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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 09/18/92 -- Vol. 11, No. 12
MEETINGS UPCOMING:
Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon.
_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C
10/07 HO: THE FORGE OF GOD and THE ANVIL OF STARS by Greg Bear
(The Fermi Paradox) (HO 4N-509)
10/28 HO: Book Swap (HO 4N-509)
11/18 HO: DOOMSDAY BOOK by Connie Willis (Plagues) (HO 4N-509)
12/09 HO: A FIRE ON THE DEEP by Vernor Vinge (HO 4N-509)
_D_A_T_E _E_X_T_E_R_N_A_L _M_E_E_T_I_N_G_S/_C_O_N_V_E_N_T_I_O_N_S/_E_T_C.
09/19 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
10/10 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 908-834-1563 hocpb!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell HO 1D-505A 908-834-1267 hocpb!jrrt
MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 908-949-7076 homxc!11366ns
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 908-576-3346 mtfme!lfl
MT Librarian: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 908-957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
1. Sorry, you are an instant loser, but thank you for playing.
2. Two weeks ago I was talking about the little stickers you get
when you give blood. You know the ones. They say, "Be nice to me,
I gave blood today. Tomorrow all bets are off." I should tell you
about what happened to me with those stickers. One of my trips was
to Peru and Ecuador. That was the trip where I was nearly arrested
by the military police, I got stranded on the Amazon, I wrestled a
pickpocket, and I had my luggage disappear on the way back (that is
all true, by the way--it was _s_o_m_e trip!), but the worst thing that
happened was to come when I got what I thought was safely back and
a few weeks later I went to give blood.
THE MT VOID Page 2
I filled out the form before giving and they asked if I'd traveled
to a malaria region. Yes, I told them. Did I take anti-malaria
drugs? Sure--how dumb do I look? Don't answer that. Sorry, we
don't want your blood. Really? It's the rules. But they gave me
a "Be nice to me, I tried to give blood today" sticker. And what
was worse, I was dumb enough to wear it.
Then it started. "Hey, you see what Leeper is wearing?" "Yeah.
Why do you think he got rejected?" "Well, it sure wasn't for low
blood pressure." "You think he has ... IT?" "Why else would he
get rejected?" "Boy, he's the last person I would have thought of
as ...." "I don't know; there was always something different about
him, a little weird. It's not just that he didn't divorce her
years ago. There's something funny about a grown man who still
reads sci-fi."
3. And the Hugo winners are:
Best Novel:: Lois McMaster Bujold, _B_a_r_r_a_y_a_r (Baen)
Best Novella: Nancy Kress, "Beggars in Spain," IASFM, April 1991
Best Novelette: Isaac Asimov, "Gold," _A_n_a_l_o_g, September 1991
Best Short Story: Geoffrey A. Landis, "A Walk in the Sun," IASFM,
October 1991
Best Non-Fiction Book: Charles Addams, _T_h_e _W_o_r_l_d _o_f _C_h_a_r_l_e_s _A_d_d_a_m_s
Best Original Artwork: Michael Whelan, cover of _T_h_e _S_u_m_m_e_r _Q_u_e_e_n
Best Dramatic Presentation: _T_e_r_m_i_n_a_t_o_r _2 (Carolco)
Best Professional Editor: Gardner Dozois
Best Professional Artist: Michael Whelan
Best Fanzine: Mimosa, Dick and Nicki Lynch
Best Semiprozine: Locus, Charles Brown
Best Fan Writer: Dave Langford
Best Fan Artist: Brad Foster
John W. Campbell Award: Ted Chiang
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper
Discovery consists of seeing what everyone else has seen
and thinking what no one else has thought.
-- Albert Szent-Gyorgi
(So does letting your mind wander!
-- Mark Leeper)
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, VOLUME 4: ALTERNATE AMERICAS
edited by Gregory Benford & Martin H. Greenberg
Bantam Spectra, 1992, ISBN 0-553-29007-X, $4.99.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper
This anthology contains "fourteen tales of alternate history"
according to the cover blurb, though by the strict definition of
"alternate history" two or three of these stories are not really
alternate histories. (That's okay--in fact, I think two of these
are among the three best stories in the volume--but I thought you
should know.)
It was, of course, inevitable that an anthology of alternate
Americas would appear in October of 1992. After all, alternate
histories are all the rage now and everyone is getting on the
Columbus band wagon (except for those who are trying to overturn it
for being more a war wagon or a slave wagon than a band wagon), so
an alternate Americas anthology was hardly unexpected.
Unfortunately, the apparent constraint of choosing only new stories
for this volume meant that some of the classic alternate Americas
were left out (such as L. Sprague de Camp's "Wheels of If" and Harry
Turtledove's sequel "The Pugnacious Peacemaker," Joe Lansdale's
"Letter from the South Two Moons West of Nacogdoches" and "Trains
Not Taken," Somtow Sucharitkul's "Aquiliad" stories, or even Philip
Jose Farmer's "Sail On, Sail On"--a longer list appears at the end
of this review). But the long lead time meant that half the stories
have already seen print elsewhere anyway by the time this book came
out. The worst of both worlds.
Harry Turtledove's "Report of the Special Committee on the
Quality of Life" is the exception to this, having appeared in Terry
Carr's _U_n_i_v_e_r_s_e _1_0 in 1980 (under the byline "Eric G. Iverson"). I
can't see any change that would warrant the 1992 copyright date
indicated for it in _W_h_a_t _M_i_g_h_t _H_a_v_e _B_e_e_n _4--the only differences I
found were one extra paragraph break and one change in
capitalization. It's also not, strictly speaking, alternate
history. Rather, it's a parody of government feasibility studies by
having Jaime Nose'nada ("I know nothing" in Spanish) write up all
the reasons why Spain shouldn't bother to follow up on Columbus's
journey. Cute, but more than a little preachy--I'm sure all the
pro-space groups love it.
"Ink from the New Moon" by A. A. Attanasio is the first of
three stories in this volume which assume that North America was
first settled from Asia rather than from Europe. What could have
been a good story is undercut by Attanasio's foray into a
description of the "Unified Sandalwood Autocracies" which sounds,
not surprisingly, like our own USA. Maybe the point is that the
Alternate Americas September 17, 1992 Page 2
more things change, the more they stay the same, but it ends up
looking contrived instead of convincing. And I feel obliged to
point out a minor quibble: The Chinese load Columbus's ships with
tobacco, peanuts, and potatoes. But peanuts and potatoes are native
to South America--peanuts were introduced to Africa by European
explorers and reached North America with the slave trade; potatoes
were brought to Europe from South America and from there to North
America. I suppose it's remotely possible that peanuts would have
arrived in the "USA" of Attanasio's story through trade, although
Attanasio has said there was a huge wall separating the "USA" from
the Aztec empire. The quibble and the parallels are really the same
thing--an attempt to make the alternate world look familiar. But by
making it familiar, Attanasio has made it less realistic.
"Vinland the Dream" by Kim Stanley Robinson is not an alternate
history in the strict sense of the word--it's about remaking
history, all right, but not by taking a time machine and going back
to change something. Rather, Robinson asks, what if all the
evidence of Norse exploration in Canada and elsewhere in North
America had been faked by someone in the early 1800s? What if he
_h_a_d "remade history" (a common theme with Robinson, whose latest
collection is titled _R_e_m_a_k_i_n_g _H_i_s_t_o_r_y after its title story)? In
"Vinland the Dream" some archaeologists discover the truth, making
them sort of Schliemanns in reverse, turning fact into myth. What
motive would the hoaxer have? Was he just a practical joker or a
Norse chauvinist, or was he trying to give us dreams? In both
"Vinland the Dream" and "Remaking History" (which examines an
alternate history on many levels: what did happen, what might have
happened, how what happened is portrayed in the media, and so on)
Robinson looks at how our perceptions of history give direction to
our lives.
"If There Be Cause" by Sheila Finch assumes that Sir Francis
Drake actually settled New Albion (San Francisco) instead of just
claiming it and moving on, or if he didn't settle, at least he and
his crew stayed long enough to leave a lasting impression and a lot
of descendents. Finch does the politically correct thing by having
the Native Americans ("The People") the heroes and the Europeans the
villains, except for Drake (who probably wasn't the saint the People
remember him as) and, while the characters are well-drawn, the
somewhat heavy-handed message is annoying.
James Morrow's "Isabella of Castile Answers Her Mail" is not an
alternate history, though a world in which Isabella and Columbus
could exchange mail as he was sailing across the Atlantic is clearly
not _o_u_r world. (One can also argue that in our world Isabella
wouldn't have talked about the "Golem of Jewish folklore," which was
known only to a few scholars until the 16th Century in Prague.) But
the main thrust of the story is that Columbus passes through a time
warp and visits modern-day New York. And what he finds most
surprising is, ...., well, surprising. The reaction of someone from
Alternate Americas September 17, 1992 Page 3
the past to our present is a staple of science fiction, but Morrow
manages to make it fresh and new. Maybe I'm just an incurable
Morrow fan, but maybe that's because his work is so good.
"Let Time Shape" is another of George Zebrowski's "climetricon"
stories, the climetricon being a device that lets one see all
possible outcomes of history. This one concentrates on a single
timeline--what if the survivors of Carthage had crossed the Atlantic
and settled North America--rather than examine several lines as some
of his others do. The interjections of climetricon theory add
little to the story and make the narrative seem somewhat choppy.
Also, I find the idea that New Carthage would be so advanced and in
a secret alliance with England without Spain knowing anything about
its existence hard to believe.
Jerry Oltion's "Red Alert" is little more than an aerial
dogfight story with an alternate history framework--the Native
Americans successfully resisted the European's attempts to steal
their land (even Cortez was defeated by the Aztecs) and are limited
to Manhattan Island, the only land they actually bought. Other than
this, and Oltion's use of names such as Sitting Bull and Tecumseh
for characters, this could be any dogfight story anywhere.
"Such a Deal" by Esther M. Friesner looks at what might have
happened if Columbus had been turned down by Ferdinand and Isabella
and had gotten his financing from the Jews of Granada instead. It's
more a tale of alternate Spain than alternate America (though
Columbus seems to have gone a _l_o_t further on his first voyage here
than his first voyage in our world), and entertaining enough.
Unfortunately, it ends on a word play in English which would not
work at all in either the Spanish or Ladino in which it was
presumably related, nor the "Cathayan" in which it was used--an odd
slip, since Friesner's last alternate history centered around the
ambiguities of translation.
Robert Silverberg can always be relied on to produce a first-
class story, and "Looking for the Fountain" maintains that
reputation. The narrator tells of traveling with Ponce de Leon to
look for the Fountain of Manly Strength, commonly--and erroneously-
-called the Fountain of Youth. On their quest they find a tribe of
Latin-speaking Christian Indians. How such a thing came to be I
will leave for Silverberg to explain. I will say that this is a
genuine alternate history and not just a secret history or lost race
story, but its main virtue is Silverberg's skillful use of the theme
of "recovering what one has lost" on several different levels. As
with Robinson's "Vinland the Dream," "Looking for the Fountain"
bears multiple readings.
"The Round-Eyed Barbarians" by L. Sprague de Camp is another
"what if the Chinese had settled North America first" story. (As a
side note, all these alternate Americas are alternate _N_o_r_t_h
Alternate Americas September 17, 1992 Page 4
Americas. It's a bit disappointing that no one did anything with
South America.) Once again the Chinese settlers meet the European
explorers. Ho hum. The story is competent, but mundane.
Brad Linaweaver's "Destination Indies," on the other hand, is
far from mundane. So far, in fact, that one wonders what he was
thinking of when he wrote it. (My suspicion is that he was inspired
by some of Howard Waldrop's stories.) This is chapter 107 of the
on-going saga of Christopher Columbus sailing the Atlantic and
fighting the Dark Duke, agent of the Turks and builder of a
microdemonically engineered submersible.... Not my cup of tea, but
fans of old pulps and serials may enjoy it.
In "Ship Full of Jews," Barry N. Malzberg supposes that
Torquemada has convinced Columbus to carry a large contingent of
Jews to the New World for his (Torquemada's) own secret purpose.
Malzberg does a fair job of drawing his characters, but his errors
and slips made the story hard to appreciate or even accept. First,
he refers to the Jews as Chassids and describes their style of
clothing in such a way as to be consistent with the Chassidim, but
Chassidism wasn't founded until the 18th Century (and then in Poland
rather than anywhere near Spain). Second, everyone talks about
going to the "New World." But Columbus thought he was sailing to
the East Indies and China, _n_o_t a "New World," and in fact died not
knowing he had found a new continent. And third, when I'm reading
along and hit the phrase "between she and Cristoforo," it's like
hitting a protruding stone while skating across an apparently smooth
pond. Benford, Greenberg, and how many other editors let this past
them? "Ship Full of Jews" has that dark Malzberg tone that he does
so well, but I found too many stumbling blocks to rate it as highly
as some of his past works.
"The Karamazov Caper" by Gordon Eklund starts from the premise
that Pope Innocent VIII was assassinated in 1486 and his successor
was more interested in purifying the Church than in exploring the
lands Columbus discovered. The result of this is that North America
was settled from the west by the Russians and from the east by the
Germans. When the story starts, the baby son of the German
ambassador has been kidnapped and killed in Russian territory and
the investigator Trotsky has been sent to find the murderer. And
therein lies the rub, as they say--I can't believe that Lenin and
Trotsky and Czar Nicholas II would even exist, let alone fill the
same roles in this world as in ours. (For example, without an
imperialist Spain, would Henry VIII have felt the need to marry
Catherine of Aragon? If he hadn't married her, he wouldn't have had
to divorce her, so England's break from the Catholic Church might
never have occurred, or might have occurred later. And so on.)
And finally "The Sleeping Serpent" by Pamela Sargent, in which
the Mongols were not stopped in their expansion and swept through
most of Europe and across the Atlantic. Only a few English
Alternate Americas September 17, 1992 Page 5
settlements along the New England coast are causing them problems
and they know how to deal with them--they think. In many ways
similar to "If There Be Cause," this story deals more realistically
with the philosophies of the various groups involved and avoids the
obvious traps.
Though there are some outstanding stories in this collection,
such as the Robinson and the Silverberg, overall I was disappointed
by it. Granted, it's 1992. Still, these are supposed to be
alternate Americas, so having five of the fourteen about Columbus's
journey seems excessive. Four more deal with settlement from Asia.
Strangely, only one did anything with the Vikings, and no one had
anything to say about Central or South America. This collection is
not up to the level of the previous three in the series, and not up
to the level of Mike Resnick's "Alternate" series from Tor.
Recommended for completists only.
Further Reading:
- Anvil, Christopher, "Apron Chains," in _A_n_a_l_o_g Dec 70: The
scientific revolution arrived early and the discovery of the
Americas is sidetracked by a NASA-like project, while Mexicans
plan an expedition of discovery east across the Atlantic.
- Benford, Gregory, "Manassas, Again," in _W_h_a_t _M_i_g_h_t _H_a_v_e _B_e_e_n _3:
Rome developed a steam-driven machine gun and colonized the New
World.
- Coulson, Juanita, "Unscheduled Flight," in _B_e_y_o_n_d _T_i_m_e: The
Bermuda Triangle offers a one-way trip to an America colonized
by Vikings and English pirates.
- Coulson, Robert, "Soy la Libertad!," in _B_e_y_o_n_d _T_i_m_e: Magellan
discovered the Americas.
- Cox, Irving E., Jr., "In the Circle of Nowhere," in _U_n_i_v_e_r_s_e
Jul 54 and _F_a_n_t_a_s_t_i_c Jan 60: AmerInds enslaved Europe.
- de Camp, L. Sprague, "The Wheels of If," in Tor SF Double #20:
Celts settled North America.
- Effinger, Geo. Alec, _R_e_l_a_t_i_v_e_s: Has one world in which Europe
never colonized America or Africa.
- Eklund, Gordon, "Red Skins," in _F&_S_F Jan 81: The Americas were
discovered in 1219 by a Moslem, but not seriously colonized
until Europeans showed up c. 1700.
- Eklund, Gordon, "The Rising of the Sun," in _B_e_y_o_n_d _T_i_m_e: Europe
fell to the Moslems and was discovered by the Incas in 1600.
- Farmer, Philip Jose, "Sail On, Sail On," in _T_h_e _G_r_e_a_t _S_F
_S_t_o_r_i_e_s: _1_4 (_1_9_5_2): Columbus sails off the edge of the Earth.
- Lansdale, Joe R., "Letter from the South Two Moons West of
Nacogdoches," in _B_y _B_i_z_a_r_r_e _H_a_n_d_s: North America was settled by
the Japanese, Aztecs and various tribes.
- Lansdale, Joe R., "Trains Not Taken," in _B_y _B_i_z_a_r_r_e _H_a_n_d_s:
Japan colonized the western part of North America and Europe
the east.
- Norton, Andre, _Q_u_e_s_t _C_r_o_s_s_t_i_m_e: Cortez's death prevented the
Alternate Americas September 17, 1992 Page 6
Spanish conquest of the Aztecs.
- Ryan, J. B., "The Mosaic," in _A_s_t_o_u_n_d_i_n_g Jul 40: A different
outcome at Tours results in an Arabic America.
- Saberhagen, Fred, _T_h_e _M_a_s_k _o_f _t_h_e _S_u_n: An Inca Empire in a
timeline that had defeated the Spanish conquests recruits
soldiers from other time periods to stop the Spanish conquests
in yet other timelines.
- Silverberg, Robert, _T_h_e _G_a_t_e _o_f _W_o_r_l_d_s: Europe was practically
wiped out by the Black Plague in 1348, and North America was
conquered by the Aztecs.
- Smith, L. Neil, _T_h_e _C_r_y_s_t_a_l _E_m_p_i_r_e: Europe was destroyed in
1349 when an attempt to ship plague-ridden rats to Saracen
lands backfired disastrously, and the Western Hemisphere is
ruled by the secretive, mysterious Aztec empire.
- Somtow, S. P., _T_h_e _A_q_u_i_l_i_a_d (a.k.a. _A_q_u_i_l_a _i_n _t_h_e _N_e_w _W_o_r_l_d),
_T_h_e _A_q_u_i_l_i_a_d _I_I: _A_q_u_i_l_a _a_n_d _t_h_e _I_r_o_n _H_o_r_s_e, and _T_h_e _A_q_u_i_l_i_a_d
_I_I_I: _A_q_u_i_l_a _a_n_d _t_h_e _S_p_h_i_n_x: Romans discovered the steam engine
and conquered the world, including Terra Novum.
- Somtow, S. P., "Sunsteps," in _F_i_r_e _f_r_o_m _t_h_e _W_i_n_e _D_a_r_k _S_e_a:
Aztecs depopulate the world in order to meet sacrificial needs.
- Turtledove, Harry, "The Pugnacious Peacemaker," in Tor SF
Double #20: Celts settled North America.
- Waldrop, Howard, "The Lions are Asleep This Night," in _O_m_n_i Aug
86: Columbus found the Americas uninhabited; African slaves
were imported to mine Peruvian gold but rebelled, leading to
white decline worldwide.
- Waldrop, Howard, _T_h_e_m _B_o_n_e_s: In one world, there was no Roman
Empire, no Christianity, the Arabs have explored the New World,
and the Aztecs are still powerful.
- Weissman, Barry Alan, "Past Touch-the-Sky Mountain," in _I_f May
68: Marco Polo discovers America for the Chinese.
- White, James, _T_h_e _S_i_l_e_n_t _S_t_a_r_s _G_o _B_y: The Irish have
discovered and settled North America in (relative) peace with
the original inhabitants.
- Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn, "An Exaltation of Spiders," in _B_e_y_o_n_d
_t_h_e _G_a_t_e _o_f _W_o_r_l_d_s: Europe was practically wiped out by the
Black Plague in 1348, and South America continued to be ruled
by the Incas.
(Thanks to Robert Schmunk for maintaining the list from which these
entries were taken.)