A favorite television series of mine is “Quantum Leap”. To simplify the show’s premise, it was a chance “to put things right that once went wrong.” A well-meaning quantum physicist, Dr. Sam Beckett, is pressured to prove his theories of time-travel and ends up doing good deeds at the mercy of Fate, God, Time or whatever, being leaped from the life of one person to another throughout the years.
Seeing how we all have some events in our lives that we wish had gone other ways, it was not much of a surprise when this show developed an enthusiastic following from dedicated fans. That simple phrase, “what if…” sets the scene for a number of interesting tales, both on screen and in print.
It is not a new phenomenon by any means. H.G. Wells, Jules Verne and others took the wonders of the Industrial Revolution and played upon the fears of a changing society by looking into a possible future, much to the delight of their readers.
Recently there has been a rise in what has become known as Alternate History fiction. As much as I have an interest in the past, these fictional ventures into places that might been manage to hook me right away.
In high school, I enjoyed a well worn paperback copy of L. Sprague de Camp’s “Lest Darkness Fall“. It is the tale of a mild-mannered archaeologist who finds himself in sixth-century Rome. Faced with the fall of civilization and the beginnings of the Dark Ages with little more than his own wits and a wristwatch, he manages to change things for the better and perhaps even the world from which he came. First published in 1939, it remains a classic tale today.
A particular favorite of authors of this genre is the American Civil War or if you prefer, the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression. Harry Turtledove is one of the most prolific authors in this arena, and his first effort was “Guns of the South“. In that alternate reality, General Robert E. Lee leads a victorious Army of Northern Virginia to capture Washington D.C. and force an end to the conflict. The guns alluded to in the title were Eastern Bloc AK-47’s smuggled in by a group of South Afrikaners intent on establishing a white supremacist world. Lee and others discover the plans and thwart the effort. It was not the first such tale of alternate Civil War endings. (Turtledove did edit an anthology of early works on the subject, “If The South Had Won The Civil War“). However, “Guns of the South” may be the first, and therefore, most visible work in the later part of the 20th Century when it comes to authors of the Alternate History genre.
On occasion, authors may tend to concentrate overly on historical details rather than characters. One such work on a turning point in the Civil War is “Gettysburg: An Alternate History” by Peter Tsouras. It reads more like a history book with details such as places, names, facts and figures, and less like a novel as “Guns of the South” does. Tsouras has also produced a series of other war related tomes, all with the “What if…” scenarios.
Turtledove expanded on the subject of the War Between the States later with a series of books that cover the war and then on to the First World War, placing it in North America rather than Central Europe. Mixing historical and fictional characters, he manages to keep the interest of the reader.
In yet another series of books, he mixed alien invasion with World War II and the Cold War. His attention to detail makes the characters come to life in settings that are both familiar and unfamiliar, giving readers a chance to imagine what their lives would be like in the same situations.
Turtledove is not above collaborations with other authors. Two of note are Judith Tarr and Richard Dreyfuss. In the first, “Household Gods“, his heroine is sent from 20th Century Los Angeles back to the Roman frontier in 170 A.D. and life at a different pace – all at the whim of, as the title implies, a pair of household gods, Liber and Libera. A change of pace it is, both for the readers and the authors.
“The Two Georges” looks at an America that is still a colony of the British Empire, and asks what if the Revolution had come not in 1776, but in 1976?
In “Ruled Britania“, he chose Will Shakespeare as an unlikely hero to stir the British to revolt against the occupying forces and the Inquisition after the victory of Spanish Armada.
Turtledove is prolific as an author and a quick look at Amazon offers ninety titles with his name attached as author, editor or commentator. He’s off on other series now as well as the ones mentioned above, always keeping his readers looking for more.
Yet, he is not alone in that. Eric Flint took a coal mining community from West Virginia and transplanted it to central Germany in “1632“. Using modern weapons and tactics the small town folk set out to change to world, and succeed in ways they’ll never imagine. Again using historical and fictional characters together against a background you think you might know, it has evolved into a great series that promises to keep on going for some to come. And it’s a world in which other authors have now come to play as Flint collaborates or let’s them go in new directions.
Another series I enjoyed (along the same lines) was S.M. Stirling’s trilogy about the crew of the U.S.S. Eagle and the inhabitants of Nantucket Island, who find themselves thrown back to the Bronze Age. Adding in mutiny and double dealing, it’s a great read. The three volumes, “Islands in the Sea of Time“, “Against the Tide of Years“, and “On the Oceans of Eternity” work well, and kept me engaged from start to finish.
It seems as if there are as many challenges for authors as there may be alternate worlds to explore. Harry Harrison, best know for science fiction tales such as “The Stainless Steel Rat” delved into the Civil War with his Stars and Stripes trilogy.
Orson Scott Card looked at time travel, Christopher Columbus and Central America of the 1400’s in a way no one had done before in his novel, “Pastwatch“.
Phillip K. ***’s “The Man in the High Castle” takes a glance at life in 1962 in a world in which the Axis nations won the Second World War, and divided the spoils amongst them, including the United States. It’s a vintage work that set the tone for much that follows today in both the science fiction and alternate history genres.
Anthologies abound in alternate history as well. Turtledove has edited several, (such as Alternate Generals and Alternate Generals II or The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century) and even produced volumes of his own short stories such as “Departures: Stories of Alternate History“. Mike Resnick offers a similar twist as the editor of “Alternate Tyrants” such as Douglas Macarthur as the new emperor of Japan, to name one. Martin Harry Greenberg edited “The Way It Wasn’t: Great Science Fiction Stories of Alternate History” tempts readers with “what if’s” such as Kennedy survivng the Dallas assassination attempt, Elvis as president, or a 1972 where George McGovern defeated Nixon in the election and the possible outcome of the Vietnam conflict.
Even Disney gets a treatment of the genre, thanks to Larry Pontius and his “Waking Walt” tale…
For every decision, turn right or turn left, one has to wonder what might have happened or what might you have missed. Thanks to authors like these, we’ll always have an idea or two.
That’s all for this week, and as I’m always telling Michele when she asks about something, “We will see…” what the coming week brings in the way of another column.
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