Joe Steele

Joe Steele 
© 2015 Harry Turtledove
448 pages

         
            What if Joseph Stalin was a Democrat? Imagine that the Man of Steel’s parents had emigrated to the United States before he was born, and that instead of rising to power through a Bolshevik revolution, he was voted into high office. In Joe Steele, Stalin wins the 1932 Democratic presidential nomination after his rival FDR perishes in a mysterious fire; after trouncing Hoover in the general elections, he immediately adds the United States to the 1930s’ diverse list of totalitarian hellholes, complete with labor camps and knocks at midnight from men in black.  The sheer magic of being Joseph Stalin is irresistible…and inexplicable.

Joe Steele is a strange creature; for most of the book, history unfolds as it did in our own time,  despite the fact that Leon Trotsky reigns in Russia instead of good ol’ uncle Joe.  In the United States, Stalin uses the desperation of the Depression to justify four-year programs that are a staggering departure from American governance. He opens his hundred days by nationalizing the banks,  and from the public is uttered not a peep. When the Supreme Court stirs itself to point out that there are no Constitutional grounds whatsoever for the president to take over the banks,  Stalin has his new buddy J. Edgar Hoover arrest  those justices deemed obstructive. Who exactly has the authority to issue an arrest warrant for the Supreme Court?   The staggering implausibility of this is matched only by the fact that all four immediately confess to conspiring with Hitler to undermine the president’s glorious revival of the American enterprise. Stalin’s ability to force people to do exactly what he wants continues throughout the book, and it is never once believable. He is as charismatic as a potato, and while one man can be blackmailed, how can an entire Congress?  And there are precious few consequences for these actions;  aside from the people being thrown into labor camps to cut down trees or dig ditches, the Depression and the War go on as history ordained. This, despite the people like Douglas MacArthur who are lost in military purges.  Men of consequence are being introduced and felled, but history's course is largely unchanged. Stalin even runs against the same exact people that FDR did.  Only in the last hundred pages does history take an interesting turn when Stalin is forced to invade the Home Islands of Japan. Otherwise, it’s WW2 as usual with the President being really mean.

Turtledove's books are character driven, allowing readers to soak in an alternative history as the viewpoints live it.  Unfortunately for Joe Steele, there are all of three characters of importance here: a reporter turned political prisoner, the reporter's presidential speechwriter brother, who seems to drink bourbon every time he is introduced, and Joe himself.  The problem with Joe is that he doesn't make sense. He has a personal vendetta against Leon Trotsky for....no reason at all.  Joe was born in California; he has as much reason to loathe Trotsky as I do the mayor of Tokyo. His politics are limited to "let me do stuff":  he despises Communists despite running to help the downtrodden working masses against the evil rich, but makes no reference to any other worldview. Turtledove never even mentions political movements that Joe could have had connections to -- no wobblies, no Grange, no nothin'. The only explanation for his being here, the only explanation for him getting away with anything at all, is that Turtledove really wants an American Stalin. But...Joe Steele isn't.  He has no discernible ties to the American culture he is introduced as a member of. He's Stalin with a different name, albeit with slightly moderated sociopathy. Quoting founding fathers and hating Soviets doesn't make a man American, and suspension of disbelief never gets off the ground here. . 

This may have made for a diverting short story, but it hasn't scaled up well. Harry can coax out an authentically American tyranny; he did it somewhat in the Timeline-191 series.  Size shouldn't a problem: Joe Steele is larger than The Plot Against America and It Can't Happen Here, both of which introduced a fascist USA concept. Unless the reader is supremely interested in Stalin,  this book falls flat:   there is no agonizing but sophisticated remolding of the American politics to fit a tyrannical vision, and what significant departures there are don't arrive until late. Even then, there's no weight to them, because our characters are after-the-fact observers only.  It doesn't help matters that there are entire scenes in which nothing at all happens: in one, Charlie walks into Joe's office, congratulates him on  reelection, and then wanders away. Turtledove is as he is, though, a reliable producer of diverting premises and partially-assembled stories. So what if Joe Stalin were president? He might not kill twenty million people. He might just settle for executing the few thousand who annoyed him.   And that, dear readers, is about as far as it goes. 

Ruled Britannia

Ruled Britannia
© 2002 Harry Turtledove
458 pages

1597. The 16th century is drawing to a close, and with it -- seemingly -- England's fortunes. Nine years ago the vast Spanish armada triumphed in delivering its army to English shores, where grim veterans easily cast aside the hastily-drawn levies that met them on the beaches. Spain's daughter reigns as queen, while England's own languishes in Bell Tower.  The Catholic church has been restored to power over Protestantism, and with such severity that the mention of the English Inquisition can cause a man's blood to chill.  One of the most popular of English playwrights, enjoyed by even the overseeing Spanish, is one William Shakespeare, who has been asked to write a play celebrating the life of Spain's aging monarch, Phillip. But what if instead of memorializing the crown occupant, he celebrates the tragedy of Queen Boudica, a Celtic chieftess of yore  who lead her proud Britons in battle against a Roman invader? So begins what must for me be Harry Turtledove's most fascinating piece to date, a tribute to a master wordsmith via alternate history.

Ruled Britannia stands apart from Turtledove's other work, being largely dominated by  the one figure of William Shakespeare instead of drawing from an ensemble cast. There is another viewpoint character, the likewise famous Lope de Vega, but Shakespeare is the star.  Even when he is not telling the story, he is present: lines from his work absolutely riddle the dialogue. The language, too, is unusual: Turtledove switches between present-day English for narration, and Elizabethan English for his characters' conversations.  This requires adjustment on the part of the reader, but like tugging on a boot, it seems natural enough after a little effort. For once, Turtledove's annoying habit of being repetitive works to the readers' advantage, helping the arcane vocabulary and spellings ("murther most foul!") gain familiarity.  Most of the characters are historic personalities, another unusual move for Turtledove, and one of the few exceptions exists in a netherworld of fiction and fact, being one of the real Shakespeare's characters re-purposed for this set.  Shakespeare doesn't get up to much within the book, instead, while he  writes and prepares two plays at once, consorting with Spanish nobles and rebellious Englishers in such a fashion as to court death from other side, readers experience life in occupied England.  Tension comes in the form of a string of deaths of men connected with Shakespeare and the scheme to release Boudica's rebellion onto the unsuspecting dons. The poet is watched both by suspicious Spainards and calculating revolutionaries, neither of whom are afraid of a little villainy in the name of a worthy cause. Faced with death from either side,  Shakespeare ultimately performs for himself, for his own conscience; for he is an Englishman, called to show the mettle of his pasture. His decision whether or not to be the rebellion's propagandist is never in doubt, and the parts of the play shared with readers are certainly blood-rousing enough. The novel's last fifth is on rebellion itself, with lots of sword-fighting and enthusiastic yelling.

For the fan of Shakespeare and historical fiction, this is gold -- and a most unusual treat for readers of alt-historical fiction. While I could have done without some of the luridness and at least twenty uses of the same phrase ("made a leg"), this is one to remember with fondness.

Last Orders

The War that Came Early: Last Orders
©  Harry Turtledove
416 pages

This cover has nothing to do with the plot. 

Good things come to those who wait. Such is the lesson of Last Orders, the sixth book in an alternate-history series that, so far, has performed like the Kaputnik rocket. Despite some promising left turns, The War that Came Early has always disappointingly drifted back into the wake of real history. Beginning with the 1938 Munich Conference ending in a general European war,   as of the fifth book Germany is fighting the allies in France and Russia,  while the United States holds its own against the Japanese and slowly turns the tide. Sound familiar?  Last Orders leaves things in a decidedly different state, however, but such is a mixed blessing given that the series has only gotten interesting now that it is over.  

Unlike the previous books, Last Orders is largely taken up with political turmoil. Aside from an American paratroop drop on Midway Island, the war remains background noise while the characters engage in the exciting activities of everyday life -- complaining about officers,  complaining about the lack of women, getting shot, shooting others, complaining about politicians (complaining in general, really).  Other novels have been more eventful, war-wise, but here the Big Happenings are the triumph of one revolution and the beginning of another. At least two regimes have toppled by novel's end,  and the polities that will emerge from them are so promising, storywise,  that this series' end is frustrating.  There were books in this series where nothing of consequence happened, and now that we've got genuine alt-history on our hands, peace treaties are being signed. Ah, well.  If nothing else, it was good to read of the Spanish Republicans triumphing against the fascists, and equally satisfying for other fascists to get their just desserts. The characters, Turtledove's usual motley crew of irregulars,  soldiers and civilians, hounds and heroes, Axis and Allies,  have carried this series through utter tedium and flourished in its intermittent exciting periods, and they continue solid duty here; some even find the ending they deserve, whether it's a spot on the casualty lists or a tearjerking return home.

Although I enjoyed this novel well enough, the series as a whole needed sharp editing. At some point the books seem like potboilers, and it doesn't help that the book covers have gotten similarly unimaginative -- compare Last Orders' with that of books four and five,  Two Fronts and Coup d'Etat.   Even the titles have gotten tedious;   the Timeline-191 WW2 books sported titles like The Center Cannot Hold, In at the Death,  and so on.   That series at least acknowledged the implications of its ending -- but there's nary a word here despite the fact that England is being run by the military at this point and Europe is still buzzing with fascists despite the peace.  Last Orders is frustratingly "OK". 

If you want the book's big spoiler, either click here or think....valkyrie. 

Voyage

Voyage: A Novel of What Might have Been
© 1996 Stephen Baxter
511 pages

            On November 22^nd, 1963, John F. Kennedy narrowly escaped assassination while touring Dallas, Texas. A gunman’s assault left his wife Jacqueline dead and the president hospitalized, but he lived to see the fulfillment of the mission he set before the American nation in early 1961:  land a man on the moon and return him safely home before decade’s end. During the famed ‘phone call to the moon’,  JFK issued another challenge:  Mars.  Voyage is an alternate history of the American space program in novel form,  the story of man’s successful journey to Mars.   Voyage impresses, not only with its technical detail, but that combined with its even-handed reflection on what a Mars program might have meant in the 1980s.  

Baxter writes Voyage in two paths that rendezvous in the 1980s: after opening with the Mars-bound flight’s liftoff and following its initial  burns and maneuvers to go for Mars orbit,  he switches to 1969, to the beginning of another more arduous journey, when America steeled itself   for a greater challenge and tried to find a way to make it happen.  Going to Mars isn’t easier than the moon shot, and even the momentum gained by  triumph at the Sea of Tranquility evaporates away as the program is stymied by physical requirements. The crew that goes to Mars will need to be self-supporting for over a year, not just a week;  and though they will be far from rescue they can’t afford to take on too many supplies or incorporate too many  backup systems.  When escaping Earth’s gravity well, every gram counts. Politics and economics complicate matters further;  as the Vietnam War escalates and recession worsens, the government is anxious to cut costs. The war and other government programs might cost far more, but NASA’s expenses are as obvious as their rockets climbing into the sky.  The program carries on through sheer grit, urged on lightly by the aging JFK and pushed by the aerospace industry, wholly dependent on the manned program.

And therein lies the rub, for though Baxter makes clear in his afterword that he regrets the lack of an historic push for Mars,  the timeline of Voyage doesn’t shy away from the fact that such an effort would have been a mixed bag.  The will required to make Mars saps energy for everything else; not only are many of the later Apollo landings scrapped, but the exploration of the solar system by probe is missed altogether, and the Space Shuttle is shelved.  The aerospace industry, rather than diversifying to meet the different challenges needed for advanced probes, the shuttles, and the like, is fixated on one line of technology. It’s not a recipe for a healthy industry, either in business  terms or for personnel:  at least one character is hospitalized as a result of the stress.  The turmoil caused by the constant overwork, in addition to all of the challenges of the seventies, makes the weary United States in Voyage a tired, ailed nation indeed;  will those footsteps on Mars be worth it?

In addition to the story of the United States as a nation, meeting this challenge and coping with the consequences good and bad,   Voyage is a personal encounter, one driven by the ambitions and stubbornness of the astronauts who will make the journey. While some characters are historical (Chuck Jones,  who here stays in NASA instead of joining Sealab), most are invented, including  Joe Muldoon, who relegates poor Buzz Aldrin to nonexistence. The crew that lands is entirely fictional, including the book’s chief viewpoint character Natalie York, who is NASA’s first science-astronaut who sees space, since Harrison Schmitt never flew. Natalie is also the first female, and she's somewhat sensitive about the fact that she's breaking into a career dominated by fighter jocks. Part of her own voyage is learning to deal with NASA on its own terms:  the space program isn't going to stick an unspaced rookie onto the Mars team without her finding a way to be indispensable.         

Space junkies will be most pleased with Voyage; I've read at least a half-dozen astronaut memoirs, and the technical detail incorporated into the storyline is on part with the astronauts' actual accounts. This is definitely on the 'hard' side of science fiction, based on real  science, including the NERVA rocket. There are many references to the history-that-might-have-been, from  the head of the Mars program quoting Deke Slayton ("The first men to step on Mars are sitting in this room") to another hanging a lemon in the window of the Mars lander to indicate that he isn't pleased,  echoing Gus Grissom and Apollo.  The modules produced for the Mars programs take familiar names, names like Endeavor and Discovery --  names that the Shuttle fleet used.  Like the Apollo program, there are tragedies, some grievous; but while the Challenger of our timeline proved a source of sorrow,  Baxter's Challenger marks humanity's greatest accomplishment. It -- the ship and the book --  are a fitting salute to the men and women of the space program, and a solid read.

Related:
The Martian, Andy Weir.   Voyage wouldn't have caught my eye were it not for reading this a week or so ago, the story of a man stranded on Mars in the near future.
Contact, Carl Sagan. Natalie York may have been a redhead, but I imagined and heard her as Ellie Arroway.
Mission to Mars, Buzz Aldrin.

Two Fronts

The War that Came Early: Two Fronts
© 2013 Harry Turtledove
416 pages

In Hitler's War,  Harry Turtledove began a new alternate history of the Second World War, one in which the conflict started in 1938 when Britain and France decided Hitler was being too obvious a budding supervillain in invading Czechoslovakia, and declared war on him for want of anything better to do.  The following years have seen the powers of the world enter into conflicts and alliances with one another, and drop out of them, with ease.  Every dramatic derivation from real life has been reversed, to the point that the series has been a disappointment. But in Two Fronts, Turtledove has produced a military action-adventure novel that's enjoyable regardless of how similar is setting is to our own.

In 1942, the situation is thus:  Germany is in the midst of a two front war, fighting Britain, France, and the Soviet Union while simultaneously throwing men and material into Africa to bail Mussolini out after Il Duce discovers his new Roman Army is still no match for the crazy Scots defending Egypt. In the east, Japan os still trying to conquer China in total, and is now merrily engaged in a war against the United States, which it initiated by sneak attack. Sound familiar?  That's pretty much the situation of reality's World War 2, but with one notable exception: the United States is not at war with Germany. Two Fronts covers the year 1942 in the history of the war that came early, and is is not progressing as one might expect -- but the war which is taking place is interesting in its own right, even if it makes little sense.  It is an in-between novel, in which there aren't any major obvious happenings -- though there are a few subtle happenings which will have major consequences for savvy readers -- but there is an awful lot of fighting. Turtledove's cast of characters is as strong and varied as I've yet seen from him, with viewpoints from all theaters, countries, and branches of the service: whatever military action readers look for, it's here. Tanks, infantry, sea, special operations, even a little aviation are included.  (Aerial warfare isn't downplayed, but bombers are mostly in the background making everyone's lives just a bit more exciting/miserable.)

Two Fronts sees a few interesting changes hovering around the sides of the action, both involving superweapons. Not only do the Japanese begin to introduce biological warfare into their struggle with the United States (dropping rats filled with the Black Death into Hawaii), but a little project in Tennessee named after Manhattan loses its funding. The implications as the war goes are enormous, but then again I've been saying that for four novels, so who knows?  I belatedly realized in reading this that The War That Came Early isn't so much about  a logical series of events that builds off of the war starting in 1938: rather,  that alteration is only one of many. Turtledove seems to be using the early war as a way to turn the Second World War into a sandbox, in which he can explore what-if scenarios like the failure of the Manhattan Project, or the introduction of 'secret weapons' into the field of combat. While I'd prefer the aforementioned logical buildup, this approach has its own merits: it's like the airships  and steam-powered cars in The Two Georges, an interesting take at what-might have been. It is World War 2 with different toys. This is only problematic in that sometimes the plot doesn't make sense. For instance, in this 1942, the United States is only fighting Japan. While it's also sending some resources to Britain and some to Russia to help fight Hitler, the majority of its industrial capacity should be free to be focused squarely on Japan, a Japan which should be weakened by the fact that it decided to invade Russia first. And yet, instead of the United States slowly but surely checking the Japanese advance and swinging a few punches of its own, it's floundering. Maybe its industrial capacity simply hasn't hit full war-time mobilization yet since it doesn't have the added challenge of taking on Hitler, but this amateur-hour performance on their part is bothersome.

Two Fronts is perplexing because I like it. I didn't expect to like it, because it didn't address the fact that this history isn't very 'alternate' despite the early start. It may be that the differences are more subtle than I'd expected, and their consequences will take longer to be noticeable as a result.  Despite the fact that the general sequence of events is unchanged I genuinely enjoyed the variety of military action presented here, especially since Turtledove didn't repeat himself too much. (The exception:  he has decided infantrymen do not like artillerymen, who can kill them without risking being killed in turn. He saw fit to tell the reader this several times. I'm starting to wonder if he doesn't do this on purpose.)    Perhaps this World War 2 with a twist was just the light reading I was looking for this weekend.

1632

1632
© 2000 Eric Flint
608 pages

Tremble, lords of Germany. A new breed has come into the world.

What happens when you throw a small American mining town from the 20th century into the middle of Germany...during the 17th-century's Thirty Years War?  Chaos -- and fun.  One morning out of the clear blue, the town of Grantville, West Virginia, suddenly found itself picked up and plopped down into one of the worst wars in history.  Left to fend for themselves  in an era of disease, ignorance, and marauding armies, they decide to rebuild the American vision from scratch, in the middle of Europe. 1632 is the start of a large and not-very-orderly series of novels that depict the evolution of Europe following the sudden infusion of 20th-century knowhow and American bravado,  and it's a ball to read.

The novel's premise is largely fantastical, and subject to a handwave in the introduction. What matters is not how the Americans came to be thrown back into time, with their library of knowledge and modern tools.  The store explores what that knowledge and tools does to Europe's fiendishly complicated political scene.  In 1632,  Europe's multitude of powers were involved in a technically religious war between Catholics and Protestants in which some Protestant powers were fighting on the Catholic side, and vice versa.  Cardinal Richileu, the diabolical chessmaster running France and  working fiendishly to keep the balance of power in Europe favoring himself,  is busy moving armies and juggling two sets of Hapsburgs (some in Spain, some in Germany) as well as the plucky Swedish nation.  The sudden takeover of part of Germany by a mouthy, irreligious Republic is a matter of some concern -- especially as the Americans begin moving outward.

Grantville is not the typical American town: it is a mining town, and a unionized one that. It is led by intelligent, technically-savvy men who are used to a fight and determined to stick together, who know how to break a jaw in defense of principles. Mike Stearns, president of the local United Mine Workers of America, becomes the city's de facto leader, for he and his men have the energy and toughness to stand against whatever brigands Europe throws at them. Although it may look primitive by their standards, 17th century Europe is a dangerous place. Its armies carry muskets, and while rumors of witchcraft abound, its leaders know technology when they see it.  They won't be scared off for long. Realizing how overwhelming the odds are against them, Stearns decides against isolation. To survive, Grantville is going to have to build on what it has already -- and expand. But not as an empire: as the idealistic Republic they were once members of, and now constitute. Their goal is to start winning the hearts and minds of their neighbors, and from the downtrodden German folk create a shining city set upon a hill, amidst the forests of Thuringia.

1632 covers Grantville's first year, and much happens -- raids and battles, politicking between the American factions over the city's future and between the warring powers of Europe, America  now included --  and a great deal of character development.  Idling teenagers who spend their days throwing dice are forced into responsible manhood:  schoolteachers and engineers now govern a nation. But the Americans are not alone, for the cast of viewpoint characters steadily expands to includes 'downtime' Europeans (some Jewish refugees, some Germans) who become citizens of the new republic, beguiled by its tolerance, high (if charmingly native) ideals, and liberties.  These characters are standouts, especially the women of both cultures. One woman grows from a rape victim-concubine hiding her family in a cesspit to a lady of war who terrifies grown men with her stare and strikes the characters as being a creature out of legend.

Although the chronology of the books that follow this is bewildering, I may have to try, for 1632 is such a delightful novel I'd like very much to see what develops from it. The insertion of 20th century knowledge and mores into the middle of early industrial Europe is fascinating enough -- what will become of the Dutch Republic, I wonder? will it make common cause? --  but the storytelling is exuberantly fun. Despite being alone in the middle of deadly chaos, the Grantville townsfolk seize the danger as an opportunity. They're full of bravado, flying around in pickup trucks and shotguns, rescuing damsels in distress and killing hordes of evil raping mercenaries with an M-60 while screaming "'MERICA!". They aren't hicks -- just country folk used to fighting for what they believe in, and what they believe in most is equality and liberty.  I'd wager European readers might be a touch turned off by the notion of cheerfully confident Americans remolding the continent in their own image, but for Americans, the first book at least should find a broad audience in anyone who can gamely tolerate speculative fiction, as it supplies a little of everything, from politics to romance to combat. This first book is available for free on Kindle, no doubt a nefarious plan on Amazon's part to hook readers like myself into wanting to read the dozen or so that follow it..

It Can't Happen Here

It Can't Happen Here
© 1935 Sinclair Lewis
400 pages

The Great Depression sent the entire western world reeling, destroying faith in the existing order and creating opportunities for charismatic, forceful leaders with vision to sweep into power and create societies anew in their image – but their new orders introduced us to the nightmare world of the totalitarian state, which arise in Germany, Japan, Italy, and in Sinclair Lewis’ cautionary tale, the United States. It Can’t Happen Here is the story of the rise of American fascism,  beating the bible and waving a cross.

The tale is told through the eyes of Doremus Jessup, a solid liberal who amuses himself by rubbing shoulders with staunch conservatives at the Rotary Club, and then scandalizing them by penning editorials sympathetic to communists. He’s manifestly horrified by the rise of one Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, a folksy dope whose radical plan for transforming America manages to unite rich and poor, traditional and modern, together in a schizophrenic platform.  He was not always horrified, though – he once though Windrip a comic buffoon, who could not possibly be voted in in a respectable election

The Windrip plan includes, among other things,  strict income limits, a $3000 handout to every citizen of the land,  boosted defense spending, the forbidding of women and Negroes from ‘inappropriate’ occupations, the barring of labor unions, and whatever constitutional amendments or acts of Congress are needed to allow the President, hereafter known as The Chief,  to give the nation a strong, guiding hand without being tied down by Congress.   Such a broad and sometimes self-contradictory platform  is similar to that of the “National Socialists”, and as Windrip’s reign commences, Lewis takes inspiration from Hitler’s reorganization of Germany.  That organization is literal, for Windrip breaks down state and county boundaries and imposes his own set of numbered provinces and distracts, each headed by a loyal minion. Instead of the SS,  Windrip has his ‘MM’s: the Minutemen, whose garb  hearkens to western pioneers.  As much as Windrip’s reign reminds students of European history of the Nazification of Germany,  it is a distinctly American kind of fascism, hearkening to the American mythology of the Founding Fathers, but still reactionary and anti-modern, even in its embrace of modern tools and the modern state. The idea is the same: America has gotten soft, decadent, and corrupt. It needs a kick in the seat of the pants, and Windrip is the main to give it: he'll make America mighty again, he'll take on the rich Jews and put the economy to work for Americans, not a few bankers; he'll revitalize the Old Time Religion and maybe spread it to a few heathen Catholics down in Mexico.

The account follows the relatively quick corruption of the American republic into the empire, and though bleak at times, it is satire, and ends on a relatively happy note.  Although such overt, drastic actions seem unlikely today, and are jarringly unexpected turns of event even in the book, the context of the thirties makes the rise of Windrip more plausible, especially given the success of Huey Long, who was a political boss with a kindred platform until his assassination.  Although the spectre of totalitarianism is alive and well,  it is far more subtle: no marching boots, thank you, just constant surveillance and algorithmized scrutiny. Readers of alt-history and those with an interest in politics will doubtless find this fascinating, if not as potent a warning as it once was.

Related:

• 1984, George Orwell
• Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
• The Iron Heel, Jack London
• The Plot Against America, Philip Roth
• Timeline-191 Series, Harry Turtledove (featuring the rise of a southern Hitler)

Coup d'Etat

The War that Came Early: Coup d'Etat
© 2012 Harry Turtledove
416 pages

Coup d'Etat is the fourth book in Turtledove's War that Came Early series, in which World War 2 begins at the 1938 Munich Conference when the Allies call Hitler's bluff. Soon joined in his invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Polish,  Germany found itself engrossed in a two-front war after Russia rushed to the tiny republic's defense. But in 1940, Hitler pulled off a diplomatic coup, convincing Britain and France to join him in a war against Stalinism by offering to withdraw the Wehrmacht from the low countries.  Considering that the Soviets were also under attack by the Japanese empire, the Big Switch was making World War 2 out to be a general dogpile against the the Russians -- but in Coup de'Etat, the alliance between Hitler and the west breaks down after an "extralegal" change of government in Britain, and what was shaping up to be a vastly different war is now simmering down to an only marginally interesting conflict.

Like Supervolcano: Explosion, Coup d'Etat succeeds initially purely on premise alone. The Big Switch completely recovered this slow-to-start series for me, and the new set course of events it initiated carry the novel: with the Allies and Germany both pouring resources into Russia, it's as if we're seeing the Cold War served hot and early.  Will Russia collapse? What will Europe look like with Stalin gone, but with Hitler still reigning? Unfortunately,  that question becomes moot by novel's end.  Not only are we back to the same basic World War 2 we know -- complete with Italy invading British Africa, being turned back, and then aided by the Germans -- but the dramatic event that restores the status quo isn't even dramatic. One minute a character is being interrogated by British intelligence for planning to take over the government, the next minute he's free because his cohorts have done it. Whoopee.  How did they do it? The reader isn't shown.  The ramifications of a military coup of Britain aren't explored, either: the new powers-that-be simply inform us that they have to be very discrete to avoid popular sentiment turning against them.  The war in the Pacific isn't any more interesting,  perhaps because the American war engine is only starting to rev up. With Hitler at war with Britain, France, and Russia, and about to waste his resources in Africa, and the Japanese already weak after also taking on Russia,  the end-game seems as though it will be inevitably similar to our own. And if that's the case, what's the point of a writing an alternate history novel?

The Plot Against America

The Plot Against America
© 2004 Philip Roth
400 pages

Mister Charlie Lindbergh, he flew to old Berlin,
Got 'im a big Iron Cross, and he flew right back again
To Washington, Washington. 


Misses Charlie Lindbergh, she come dressed in red,
Said: "I'd like to sleep in that pretty White House bed
In Washington, Washington."
("Lindbergh", Woody Guthrie)

The normal proceedings of the 1940 Republican Presidential Convention were interrupted when Charles Lindbergh, the heroic aviator adored by millions for his pioneer solo flight across the Atlantic, arrived at the last moment and swept the convention, winning the Republican candidacy for president. As Britain continued to struggle to hold its own against Hitler's Luftwaffe, Lindbergh denounced President Roosevelt as a warmonger influenced by Jews,  and won a staggering victory; the course of history changed. The Plot Against America is an alternate history novel about the Jewish experience during the Nazi-friendly Lindbergh administration. While grimly fascinating at first,  the novel goes off the rails of plausibility 4/5ths of the way in and doesn't so much as conclude as simply comes to a stop.

Roth makes the usual move of writing himself and his family into the plot: a young Phillip Roth is the viewpoint character, and the novel is presented as a memoir of his coming of age in a dark time for his family. Roth's alternate tale concerns social and cultural change, chiefly; the war in Europe plays only a background role, and judging by the novel's ending, comes to the same end as it did in reality. Where Roth succeeds is in believably portraying the slow growth of fascism in an American context. Lindbergh doesn't swap his suit and tie for a colonel's uniform and turn the United States into a slightly different version of an Evil Empire; he works instead on a more insidious level -- concealing fascism perfectly behind the flag and cross. While Jews in the United States are understandably alarmed by his election, there seems to be a genius behind Lindbergh's machinations. Rather than making overt moves against them,  he waits for their sustained agitation to cause them to lose sympathy among the Christian majority..and then ever so-subtly fans the flames.  It reminds me of the tactics of anti-labor politicians in the Gilded Age, who would manipulate strikers into taking forceful action and then send in the troops to brutally put down the uprest. The middle class then blamed the strikers for being violent against the state. More fascinating than this is the psychological tole the subtle war takes on the Jewish community. This is very much the heart of The Plot Against America. Not only are members of the Roth family turned against one another, but they begin to doubt themselves, and their love of country is slowly battered by the increasing climate of fear in which they must live.

Unfortunately, the novel's end doesn't do it justice. As the horror  seems as if it can't get any worse, Roth writes that "just like that, it was over" -- and then quickly tells what happened in brief. Here he teases readers with a revelation that puts Lindbergh's entire political career into a more understandable context, but the revelation rather beggars belief. This would seem an appropriate time for a conclusion, but the faux memoir continues for almost another hundred pages, with seemingly no little point other than to tuck in a minor thread. The effort is appreciated, but seems out of proportion.

Probably worth your while if the alternate social history catches your attention: that story is definitely moving, but the ending is problematic.

Related:
"Lindbergh"/"America First" by Woody Guthrie, in which Guthrie decries isolationist Lindbergh's America First organization.
In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Harry Turtledove. (Here the US also doesn't enter WW2.)

SPOILER:
The ultimate premise of the plot against America is that Hitler kidnapped Lindbergh's baby in 1932 and raised him in Germany as a hostage; in exchange for his continued safety, the Lindberghs had to enter public office. Hitler  thus engineers his entire political career and turns Lindbergh into a puppet for his own ambitions.

11/22/63

11/22/63
© 2011 Stephen King
849 pages

What would you do if you could walk through a door and into another world -- the land of ago, where it's always September 1958, where gas is cheap, root beer is creamy, and cars sport tailfins? Such was the opportunity English teacher Jake Epping accepted when his friend Al invited him into the pantry of his diner. For years, Al has known that there exists a curious fissure in spacetime there, one which allows people to pass from the present to 1958 as easily as descending a few steps. He's never revealed it before now, but he has something he wants to accomplish in the past -- something he can't do himself.

The mission, of course, is saving President Kennedy's life on 11/22/63 -- five years from the date that the fissure opens into. If Epping takes on the mission -- and he will, for personal reasons as well as to help his friend Al -- he will have to live at least five years of his life in the past, in a time without modern medicine and conveniences. But the past has its attractions, as well.

11/22/63 is a multistage novel; at first, Epping is drawn in by the extraordinary premise and the novelty of exploring the past. Before setting forth on his mission proper, he takes several jaunts into the past to explore how he might survival in this familiar-yet-alien world, and realizes that simple changes can have broad effects -- and the greater the effect of a potential change, the harder it will be to accomplish. The past is not a static canvas giving Epping free room to move: it is obdurate. It resists change, and the whole of the novel is haunted by the past's resiliency. Even when things seem to be going well, there's still anticipation that something is bound to go horrifically wrong.  As Jake's mission begins in earnest, the novel becomes more a story about a man finding his place in a community. I haven't read much of King (The Stand, Christine, and Firestarter), but I wouldn't expect such emotional meat from an author who is known for horror and fantasy. King's characters seem real, to the point that I started googling at various intervals to see if they were historic personalities. As the fifties give way to the sixties, Jake's mission takes priority -- leading to the action which we've been building up to for hundreds of pages. I had no idea what to expect from the ending, but King delivers a stellar conclusion.

11/22/63 has, I think, displaced The Stand as my favorite King novel. It's as compelling a character drama as I've ever read, filled with little historical details that delighted a person fascinated with the period like myself -- and of course,  driven by the tantalizing lure of being able to change the past.  Definite recommendation. Had I participated in the Broke and the Bookish's most recent list (top ten books read in 2011), this would have have been on there.

The Big Switch

The War that Cane Early: The Big Switch
© 2011 Harry Turtledove
432 pages

In 1938, the powers of Europe met to maintain the peace -- but Hitler's arrogance resulted in a continent at war.  In response to Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia, the two western powers invaded Germany. Despite his ambitions, the newly remilitarized Germany state is in no condition to make short work of its neighbors, especially after the Soviet Union invades Germany's unlikely ally, Poland. Faced with a two-front war, 1939 looked to be a grim year for Hitler...but then the Japanese invaded Russia's Pacific coast, seeing an opportunity to expand its own Asian territory.

If that intro reads a bit like the intro for West and East, it's because little actually happened in West and East. The story being told was all-too familiar and began to lose my interest -- but that's over with The Big Switch. This is a novel aptly named, for in it the storyline drastically departs from history as we know it. Before this point the changes in the timeline were marginal only: indeed, in West and East it appeared as though Germany was headed toward defeat in the exact manner its real-world counterpart  met in 1945. Japan's invasion of Russia balanced the odds against Germany, though, and in The Big Switch events will drastically alter the balance of power -- imperiling the Soviet Union. Neither Germany or the Soviet Union were prepared for a war of this intensity or magnitude, but Hitler is about to pull off a diplomatic triumph that will be a complete game-changer. While I don't want to spoil anything, let's just say Winston Churchill's death shortly after his protesting rumors of a western alliance against the Soviet Union may not have been an accident.  The result is a war that is NOT our World War 2. This is a World War 2 without D-Day, without Pearl Harbor, and perhaps even without a large-scale Holocaust -- but it's already delivering its own epic ambushes, tragedies, and conflicts.

Turtledove retains the same multinational cast of characters as in his previous novels, though he introduces a couple of newcomers. My favorites remain the German submarine captain, the American socialist fighting in the Spanish Civil War, and a Czech soldier who fled German occupation to fight against the Nazis in France. The Big Switch has completely enthused me about this series, despite a couple of niggling weaknesses (like Turtledove's customary repetitiveness. Yes, Harry, I know Japanese soldiers don't think much of enemy troops who surrender.).   I'm greatly looking forward to what this alternate World War 2 develops into .

Then Everything Changed

Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics: JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford, Reagan
© 2011 Jeff Greenfield
434 pages

"...playing with history is a small bit of payback for the way history has played with us."

Historical speculation may not be fruitful, but it's fun -- and former Kennedy speechwriter and longtime political journalist Jeff Greenfield definitely has his fill of it, presenting three alternate history scenarios spanning two decades. He begins with the assassination of John F. Kennedy nearly two months before his inauguration as President,  resets the clock and jumps to a kitchen in Los Angeles, where JFK's brother Robert narrowly escaped an attempt on his own life. After following RFK's bitter election campaign, Greenfield restores reality again and moves us into the seventies, shortly before Gerald Ford informed Jimmy Carter that there was no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe and never would be under his administration. Here, though, Ford rallies and just barely beats Carter in the election.

Greenfield's fun at history's expense provides for some great stories: for instance, after his aggressive stance offends Kruschev, the latter decides to "put a hedgehog in Uncle Sam's pants" and forces Johnson to respond to Soviet missiles in Cuba. Later, presidential candidate Robert Kennedy confronts violent students  protests in Chicago in 1968, and still later Ted Kennedy is forced to debate a man who adopts Kennedy's own brother's legacy and uses RFK's words against him. Greenfield throws in little allusions to how historical events truly played out -- both during this period and beyond. Newly-minted congressman Al Gore Jr. vows to seek a constitutional amendment that will ensure the winner of the popular vote is declared president, after a member of his own party manages to win the popular vote but lose in the electoral college:  Richard Nixon grumbles that he needs a 'fair and balanced' news network that will cut him some slack; and a young Dick Cheney rants that "next, those bastards will be trying to privatize social security!".  The book ends with a particularly humorous allusion, one that shows how ludicrously history can sometimes repeat itself.

While the author is more unkind than not to Nixon and Reagan,  his bias is toward the centrist politics of Robert Kennedy rather than traditional progressivism as espoused by McGovern or Humprey. The Kennedy clan has a central role in the book: RFK's presidential campaign is its core, and the other two scenarios draw heavily on the Kennedy influence. The scenarios featured are stirringly plausible, though generally the range of the scenarios is limited. I wanted to see him explore how the space race might have unfolded with LBJ at the head, but there's no mention of it. This is part understandable, because history becomes increasingly more predictable as its scale broadens: while someone could write a book on how the early assassination of JFK altered the entire latter half of the 20th century, Greenfield doesn't -- ostensibly because there would be too many variables to deal with. He keeps the range of his scenarios small to limit the effects of chaos.

 Greenfield also works in historical ripple effects into his narrative: in a world where Watergate never happens, Bob Woodward leaves the Washington Post to become a lawyer, and MASH fails after Vietnam ends on a less-than-agreeable note.  Greenfield is a fine storyteller, but his flawless integration of real-life speeches into a completely different historical retelling impressed me the most. Dialogue abounds, but most of it -- Greenfield says -- is taken from the official Oval Office recordings that the various presidents kept. He devotes several dozen pages at the end of the book to explain how he drew from history to make the changes he did, which is always commendable when writing alternate history or historical fiction.

A fun romp through two decades of American politics that will especially appeal to those who feel the promise of America was shortchanged by acts of violence and like seeing Richard Nixon lose elections (repeatedly).

             

West and East

The War that Came Early: West and East
© 2010 Harry Turtledove
436 pages

In 1938, the Munich Peace Conference ended in a general European war. Britain and France, outraged by Hitler's transparent attempts to manipulate them, pledged to defend Czechoslovakia -- resulting in a war that came early, with all sides largely unprepared. The conflict between Britain, France, and Germany widens into a two-front war for Hitler after Russia, discomfited by the Germano-Polish entente that emerged following their sacking of Czechoslovakia, invades his western neighbors. Imperial Japan seizes the opportunity to expand its puppet-state in Manchuria into Siberia.  So ended The War that Came Early: Hitler's War.

That last plot development ensured that I would read the second book in this series, West and East, for it had the potential to radically change the story of the war. While Turtledove's eventual story may read quite differently from our own history books, West and East isn't the book that does it. Though outfitted with interesting, mostly sympathetic characters and not being bogged down in too much trivia, West and East isn't much of an "alternate" history novel. True,  Europe's situation is different --  France, though partially occupied, has not fallen -- but  Germany expanding then falling back against a two-front war isn't much of a change. The most promising twist -- a Russo-Japanese war -- never amounted to much in this novel. The Japanese viewpoint character spends his chapters swatting mosquitoes, avoiding being hit by Russian bombers and mortars, complaining about the weather, and thinking patriotic thoughts about the Japanese race and empire. If Russia and Japan's armies did something other than throw things at one another, it's not apparent here. I was hoping for a wider altercation, but Japan is apparently too busy consolidating its rule in China, where a resistance movement has begun a terrorist campaign against Dai Nippon's occupational forces.

It's a...fair read. I looked forward to hearing from some of the characters, especially the American communist fighting in the Internationals and a Czech soldier embedded inside France's army, who uses an anti-tank rifle to duel with German snipers. The fate of Peggy Druce, an American stranded in Berlin after the war began, was also of interest. Other viewpoint characters include English, Welsh, French, German, and Russian military officials and a Jewish family in Germany. Though  the characters' stories interested me, I'd hoped to see more overall plot development. This is the second of a planned six-book series, though, so it's not altogether surprising development is so slow. Hopefully the events here will be the germ for more interesting developments later on. I'm especially interested on the Russo-Japanese war's impact on Japan's Pacific ambitions, and whether or not Germany will rally to continue to be the villain through the remaining four books. I'm sure Turtledove can pad out a long retreat through four books, but mixing things up -- having an early German defeat followed by an immediate cold-war-turned-hot featuring Russia and Japan as twin evils, for instance -- would be an improvement over a so-far predictable recounting of historical events with a slight twist. I'll read the third when it comes out, but I'll only finish the series if the divergence widens.

The End of the Beginning

The End of the Beginning
© 2005 Harry Turtledove
448 pages

The Empire of the Rising Sun has cast a dark shadow across the Pacific. On December 7th, 1941, the naval and air forces of Imperial Japan struck Pearl Harbor, disabling or destroying most of the US Pacific fleet at Pearl, and paving the way for the invasion forces that immediately followed. Unprepared for the assault, American troops were forced to abandon the island. Early in 1942, America launched an ill-considered attempt to regain the island, resulting in a disastrous naval battle that completed the Pacific Fleet's destruction. Only one American carrier survived to limp back to drydock.  In the wake of their triumph, the Japanese have established a puppet government in the form of the newly-revived Kingdom of Hawaii. The Empire will soon learn, though,  that taking Hawaii and keeping it are different challenges altogether.

Although little remains of America's surface fleet in the Pacific, her submarines still hunt the waters there -- and Hawaii's location at the end of a very long supply line makes the occupational forces even more vulnerable to their attacks than England in either world war. Hawaii's soldiers, prisoners, and civilians need food and oil if they're to maintain their newly acquired 'shield' against the United States, and the freighters that bring those supplies into Honolulu are ideal targets for submarines. While Japan's occupational forces complete their subjugation of the islands and dig in in anticipation of future assaults, factories in the United States break records to produce another -- and a far greater -- fleet from scratch. The end result is inevitable, but exciting to see developed.

Turtledove relies on his usual structure, telling this story of Hawaii's occupation and restoration through a diverse cast of characters from both sides of the conflict. Notable viewpoint characters include Joe Crosetti, a Hellcat pilot who's itching for vengeance;  Army officer Fletch Armitage and his ex-wife Jane, who are both prisoners -- one doomed to work to death in labor gangs, and the other forced into the role of comfort woman for the Imperials; Minoru Genda, the officer who planned Hawaii's invasion; and the Takayashi family, including two boys who were raised American and their Japanese father, who eagerly provides whatever assistance he can to the men of his native country.  The villains here were not as sympathetic as most of Turtledove's antagonists, almost always betrayed in the most sadistic light.  While I typically support one of Turtledove's factions over another, I haven't rooted for a villain's defeat this enthusiastically since the large Timeline-191 series. The Imperials treat Hawaii as savagely as they treated China and the Philippines in reality.

The End of the Beginning is a strong book: the Armitages and Takayashi boys were especially sympathetic characters, and the Pacific theater is not one Turtledove has invested a lot of time in prior. Although the eventual outcome of the book is obvious -- the cover of the novel depicts American forces attacking Japan's forces in Pearl Harbor -- the ride there was fun. He even avoided engaging in too much repetition: there were only two obvious offenders, and one of those (the emaciation of POWs) may be justified. I could've gone without reading abut Joe Crosetti hearing bullets rip into his plane, checking the gauges automatically, seeing that they were normal, and noting that Hellcats are built to last four times.

It doesn't appear that Turtledove is expanding this series more, which may be wise:  given the United States' industrial output and the scarcity of resources in Japan, the conflict can only end in defeat for the Empire; Turtledove even throws in foreshadowing to hint that the Empire's surrender will follow a certain explosion in Hiroshima. I'd recommend this to both Turtledove fans and alternate history readers in general: it redeemed Give Me Back my Legions! for me.

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I picked this up from the library a few weeks back, not because I expressly wanted to read it but because I didn't want to return from the library empty-handed. Purchasing and beginning to play Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault rekindled my interest given that its first level forces the player to survive the chaos of Pearl Harbor. I'd share a screenshot, but I haven't been able to take one that gives the full scope. Here are a few, though:
- Seeing the first wave of Zeros buzz Pearl Harbor, after which point I was forced to run across the base hiding from their strafing runs.
- Using the deck guns of a PT boat to shoot (and miss by a large margin) Zeros while enroute to my post aboard the USS Arizona. (Yeah, that bodes well.)
- Sailing down battleship row, which is quite an experience given the bombers, strafing runs, and ships that are falling down around me. 
- Shooting at more planes while trying to find a ship that isn't destroyed; the Arizona perished before my eyes.
- And aboard the West Virginia,  defending it from the second wave of fighters after jumping aboard ship, saving it from sinking, waving an axe around, saving soldiers from dying, and nearly dying myself of smoke inhalation. The ship was morbidly detailed.