Europe in Autumn

The Fractured Europe Sequence #1

by Dave Hutchinson

Europe as we know it is gone.

Devastated by a flu pandemic and crippled by economic collapse, the continent has fractured into countless tiny nations, a fragile web of shifting alliances seething with espionage and strange new technologies.

In a small restaurant in Krakow, chef Rudi is drawn into a new career with Les Coureurs des Bois, a shadowy organisation that will move anything across any state line – for a price.

Soon, Rudi is in a world of high-risk smuggling operations, where kidnappings and double-crosses are as natural as a map that constantly redraws itself.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Thriller, Fantasy, Espionage, Mystery, Dystopia

255 pages, ebook

First published January 27, 2014

About the author

UK writer who published four volumes of stories by the age of twenty-one – Thumbprints, which is mostly fantasy, Fools' Gold, Torn Air and The Paradise Equation, all as David Hutchinson – and then moved into journalism. The deftness and quiet humaneness of his work was better than precocious, though the deracinatedness of the worlds depicted in the later stories may have derived in part from the author's apparent isolation from normal publishing channels.

After a decade of nonfiction, Hutchinson returned to the field as Dave Hutchinson, assembling later work in As the Crow Flies; tales like "The Pavement Artist" use sf devices to represent, far more fully than in his early work, a sense of the world as inherently and tragically not a platform for Transcendence. His first novel, The Villages, is Fantasy; The Push, an sf tale set in the Human Space sector of the home galaxy, describes the inception of Faster Than Light travel and some consequent complications when expanding humanity settles on a planet full of Alien life. Europe in Autumn (2014), an sf thriller involving espionage, takes place in a highly fragmented and still fragmenting Near-Future Europe, one of whose sovereign mini-nations is a transcontinental railway line; over the course of the central plot – which seems to reflect some aspects of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 – the protagonist becomes involved in the Paranoia-inducing Les Coureurs des Bois, a mysterious postal service which also delivers humans across innumerable borders.

- See more at: http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hutc...

Works
* The Villages (Holicong, Pennsylvania: Cosmos Books, 2001)
* Europe in Autumn (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Rebellion/Solaris, 2014)

Collections and Stories
* Thumbprints (London: Abelard, 1978)
* Fools' Gold (London: Abelard, 1978)
* Torn Air (London: Abelard, 1980)
* The Paradise Equation (London: Abelard, 1981)
* As the Crow Flies (Wigan, Lancashire: BeWrite Books, 2004)
* The Push (Alconbury Weston, Cambridgeshire: NewCon Press, 2009)

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

JUNE 2021 NEWS The Fractured Europe Sequence will be on your TV before too terribly long! I'm so delighted for Dave and grateful for the Peak-TV age.

Rating: 4.5* enthralled stars

The Publisher Says: Europe in Autumn is a thriller of espionage and the future which reads like the love child of John le Carre and Franz Kafka.

Rudi is a cook in a Krakow restaurant, but when his boss asks Rudi to help a cousin escape from the country he's trapped in, a new career - part spy, part people-smuggler - begins.

Following multiple economic crises and a devastating flu pandemic, Europe has fractured into countless tiny nations, duchies, polities and republics. Recruited by the shadowy organisation Les Coureurs des Bois, Rudi is schooled in espionage, but when a training mission to The Line, a sovereign nation consisting of a trans-Europe railway line, goes wrong, he is arrested, beaten and Coureur Central must attempt a rescue.

With so many nations to work in, and identities to assume, Rudi is kept busy travelling across Europe. But when he is sent to smuggle someone out of Berlin and finds a severed head inside a locker instead, a conspiracy begins to wind itself around him.

With kidnapping, double-crosses and a map that constantly re-draws, Rudi begins to realise that underneath his daily round of plot and counter plot, behind the conflicting territories, another entirely different reality might be pulling the strings...

My Review: If book 2 is out, I'm orderin' it for myself for Xmas.

This isn't a uniformly kinetic book. The characters, by whatever names their current legends require, (oh, and "legend" here is a term of art) are shown thinking, strategizing, reflecting on their world and its insanities as much as they're shown whizzing around with cool spy stuff and lots of ways to blow people up and steal their money.

My favorite piece of spyware in the book is a towel that rolls out into a computer. WANT. NOW.

Rudi, by various names, does many reprehensible things and feels...remorse is too strong...as if he's failed when he has to resort to reprehensibility to get what he's been sent after. He meets and re-meets many folks from his pasts. He is a darn good, fun hero-on-the-border-of-antihero-ness, and I want to see him in book 2, Europe at Midnight.

And now I'm going to do something really, really mean: At the end of the book, Rudi makes a complete worldview-changing discovery that is, at least for me, unexpected to the point of jaw-dropping. It makes some oddly rough, even poorly fitting, facts make absolute sense.

I really, really liked this book. I hope there's no let-down coming!

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shift ahead a few years and a slightly less populated world, drop in a fascinating collection of european characters from Poland, Hungary, Germany, England, and much more, and give us the origin story of Rudi, the cook turned Courier, sold a bill of sale about countries without borders, give him the basics of spycraft, and lie, lie, and lie some more.

And that's just the beginning.

This is a rather deep and detailed look at parts of the world I have little experience in, even though I'm a fan of spy movies, obscure horrors, and thrillers of all types. By all rights, I might have had a harder time with this novel, but I was very fortunate. I really like Rudi. The kid was really put through the wringer. Where he goes when he decides to take his destiny in his own hands is where the novel gets really interesting.

I did have some issues with how the narrative started looking at Rudi from the outside or as a stranger, with short Vignettes, but when each of those outside PoV's started tying together into a very incomplete, but still extremely interesting picture of a grand conspiracy of polities and information assets going after a goal that is still unclear, I still don't mind.

I should. I really ought to mind, especially since the novel doesn't get tied up with bow at the end, but the picture, the map I'm forced to draw of the situation, happens to be very revealing and satisfying, even if it doesn't fit the standard structure for novelizations. It's obviously just the beginning of a series, but it gave enough payoff to the reader, enough meat, and real food for thought, that it still *felt* like a good ending.

Isn't that odd? Some sort of magic happened, here.

There are some good techo-geekery going on in the novel, but it's generally sparse and always in the service to the tale, never the other way around. No macguffins. The focus is all on people, and what can I say? I appreciate it. The other stuff is too obvious and too cliché. This is a return to the roots of the spy novel, and it really sucked me in. :)

I'm looking forward to reading the next in the series. :)

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a future post-EU Europe that's been busily fracturing into small states a young man is inducted into the Les Coureurs des Bois, effectively a non-state actor espionage organization.

The book covers how Rudi, an Estonian chef initially living in Poland, gets recruited and trained by the Coureurs. Then we get several disparate looks into what life as a Coureur is like; basically tradecraft, paranoia, moments of desperation and barely finite amounts of preparation with tantalizing glimpses of the top end of 21st century technology. Eventually the story emerges from just straight futurist stuff to an actual science fictional plot, but it feels a bit tacked on.

As a piece of futurist work, looking at the sort of political and social pressures that would arise in a post-EU Europe I found this to be at least interesting if not entirely relevant to someone living on the other side of the globe. The author's opinions in regards to the state-building actors are fascinating, with groups as wide-ranging as soccer hooligans and national park rangers wanting to form their own polities. The push for a non-state actor espionage group to allow free movement across the myriad new borders is also an interesting and perhaps inevitable idea as well.

In terms of what's really going on, it all comes very late in the piece, and there's some very frustrating loose ends. Why Rudi? Who exactly are the actors here? There's clearly a huge amount going on behind the scenes, but we get almost no backstory for it or much idea what their motivations are in doing what they're doing. It's all a very unsatisfying shadow play.

A friend who was buddy reading it with me made the observation that throughout the book things just happen and you just have to accept it. Unfortunately, even when Rudi does begin to get proactive instead of reactive, the slices of his life we see still make the action of the book appear to "just happen".

I liked this well enough to want to read the next book. Hopefully there are some of the answers I wanted out of this book in that one.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would you take an international flight that only made it 75% of the way to your destination?

Would you buy a set of headphones that played 75% of your favourite songs in perfect, concert-like fidelity, but filled the final quarter of each with a scratchy Nickleback/Hootie and the Blowfish medley?

The reason I ask is because this book is 75% brilliant.

And I mean brilliant. It freaking shines. It’s so good, that I was recommending it friends while I was forty pages in - forty pages!!!!! I never recommend a book so early on – that’s how strongly this novel starts. I was thinking about it lying in bed, thinking about it at work, and desperate for my day to finish so I could get home and get me some more sweet Europe in Autumn action.

Yep, that first three quarters is killer.

The future setting of Europe in Autumn is no longer the Europe of the Schengen zone, the borderless place of frictionless transit we know today. This future Europe has atomised - the EU is now only a rump of itself while the rest of the continent a crazed map of fractured polities and micro-states, each with its own borders, its own rivalries, its own hatreds.

The story begins in a Krakow restaurant. Rudi is an Estonian chef working in Poland, making steak tartar and trying to make a living. A group of toughs come in to Rudi’s restaurant one night. Massive, broad shouldered men with full shoulder holsters, a team of Hungarian gangsters looking for good food and drink, and the respect due to hard men of violence.

Rudi and his boss calmly handle these men, and Rudi catches the eye of the local Mafioso, who recruits him to join an international organisation of ‘Coureurs’ - a shady underworld of people who take packages, messages, even other people, across the myriad borders that have sprung up around Europe. His employers are half criminals, half borderless-world idealists, committed to making sure their cargo gets through, no matter what it is.

Dave Hutchinson writes damn well, and brings Poland to life – the streets of Krakow, the restaurants and lanes of Warsaw, even the life of an itinerant chef, working like a slave around Europe’s restaurants. It feels like Hutchinson knows the Poles and their nation well, and as a friend of several Poles I felt I gained greater insight into their people from reading this novel.

Europe In Autumn also contains some of the coolest spy/espionage sequences I’ve read. Just the description of how Rudi gets a passport from a forger is a stunning journey through the art of document falsification, and had me reading segments aloud to my long-suffering partner.

Hutchinson’s detailing of the ways that the coureurs build their ‘legends’ - fake personas and identities they use on their deliveries - is also fricking awesome. He manages to make the behind-the-scenes dogsbody work of creating fake people almost as cool as the smuggling itself.

I totally bought it, and I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.

And then…. BAM! With no warning the narrative flips from super-cool futuristic spy thriller to, well, something I would call magical realism.

It’s the reading equivalent of a sudden shot to the testicles/gut/jaw (take your pick), delivered with all the subtlety of an angry clown wearing a neon pink shirt emblazoned with the words ‘plot pivot’.

I was totally blindsided. One minute I was flying through the narrative, eating up Rudi’s story, the next I was bogged up to my thighs in a slow story-within-a-story that had clumsily been jimmied into the narrative as part of a code the main character needed to crack.

I plodded on, expecting to get back to the very cool espionage-ing, only to find that this clunky story snippet was the key to the rest of the novel. You see, apparently there’s an alternative dimension, and… ahh, screw it. I’m not going to spoil it here, just in case it works for you. For me it was pretty lame, and I didn’t buy it.

As you can imagine, after such a strong start, my disappointment was weapons grade. All the anticipation I’d built up, all the amazing world building and character work done in the first ¾ of the novel – all of it was laid waste.

If this was American Airlines A893, non-stop Sydney to Paris, we would be terminating in Tehran.

Whether that is enough for you, whether an amazing journey full of color and excitement prior to a literary ditching in the sea miles from where you thought you were headed is OK, will depend on how much you love that first seventy-five percent.

For me, I loved the first three-quarters, so despite my disappointment I still dig this novel, and I think it’s well worth you giving it a chance.

Three point five international men of mystery out of five.

[Catherine Edmunds · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know those people who won’t read science fiction because they think it’s all overblown space opera and little green men? They’re wrong. This is the book that will prove to them once and for all that they’re wrong. I’m a sci-fi nut, and even I had to admit to having doubts as to whether the ‘science fiction’ label on the back was appropriate for what appeared to be a spy-thriller, albeit an exceptionally literary one, but by the time I realised it was correct, I had reached the end and genre was irrelevant. What mattered was that I didn’t want the book to end, and was furious when it did. There needs to be a sequel, and quickly.

Le Carré is referenced within the text, and quite rightly. I haven’t read his books for a long time, but I used to devour them and felt on home ground with this novel as a result – but Le Carré never wrote anything quite like this.

The story is told from the point of view of Estonian chef Rudi who is recruited, not as a spy, but into the equally secretive ‘Les Coureurs des Bois’, an organisation that transports ‘packages’ – which could be anything from messages in one form or another to actual people – across borders. Europe at this point is full of borders, more and more of them appearing all the time as countries break up into smaller states and ‘polities’, making international communication increasingly difficult.

The story is told in a series of episodes, with links and hints and a fabulously rich texture that means it begs to be re-read the moment you finish. After just two back-to-back readings, I’m dying to get back into it to pick up some of the deeper layers which I’m sure I’ve missed.

Depth, richness – makes it sound like a heavy read, but it isn’t remotely. It’s a hugely entertaining, and hilariously funny read in places. The description of the bed and the slippers after the ‘rescue’ must be one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time.

If you fancy reading a long and erudite examination of many of the issues in the book, then I suggest you pop over to Paper Knife, here http://paperknife.wordpress.com/2014/..., and read what Maureen K Speller has to say, because she really gets it – but read the novel first.

If you love by maps, read this novel.

If you love John le Carré and wish someone was still writing gritty, realistic spy thrillers, then read this novel, and be transported back into that world, but with additional and often surprising layers.

If you’re coming from the other direction genre-wise, perhaps you love Boris and Arkady Strugatsky’s writing and wish someone else was writing gritty, realistic sci-fi, then read this novel – and then beg Dave Hutchinson to get the sequel published, because this took me back to that feeling I remember from years ago having finished the first book of Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy and knowing I simply had to read the next – nothing else mattered.

[Rachel (Kalanadi) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my, YES. Spy thriller sci fi!! Loved this, and the final quarter had me glued to my seat with excitement. On to book 2 right away!

[Andreas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got interested in "Europe in Autumn" when I saw it shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2015. Looking back at the other years it's safe to say that from now on I will ignore the award.

The story: In the near future Europe has fallen apart into many small countries and polities. Post offices don't work reliably across borders so couriers take over the job to deliver packages, which could be anything. Rudi is trained as such a courier and the reader follows him on his missions.

I immensely enjoyed the setting and the characters. I grew up at the Baltic Sea myself and know about the different ethnic groups, their history, oddities and animosities. It's very refreshing and quite different from the typical anglo-american scenarios.

The plot itself didn't grab me that much and the whole time I hoped something big is going to happen on the next pages. The characters held my interest so I kept on reading and had a good time.

Towards the end finally a twist is introduced and unfortunately at this point the book started to annoy me. The idea isn't bad but the presentation in form of a long info-dump first slowed down the pace followed by a rushed end. I was bedazzled and dumbfounded.

Other reviewers have pointed out that the different parts felt like loosely connected stories. This is exactly the problem I had with the book. Wasn't it possible to make it tighter and throw out stuff that wasn't needed in the novel? For instance, at the beginning of later chapters the author had the tendency to introduce a new character, spending some pages and then to return to the "main event". In a serial this would work but not in a novel. Why investing time and emotions into something that is only a mini subplot?

It's a shame that the book is so shallow and has nothing to say. The atmosphere is wonderful and I loved the characters but I am afraid that nothing will stick with me.

[Calzean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unusual book. It's a bit of a spy thriller set in the future, with a small touch of scifi and towards the end a fair bit of fantasy.
Terribly well written with a bit of humour and parodies of various European cultures, the first quarter of the book explains a near future where the Europe Union has collapsed and many small nation-states have risen from the ashes. The hero is Rudi a chef who is invited to join a shadowy organisation that move documents (and sometimes people and money) across the many various patrolled borders. His missions become steadily move difficult and dangerous. Rudi tries to figure out why certain things are going wrong and what big secret seems to be behind various murders and double crosses he is involved in.
Half way through the book I was waning. Then it picked up and the ending is a bit weird with fantasy being used to stitch up the storyline and open up book 2 in the series.

[Ian Mond · Rating 5 out of 5]

When it comes to genre fiction, it’s the little things I appreciate. A novel not overburdened by exposition, a novel where the dialogue sounds vaguely human, a novel where there’s a sense of pacing and momentum to the story. You know, the basic components of a half decent piece of literature.

Dave Hutchinson gets the little things right. More than that, Europe in Autumn is a veritable masterclass in plot, dialogue, pacing and world-building. And as such it’s up there with novels like Annihilation and The Race as the best written science fiction novel for 2014.

First off, there’s the world building. Hutchinson does not start the novel with a block of text explaining how his book is set in a near future Europe where economic failures and the odd plague has seen the continent fracture into hundreds of sovereign states and principalities. No, he begins his novel in a restaurant where the head chef, Rudi, encounters a bunch of mean looking Hungarians. It’s a tense little moment which doesn’t end in the overblown action scene you expect it to, but instead has the mean looking Hungarians praising Rudi on his food. “Clever fuck Pole,” says one of the Hungarians.

It’s odd to read a science fiction novel where the author holds back the urge to vomit out a stream of world building and plot set-up. Rudi’s life is about to change dramatically but it has little to do with him being a chef or the opinions of Hungarians. And yet that scene does create a sense of tension, a sense that this time and place is not entirely safe.

There is exposition, but Hutchinson delivers it to the reader in dribs and drabs, such as —

Xian Flu had brought back quarantine checks and national borders as a means of controlling the spread of the disease; it had killed, depending on whose figures you believed, somewhere between twenty and forty million people in Europe alone.

— and —

[Darius] picked up his glass and took a sip of vodka. “I saw on the news last week that so far this year twelve new nations and sovereign states have come into being in Europe alone.”

— and —

The [European] Union had struggled into the twenty-first century and managed to survive in some style for a few more years of bitching and infighting and cronyism. Then it had spontaneously begun to throw off progressively smaller and crazier nation-states, like a sunburned holidaymaker shedding curls of skin. Nobody really understood why this had happened. What was unexpected was that the Union had continued to flake away, bit by bit, even after the Xian Flu. Officially, it still existed, but it existed in scattered bits and pieces, like Burger King franchises, mainly in England and Poland and Spain and Belgium, and it spent most of its time making loud noises in the United Nations.

And this approach to exposition remains consistent throughout the novel. For the most part it’s employed as flavour text, data-points that add depth to the near future Europe he’s envisaged. Even when Hutchinson decides to take the opportunity to provide more background to his characters, such as the section where we hilariously learn why Rudi became a chef, these episodes stem naturally from the story.

The dialogue also plays a significant role in carrying the plot and developing the world. I acknowledge what constitutes good banter is a very subjective thing. In my review of Jim Butcher’s novel, Skin Game, I found Harry’s dialogue to be smug and filled with unnecessary pop culture references. I might have blamed Joss Whedon. And yet the internet is crammed with people who eat up that sort of self-aware witty banter with a knife, a fork and their best china.

Hutchinson’s dialogue and his prose in general has a sardonic and deliberately noir-ish quality. There’s a self awareness to what’s said, but one that’s more about the character’s internal psychology than any attempt on the part of the author to show off his post moderns chops. Hutchinson mostly leaves the dialogue alone. He doesn’t punctuate it with descriptions about how the character is feeling or his motivation in the scene. For example this exchange between Rudi and Fabio – the guy who is meant to be mentoring Rudi in the art of couriering packages across borders – is not only funny, but provides insight into their relationship:

“I hate chefs,” said Fabio, stuffing himself with [food].
[Rudi:] “I know.”
“Twitchy little prima-donnas.” Fabio tapped the table with the handle of his knife. “Any half-intelligent person can follow the directions in a cookbook and produce food at least as good as this.”
“But could they do it night after night for a restaurant with seventy tables?”
Fabio sipped his wine. “It’s all in the planning, right? Any fool can do it […] This wine is really good. What is it?”
Rudi consulted the menu. “House red.”
“Really? You should talk to the staff, you know, one catering worker to another. Maybe you can score us a couple of bottles to take back with us. It’s better than that piss you serve me.”

And then there’s the plot. I haven’t really described Europe in Autumn because it’s the mechanics that impressed me. But I don’t want that leaving you with the idea that this is a professionally written book with zero substance. While the novel might start inauspiciously in a restaurant, Hutchinson slowly and intentionally ups the ante. Rudi goes from his work as a chef to becoming a courier for a shady organisation and you think the novel is going to be about that organisation and the sort of low-level espionage Rudi does for them. Throughout all this, issues of geography and cartography bubble under the surface. No surprises there, in a Europe that’s flaking “like a sunburned holidaymaker” the idea of making a map – even a digital one – would be viewed as a nightmare.

Late into the novel we’re told the story of Captain Charles John Whitton-Whyte, his survey of the British Isles in the 18th Century and his obsession with Stanhurst, a small village that never existed. This slice of history, conveyed to us via an article exploring Whitton-Whyte’s cartographical obsession, has an almost fairytale quality. Suddenly, a novel about a chef who becomes a courier and find himself on the run from a shadowy organisation out to kill him takes on a distinctly Borges feel. And what’s brilliant about this, is that this glimpse into another reality – a place that doesn’t exist in our world, but does exist somewhere else – works seamlessly into the novel given that this is a book that’s all about shifting boundaries.

I could say more about how smart this novel is. I could mention how the second half of the book is essentially a bunch of linked short stories where Rudi features but is not the point of view character. And how this sudden shift in focus widens our understanding of Hutchinson’s Europe and the shifting boundaries and realities simmering underneath, without upsetting the narrative flow of the novel. I could also note the political implications inherent in a book where borders are frequently changing and independence is a fragile thing. Instead, I’ll leave you with the clear statement that Europe In Autumn is a remarkable science fiction novel from a writer who deserves all the critical praise he’s been receiving.

[Robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 that I am rounding up. The first half had me questioning all the attention paid to the series; the second answered it. Looking forward to more.

[Alex Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

Somewhere in this confusing mess of a book there is an interesting concept struggling to get out.

[Gabi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This kind of worked for me.

The things I liked:

The setting in Eastern Europe. It still feels quite clichéd, but at least we have a story not taking place mainly in US or UK and that's already a plus.

The idea of a fractured Europe with small and smallest ad-hoc-built nations is intriguing, especially when an espionage organisation is the only body who actually holds on to the ideals of the Schengen Agreement.

The espionage thriller atmosphere works quite well. The slightly distanced prose and the frequent jumps in scenes underline the state of half-knowledge the protagonist finds himself in. The book starts very strong and had me intrigued from the beginning.

What didn't work as much as I would have liked:

The strong start meanders in the middle. A golden thread seems to be missing and the reader just stumbles along as does the protagonist. This structure can work, but here it was more on the side of making me lose interest after some time.

The twist/revelation came too late or - better phrased - without hint and changed the tone of the story in a way that felt unearned. I would have totally gone with it had it been introduced more elegantly.

Either way, I will keep reading on to see where the author takes this.

[Viv JM · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded down.

I enjoyed this book more than I was expecting to. I had no real idea what was happening, or why, or where it was going but that didn't stop me from enjoying the ride! I liked Hutchinson's writing style and very dry English wit. The "science fiction" element didn't really kick in until the last fifth of the book, but that aspect was intriguing enough that I'm keen to read the next installment.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not what I expected, at all. And that's not really a bad thing.

I expected it to be a page turning spy-fest with tons of action and gadgets and lovely ladies and nice suits. Now, there was plenty of that but there was also a carefully crafted world that the reader gets a good feel for. And underneath all of that is a large conspiracy that is mostly only hinted at.

To be honest, it feels like this was the first half of a longer book. After everything we go through, it just sort of ends with no real conclusion. But it does set up an interesting second book.

I definitely want to know how this resolves

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! First off: YAY I HAVE READ 1,000 BOOKS!
Ok now this book was amazingly good! Part spy novel Part Cold War part SciFi part crime and all good! Really easy to get into and to read, good twists, great characters, altogether a good book! Looking forward to the rest of the series.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, fast and exciting read that takes us across the well-defended borders of a near-future Europe in which many countries have now been replaced by numerous rival polities, states and sovereign cities. Getting from A to B is no longer as easy as it once was and it's Rudi's job - a courier for a secret agency - to drop off and collect 'packages'. His previous job as a chef was easier - longer hours, though. The novel is packed full of surprises (one or two are enormous) as Rudi tries to discover exactly who is in charge as time after time he runs up against the unexpected. This is a clever book with a sense of humour and some fine characterisation. One of its most fascinating characters is Europe itself. Personally, I preferred the first two thirds to the final section and so that's why I've given it four and not five stars.

[Karina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read most of this while sitting around in (Scandinavian) airports, which felt theme-appropriate.

Turns into a book that is interesting enough that I'd like to read the sequel, which is a strange achievement, because for the first 60%+ of this, I could not see the plot at all and didn't find it particularly engaging.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started ‘Europe in Autumn’ because A Fine Balance is proving terribly sad and I wanted to read something that was less of a downer. It certainly filled that role, but proved to be a rather odd, hard to categorise book. A good three-quarters of the pages are devoted essentially to setting up the main character and his milieu, then the final quarter presents the reader with a massive and extraordinary conspiracy, ending on a cliffhanger that invites a sequel (Europe at Midnight). This was not really what I expected. The blurb suggests a politically focused near-future novel set in disintegrating Europe. Given that the EU referendum in the UK is two months away, this seemed pretty timely. The depiction of micro-states and general political chaos is really enjoyable, my favourite aspect of the whole thing in fact. The civil war between tower blocks run by a football hooligan mafia is especially memorable. There are also some great world-building details, like ten pound coins and a cloth laptop. I’d love one of the latter, despite the ergonomic challenges it might pose.

Our main character, Rudi, works for a shadowy espionage organisation that prides itself on moving information, people, and anything else across Europe’s myriad new borders. I decided pretty early on that this so-called Central had to be a google side-project. Not that this is actually stated, but in situations of melting down governance, multinational corporations immediately take advantage. Rudi’s adventures are pretty engaging and he is a laconic and largely sympathetic, albeit rather bland, narrator. The point of view switches that periodically occurred seemed to be taking a shortcut to create mystery, though, which was slightly trying. The puff quotes included on the copy I read compared the book to le Carré and Kafka, which seemed ridiculous to me as both were name-checked in the text itself. When a character reflects that their situation is Kafka-esque, or that their employer thinks they’re in a le Carré novel, it doesn’t mean that their narrative resembles either writer! The psychological astuteness and sense of paranoid tension that le Carré is so masterly at were not present, neither was Kafka’s uniquely nightmarish sense of being trapped by an unknowable system. The odd arbitrary event does not a Kafka make. In fact, ‘Europe in Autumn’ gradually develops a standard thriller plot in which Our Hero uncovers a conspiracy that only he can unmask. While a certain amount remains unclear about this conspiracy by the end, there is still quite a bit of explanation. In terms of style, there were shades of Kurt Vonnegut at first (Rudi often seemed to shrug in a 'So It Goes' kind of fashion, before apparently deciding to become an action hero). In terms of substance, I was reminded a little of The City & the City by China Mieville.

I’m being quite critical here, probably because I thought this novel would turn into one thing (examination of the socio-political implications of Europe disassembling itself) and, after starting off promisingly in that direction, it went a very different way in rather incomplete fashion. The abrupt ending surely wasn’t necessary - the whole thing is only 317 pages long, so why not edit the initial three-quarters down a bit then graft on the sequel? Presumably that gets into unravelling the conspiracy. Despite there being many details to enjoy about ‘Europe in Autumn’, however, I’m not sure I’ll bother with Europe at Midnight. For one thing, this future Europe seems astonishingly lacking in female characters. Perhaps they were practically all wiped out in the flu pandemic mentioned. If so, the remaining men seem remarkably sanguine about this demographic imbalance. Or it’s lazy writing. Either way, it got on my nerves. Such an interesting setting deserves a better paced plot and either Rudi as sole narrator or a wider range of points of view. The micro-politics of chaotic Eastern Europe were appealing enough without recourse to fantastical conspiracy and spies shooting each other.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, I’ll admit it. I am more than fashionably late when it comes to this particular party. What can I say? The life of a book reviewer is a battle against the same ever encroaching horror – so many books, so little time. Why did I decide to pick up Europe in Autumn then? The quick answer is I read the synopsis for its sequel, Europe at Midnight, and was suitably intrigued. I’m not a fan of starting a series anywhere other than the first book so I made the decision to start at the only sensible place, the beginning.

Dave Hutchinson’s vision of future Europe is a fragmented continent made up of tiny fiefdoms and power hungry groups. All are hell bent on grabbing as much control as they can. These various factions are focused on carving up the map in such a way that they end up with as much real estate as the can manage to get. Borders have become fluid and moving around has become an art in itself.

The narrative follows Rudi through various different points in his early career. From his initial floundering steps as a raw, somewhat naive, agent still learning all the aspects of his new tradecraft, to the more self-assured operative who continually checks all the angles. It is fascinating to watch how the character evolves. One of the things I particularly like is that each of the chapters is almost completely self-contained. Though there is an over-arching plot, each time we see Rudi things feel episodic in nature. I also picked up on the growing sense of unease and paranoia in the character. Each step Rudi takes leads him to a revelation and the writing does a superb job of building to that moment.

The plot also gives the author opportunity to explore the politics of Europe. The story touches upon everything from the global war on terror, to the upheaval in the Balkans. From the re-emergence of the far right and neo-Nazis in Germany, to the potential future for the United Kingdom. It feels like the events in this novel are almost a natural continuation from the current political climate we find ourselves in. There is a horrible sense of Orwellian inevitability about it all that appeals to my inner-masochist. Mr Hutchison is giving us a glimpse of an all too possible future. The scary thing is that much of it appears like it could easily be real.

As an aside, it’s not often I find myself doing research when it comes to book reviews, but this one piqued my interest. According to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge, coureur des bois translates as runner of the woods. After reading further, it seems an entirely appropriate nom de guerre for a clandestine international organisation responsible for specialist jobs that can often be viewed as, at best, morally ambiguous.

This was an absolutely corking read. I love it when I start a book I know absolutely nothing about, and by the end I am in awe. There is a blissful moment when the author throws a literary equivalent of a curveball into the plot that caught me completely unaware. You’ll know it when it happens. I had to re-read the page more than once just to make sure I understood the implications of what was happening. Brilliantly unexpected plots twists are a thing of wonder, and I relish them entirely.

If I’m honest, as a genre, I sometimes struggle a bit with science fiction. In this case however the writing is so smart I didn’t spot the subtle science-fictiony elements even creeping in. By the time I had realised they were there, I was already enjoying them too much to worry about it. If you’re looking for a near-future thriller with an elegant science fiction feeling, then look no further. This is highly recommended. In fact, someone needs to develop this series for the screen, that would be amazing.

Europe in Autumn is published by Solaris Books and is available now. Its sequel, Europe at Midnight, has just been published this week. I enjoyed my experience with this first book so much I’ll be reading that next immediately.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very rarely has a book so completed surprised me as this one did. For three quarters of the book I thought I knew what I was reading, a slightly futuristic, enjoyable espionage novel, in the vein of deighton or le carre. That was enough, I was having fun and following lazily along.

It's nearly the end of the book before you realise what's really going on, despite the scaffolding laid by the earlier chapters all tying neatly into it. It goes from a fun espionage novel to an exceptional one in a matter of pages, and ends just as it starts getting really good, with The City & the City levels of new weird, though with a dimensional spin rather than a psychological one.

I hadn't realised when I started there was another book in this series. When I found out, I thought maybe i'd read it one day. Now, I want to get it immediately, and it's a rare book that grabs me like that.

The surprise got the book it's fourth star, and the fact that I desperately want the next book to see where things goes earns it the fifth. Highly recommended.

[imyril is not really here any more · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s so many ways this is not my sort of book: I'm not really interested in spy or underworld stories, I get antsy with a lack of female characters, and I quite like to have a bit more evidence of a broader plot than 'keen young man is probably out of his depth. Probably'.

And none of this matters, because I found Europe in Autumn hard to put down from the start. Rudi, world-weary and naive - who is repeatedly taken advantage of but keeps on keeping on because what else would he do - is a warm-hearted, comforting narrator in a fractured European landscape that otherwise cuts a little too close to the bone in the current political climate.

In the end, there's a bigger, weirder story here than I guessed at - making this an extended introduction to a fascinating world I can't wait to explore further. I'm all signed up for the rest of this series for sure. And anything else Mr Hutchinson turns his hand to.

Full review.

[Tom Loock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sold as SF. Whilst justifiable (Mieville's excellent The City & the City comes to mind), it reads like a mainstream novel with strong Le Carre-elements.
Though I liked it overall and am considering reading the sequel, there are stretches that did not progress the story or the characters and that were - bluntly put - boring. Sorry! Maybe it was the lack of stronger editing? When I studied literature, we used to say "If it's boring, it must be mainstream." What a nasty thing to say ...

[Agnieszka Hofmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nietuzinkowy pomysł, znakomity dar obserwacji oraz lakoniczny sarkazm autora, znajdujący wyraz w rzuconych tu i ówdzie cierpkich uwagach, świetny finał, ale po drodze do tego finału sporo nużących dłużyzn. Autor chyba nie do końca radzi sobie z tempem, miejscami kompletnie siada napięcie, a czytelnika ogarnia całkowita obojętność wobec losów bohaterów, z którymi coś się dzieje, ale nie wiadomo za bardzo co i dlaczego.
Mimo to warto przeczytać, choćby dla wielce krotochwilnych wątków polskich.

[Jakub · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting near future concept and quite a good usage of the spy genre miscellanea. The pace is not that fast but the tension builds up nicely. The protagonist is a bit to passive at the start (things happen to him, instead of him doing things) but there is a positive change in the later parts. The main twist is set up in a good way but I still think it would be better if it was revealed closer to the end of the novel.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one starts out well -- but the second-layer map thing didn't work for me at all, and there's more graphic gore and violence than I like. Still a pretty good read: for me, a weak 3 stars. I'm on the low side of the consensus here (3.7 stars average), and it's a unique book. But I'm unlikely to continue with the series.

Here's the review that led me to read this unusual novel:
https://oikofuge.com/hutchinson-fract...

[Isis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A whole lot of elements in this book hit my buttons perfectly. There is the alternate-history/near-future aspect, which centers on the interesting idea that the EU has not just fallen apart but splintered into dozens of tiny pocket states (and I have to say, there was a strange resonance to reading the bit about Scotland's explosive parting from the UK only a month after the real-world vote failed). There is the largely Eastern European setting, the Estonian and Polish and Hungarian characters, which read delightfully exotic to this American (though I wonder how it will read to my European friends!). The writing is strong, never getting in the way of the story but frequently delighting me with clever phrases and evocative images, exactly the style I love reading. And I adored the idea at the heart of the eventual reveal.

But...there were problems. The pacing was a little odd, slow to get going, with scenes (or parts of scenes) that did not obviously contribute to the story. Some, granted, played a part later. But it didn't feel tight to me; yet at the same time, there were all these questions that were answered in oblique ways, or left hanging such that clearly the reader was supposed to connect invisible dots, which made me feel a bit too stupid for the clever author - not as bad as Ken MacLeod's books make me feel (and there were bits of this that were reminiscent of his The Execution Channel, but along those lines. And the cool reveal I mentioned above comes practically at the end of the book - but when I hit it, I felt, that is what I want the book to be about! Not all this preparation stuff! And there wasn't enough about the cool part!

Still, worth reading, and an excellent example of near-future SF.

[Mieczyslaw Kasprzyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was obvious why I bought this book (some time ago) - the word "Krakow" leapt out and grabbed me by the wallet. Then it sat there on the shelf... oh dear... oh yes... and, as I'm finding out so often these days, a book left lying on the shelf is a book worth reading. Well worth reading.
What did I love about this book? was it the sense of familiarity that pervades it? I'm not too familiar with Dave Hutchinson's background but he's either very familiar with Poland (even Eastern Europe) or he's a damn good researcher! Sometimes his descriptions reminded me so much of travelling through East Germany and Poland in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Soviet system; that sense of things being cobbled together, or bureaucracy hanging on through systems refusing to die peacefully, of that aura of decay and yet vibrancy, gypsy caravans in a carpark at Cotbus. And the humour... the humour is subtle yet not so.
And let's not forget the fascinating storyline, of a Europe that is disintegrating, or, really, reverting to its historical type of mini-states so like the old Holy Roman Empire. A fascinating and hypnotically attractive dystopia. Somewhere there there will be a Ruritania, a sceptreless Syldavia and a Kurvy-Tash Borduria (even if they go by different guises). There may even be a Narnia it seems to me.
Initially it was just a fascinating, at times amusing "thriller" peopled with outrageous Hungarians, mafiaesque Poles, secret dealings with unknowing cogs, and our Estonian chef hero, Rudi, but slowly, creeping up on us, pieces began to fall into place and another dimension opened up...
... and there's a series! Oh goody!

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 4 out of 5]

Global war with terror and deadly virus turn tables in Europe, where once an idea of a united Europe with free movement of people was slowly but steadily coming into reality, now not only countries re-established their borders, but new states, sometimes as small as a few blocks of a city constantly pop up. However, sometimes goods or people still should be transported across the continent and this need is served by the Couriers, an organization that is a crazy mix of delivery service, contraband-oriented mafia and cold war espionage network. A young Estonian, working as a cook in Polish restaurant will take a side job for the Couriers and this will lead him far.
Quite an interesting view on how the pendulum can move in the other direction, that ‘keeping Schengen alive’ will be the motto of illegal group in the EU. While not a ground-breaking, it is quite a good read. From what I understand, to some extent it styles itself after 70s British spy novels, but I am not well versed in those to fully enjoy such stylization. Quite interestingly that the authors portrays Poles the way many people portray Russians, ie. Heavily drinking, furniture breaking, noisily carousing nouveaux-riches with imperial complex.

[Miquel Codony · Rating 3 out of 5]

El entorno que desarrolla (una europa fragmentada en el futuro cercano, post UE) es fenomenal, y el tono es perfecto durante buena parte de la novela, pero es deslavazada y en un momento dado da un giro de timón que la pierde. Funciona mejor a nivel de capítulos individuales que en su conjunto. Mi hipótesis es que adolece de planificación insuficiente, pero vaya usted a saber.

Ha sido una decepción, pero han intervenido las expectativas. Sin ellas, a lo mejor lo hubiera disfrutado más. Lo que me da rabia es que la primera mitad me ha gustado mucho y el tramo final no me gusta por inconsistente, no porque en si no esté bien.

La prosa es correcta sin más.

[Carl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to rate this higher on concept alone. The idea of a futuristic spy story set over an ever changing european map filled with nations, duchies polities and republics is a great one.

the realization not so much.

The book is separated into various sections each with it's own title and no chapters per se. the sections are more like novellas since they are barely connected. The book boggs down in the middle and second half. the big reveal is a great concept barely used.
This should have been much better.