth century in which the Great War never happened. Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 became allies instead, as France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 declined, in a world menaced by Japanese Imperialism. Oswald joins the Russian Imperial Airship

Airship

An airship or dirigible is a type of aerostat or "lighter-than-air aircraft" that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust mechanisms...

 Navy and is imprisoned by the rebel Dugashvili, the 'Steel Tsar' of the title who is known to the real world as Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

. He also encounters the anarchist Nestor Makhno

Nestor Makhno

Nestor Ivanovych Makhno or simply Daddy Makhno was a Ukrainian anarcho-communist guerrilla leader turned army commander who led an independent anarchist army in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War....

 and his Black Army.

Themes

While imperialism

Imperialism

Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...

 and racism

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 in nineteenth century "heroic" fiction were deconstructed in its predecessors, the final book of the trilogy deals with the benefits of socialism

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

 and anarchism

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

 in a third alternate twentieth century where there were no effective social democratic parties in Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

 and Australasia

Australasia

Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...

, as in our world.