I've been waiting for this book to come up in my 'Asterix' runthrough, because I remember it as an excellent entry in the series, but I don't remember why. Now I realise that it's because it's not really a plot-driven story at all; it's a back and forth game between the indomitable Gauls in their remote unconquered village and the leader of the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar. They've crossed paths before, of course, in a number of stories, but never in the personal way that Caesar brings it here. He's finally fed up with them holding out and he's hatched a cunning plan.

What he's going to do is rip out the forest that surrounds the village, the one in which Asterix and Obelix hunt boar so often, and build an entire Roman town, complete with port, arena and many blocks of flats. The architect will be Squaronthehypotenus, inventor of the drive-in amphitheatre, and it'll be called the Mansions of the Gods, a suitably grand name for the advertisers to play up. It'll force these stubborn Gauls to constantly experience the benefits of Rome which will promptly convert them to civilisation through osmosis. Either that or they'll simply become a curiosity for a Roman community in the Mansions of the Gods, a quaint reservation of savages, almost a zoo.

And the back and forth begins immediately. Squareonthehypotenus has the Aquarium legionaries escort a detachment of slaves into the forest to rip up a tree, which they do at night and as quietly as possible, to avoid any interaction with the Gauls. Obelix promptly replants it in the morning. So the Romans rip up a bunch of trees and make a clearing, dragging the trees away so they can't be put back. Getafix has Obelix throw magic acorns into the holes to regrow new ones. Suddenly, the Romans have all the timber they could ever use but they haven't made a dent in the forest.

The mindset here is that every action has a counter and that holds even when the Gauls take over as the instigators. Thus far, they've just reacted, but, presumably based on the success of letting the Helvetians enjoy the benefits of their magic potion last time out, try the same thing with the slave force the Romans have put to work. That works for a while but they don't have the initiative to actually leave (or maybe the foresight to know that magic potion doesn't last forever). Instead they try collective bargaining, like a trade union, which was likely topical in France at the time.

And, with agreements, the slaves go right back to work but with the magic potion to help them do the job quicker. Of course, the Gauls promptly regrow every tree they pull up, so it doesn't help. It does, however, delay the freedom that the slaves negotiated from the Romans on completion of a job well done, and that's a problem for them. So Flaturtha, their Numidian leader, visits the Gauls to explain the situation and Getafix comes up with a deeper plan. They'll actually help them to do the job but with a particular endgame in mind that'll teach the Romans a lesson.

Hilariously, while that does work, of course, by the end of the book and the Armorican forest goes back to its normal routine, there are points where it also seems like the Romans are teaching the Gauls a lesson, too. I could describe part of the book as an economics textbook, except that it's funny and I left wondering why schools don't include 'The Mansions of the Gods' as required reading. It's untraditional to laugh in an economics class, but then economics class doesn't usually involve fish being hurled at people's faces. Clearly it should.

You see, when the Romans start moving new residents into the Mansions of the Gods, they choose to shop at the "charming native village". Fish are only one sestertii, because that's their price but the discovery that they're five sestertii in Rome prompts them to be upped to three the next day. That's still cheap to the Romans but it upsets the locals, who are used to paying one. But hey, the village can suddenly survive on Roman custom alone. Suddenly, every shop is a fishmongers or an antiques store and you get a free antique with every fish. The entire local economy has collapsed and it's like the Romans have won.

That's when Getafix springs his secret weapon but I'll let you discover that for yourself. There are still a few backs and forths to go before Caesar's pet project is destroyed and the forest restored over its remains. Let's just say that, possibly for the first time in the series, Cacofonix is invited to the traditional final panel banquet and he's sat at the head of the table. Squaronthehypotenus is eager to go to Egypt to build pyramids and we don't hear what Julius Caesar has to say about the whole thing. No doubt we'll meet him again in a future book and maybe we'll find out then. Maybe that'll be the next one, when the Gauls hit back.

This is a strong seventeenth book in the series, bouncing back from a weaker sixteenth, 'Asterix in Switzerland', but it's an unusual one that doesn't join delights like the fifteenth, 'Asterix and the Roman Agent' as the best of the bunch. I did like the constant back and forth, making this a rather high stakes game of chess in its way, but we have to rely on the local Roman garrison at Aquarium for reactions rather than Caesar himself. He does get news at one point, prompting competitions to give away flats in the Mansions of the Gods and a full double-page advertisement spread in the style of a Roman tablet.

Those competitions also prompt one of the few instances of new punny names, which are in short supply this time out. Sure, we see a lot of Squaronthehypotenus but Goscinny neglects to name most of the legionaries or most of the slaves. The centurion is Somniferus and the slave leader is Flaturtha, but that's about it. Otherwise, we have to wait until this point, well over halfway, for a fresh example and then it's just Showbusinus, an MC based on French TV presenter Guy Lux. Even the residents who move into the Mansions of Gods don't get names. That's missed opportunity if I've ever seen one. At least we get to see the pirate leader, who's one of the slaves.

All in all, I enjoyed this one, with its hilarious takes on topics as traditionally not hilarious as trade union negotiations and economic management, but not as much as I was hoping to. I want punny names to go with the regular puns! And Roman bashing too, which is less evident here than usual but is, fortunately, not forgotten. I wonder how much there will be of that in 'Asterix and the Laurel Wreath', given that it's set in Rome. Sometimes it helps to be back in the provinces where Roman camps are plentiful. Uhoh, I'm starting to think like Obelix! ~~ Hal C F Astell

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