Fitzpatrick's War

Fitzpatrick's War is a 2004 post-apocalyptic Steampunk Science Fiction book by Theodore Judson (author of The Martian General's Daughter), as well as the author's first novel. Set in the 25th Century, the story is frame through the annotated autobiography of Brigadier General Sir Robert Mayfair Bruce of the Yukon Confederacy, which also chronicles the life of Lord Isaac Prophet Fitzpatrick, a consul of the Confederacy whose life closely parallels that of Alexander the Great and is glorified as a hero after his death. But as deadly intrigue lurks behind the scenes and more of the world's backstory is revealed, all is not what it seems. Something that extends into the very notion of history itself.

See also Julian Comstock for a similar premise involving a post-apocalyptic America.


 * After the End: The Storm Times in the late 21st Century trashed all electrical and electronic technology as well as devastated the developed world. The Yukon Confederacy in particular emerged from the ashes of the United States.
 * Airstrip One: Great Britain is part of the Yukon Confederacy, though it's mentioned that save for farmland, some ruins and towns, it's little more than a massive military garrison to deter the Muslim "Turks" in continental Europe.
 * Author Filibuster: Some of the exposition and in-verse annotations from Professor Van Buren can come across as this.
 * As You Know/Lecture as Exposition: The general history of how the world turned into a post-apocalyptic steampunk Neo-British Empire-dominated dystopia is recited in a verbal exam by the novel's protagonist, Sir Robert Mayfair Bruce. Coincidentally Bruce was shocked to have gotten such an easy topic.
 * Brutal Honesty: While Bruce remained a close, loyal friend to Fitzpatrick in life, he didn't mince words with his criticisms about the man's less than noble tendencies and actions.
 * The Conspiracy: The Tinnermen. Though their existence and general activities are relatively well-known among the Yukons, the extent of their machinations go much deeper.
 * Crap Saccharine World: For what it's worth, like in the Yukon Confederacy is generally pleasant, if you're actually a Yukon.
 * Deadly Decadent Court: Fitzpatrick is shown having to contend with various nobles and political rivals.
 * Depopulation Bomb: The Storm Times also coincided with an epidemic that would leave regions like Japan and the British Isles sparsely inhabited.
 * Deliberate Values Dissonance: Yukon society comes across as a twisted melange of Victorian and Edwardian cultural norms.
 * Enforced Cold War:
 * Expy: Fitzpatrick is this to Alexander the Great. It's also deconstructed however, in how his deliberate efforts to emulate his hero wind up causing much death and destruction.
 * The Everyman: Deconstructed with Bruce, who started off as a regular soldier-in-training.
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Yukon Confederacy is very much a warped recreation of The British Empire and memories of 19th Century America by way of Columbia. This is in addition to being based on the Yukons' own origins as a collective of rural survivalists.
 * Fake Ultimate Hero: While Fitzpatrick is shown to be a great, ambitious man on par with Alexander the Great, his life and exploits have been utterly whitewashed by the time the book's Framing Device is actually set. The "real" Fitzpatrick meanwhile, as painted by Bruce, is another story.
 * The Federation: The Yukon Confederacy tends to view itself as this, in part stemming from its survivalist origins. In practice, the Yukons come across more like The Empire.
 * Feudal Future: Deliberately invoked by the Yukons and their Tinnermen colleagues after the fall of 21st Century America. It helped as well that chaos of those times made such arrangements more appealing.
 * Forever War: The Yukons have been in an on-off war with a "Turkish" Muslim empire that's since expanded to include much of continental Europe. They've also been fighting the Chinese, who are implied to still be Communist.
 * Framing Device: The story is told through Bruce's autobiography, as annotated by the ludicrously biased Professor Roland Modesty Van Buren in the 26th Century, long after all the characters involved are dead.
 * Future Imperfect: Given how much surviving relics from 20th and 21st Centuries are censored.
 * In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: This is apparently what the Tinnermen believe, which explains why they support the status quo.
 * Insult Backfire: How the first Yukons got their name back in 21st Century America.
 * Man Behind the Man: The Tinnermen, the Yukon Confederacy's "secret society" of their best and brightest. Their origins are traced to the earliest Yukons in 21st Century America.
 * Please Select New City Name: Over the centuries, the Yukons had renamed many Spanish and native places in the former US alone with Anglo-Saxon and Latin ones, with San Francisco becoming "Grand Harbor" and Kansas City rebuilt as "Centralia."
 * The Reason You Suck Speech: Bruce gets a backhanded one in the end, explaining how he should be thankful for their actions.
 * Recycled in Space: Similarly to Julian Comstock, the story transplants Alexander the Great's life into what amounts to a 25th Century Columbia.
 * Status Quo Is God:
 * Steampunk: With a little bit of Diesel Punk for good measure, which has been going on for centuries..
 * Unreliable Narrator: It's left to the reader to figure out whether it's Bruce or Professor Van Buren who's the unreliable narrator.
 * Vestigial Empire: Pan-Slavia, the remains of Russia and the various Slavic countries is also the last true "European" country after the "Turks" took over everything else.
 * The World Is Not Ready:
 * Written by the Winners: The novel goes quite a bit into satirizing and deconstructing the premise.
 * Zeppelins from Another World: The Yukons make plentiful use of them in their air force.