'The Lost Gonfalon'

Rounding off the excellent collection Inner Europe is Mark Valentine's tale of Venice preserved, in a way. Seymour, a scholarly gentleman, journeys through the old Venetian colonies of the Adriatic just before the First World War. In one small port he finds echoes of the great republic in dialect and in other, odder respects. Mr Seymour is greeted by local dignitaries as 'the English Consul', and is confused by table talk of far colonies in Asia. It is a kind of waking dream - or perhaps a vision of how things should have been?

This is a kind of parallel universe/alternate history story, complete with an Anglo-Venetian alliance, forged between Doges and Stuart kings. It is tricky to get this kind of thing right, but I think here the author succeeds in offering a fascinating glimpse of how Europe might have been. Mercantile and colonial, yes, but perhaps not so ruthless and mechanised. It is an appropriate ending for a book that celebrates Europe's glories but also laments its failings and disasters.

Inner Europe is a remarkable achievement, straddling genres to offer the reader strange, moving, and always entertaining tales.