Alternate Futures 1: The World of Tomorrow That Wasn’t

When I was in Grade 7, I found this curious book in my school library: The World of Tomorrow, by Kenneth K. Goldstein, published in 1969, the same year as the first moon landings.  It was full of beautiful four colour illustrations that assured me of all wonderful things that were just around the corner: giant space stations, cities on the moon and under the sea, weather control, manned missions to Mars and the other planets, computers in the home, and sleek jet-like cars zooming down automated roadways between gleaming new cities. A few years later, I found a copy of the book in a second-hand store, so I snapped it up, so serious an impression it had made on me.

Well, the future didn’t happen exactly like we thought it would, did it?  Oh, we have our space station – with a crew of six – and we do have computers in the home, which would seem to be the only prediction they got right. Sure we have other things like cell phones and the web, now it seems, driverless cars, but…

You see my point.  Still, we do have snatches of that more optimistic, brighter – and probably, to be honest, a little unrealistic – alternate tomorrow, which I still like to think, may have happened in some other reality.  In this post, we’ll be starting off with a few images from the General Motors Futurama II exhibit from the 1964 New York World’s Fair that featured so prominently in The World of Tomorrow.

Enjoy.

Undersea habitat

Space station

 

The City of Tomorrow (and Highway of Tomorrow)

House

Automated highway and farm blooming in the south west.

Weather Control Central

Who knows? Maybe these things will still come to pass.

Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Sony, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  Thanks.

Reviewing the First Season of Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle

I’ll open this review by saying that I liked Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle. While not a one-to-one retelling of the landmark 1963 Philip K. Dick novel it’s based on, it’s a very faithful but loose adaption. I’ll explain this in a minute. The show’s producers, Ridley Scott and Frank Spotnitz have succeeded in painstakingly creating a realistic and by turns, terrifying world where the Axis won the Second World War. It’s a monumental work.

As I said, while the series is faithful to the spirit of Dick’s novel, it a well-done but, again, loose adaption. The novel and the series both take place in 1962 in an alternate America that some 15 years previously had surrendered to Germany and Japan. The Axis powers divided the country into three parts: The Japanese – dominated Pacific States of America on the west coast, the Nazi- ruled rump of the United States on the east coast, leaving the Rocky Mountain States, which serve as a neutral buffer between them. As in the novel, in the series, a cold war exists between the two former Axis partners (Italy doesn’t seem to rate a mention). Most of the novel takes place in the Pacific States of America and in the Rocky Mountain States. In the series, the action is spread across equally America, giving us an interesting chance to see life in America under Nazi control. In the series there is mounting concern over what might happen once Hitler who were are told has Parkinson’s disease, finally dies, which mirrors a similar plot element in the novel. 

Characters from the novel, such as Robert Childran and Nobusuke Tagomi are present. Some, such as Julina Frink, have had their roles revised extensively. A whole slate of new characters has also been added, including SS Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith, who is in charge of fighting the Resistance in the east, and The Marshal, a bounty hunter who stalks the neutral zone. I can’t decide whether the latter character comes out of a Stephen King novel or a Sergio Leone western. I enjoyed the fact that the characters are not black-and-white stick figures, but are, by and large, well-fleshed out individuals who struggle to get by just like the rest of us. I even found myself feeling for Obergruppenfurher Smith at one point, which says a lot.   

While the original novel was more of a meditative piece, television demands some kind of conflict, and so, the Resistance – never mentioned in the book – is given prominence in the series.  Another point of difference between the novel and the series – I’m not knocking the series mind you – is that The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, the book within Dick’s book, which showed that the Axis had really lost the war, has become a series of newsreels that, in the spirit of Dick’s book –  still show a world, but not necessarily ours – where the Allies won the war.  Perhaps because television is a visual medium, this can be both again expected and forgiven.  But interestingly, as of the end of the first season, we have not met the titular man in the high castle and the author of Grasshopper, Hawthorne Abendsen. Or have we? 

I can assure you that even if you had never read the original book, you would still enjoy the television series. If you’ve read the novel, you'll find this, as I said, a faithful adaption of a masterwork of the genre.  In doing this, the producers have created a masterwork of their own. 

Like the best of the alt-hist genre, The Man in the High Castle holds a fun-house mirror up to our own imperfect world. After finishing my binge watching of the series, I found myself wondering if indeed we did live in that best of all possible worlds. Maybe we do. We should count ourselves lucky.

As of this writing, a second season of ten episodes of The Man in the High Castle is in production, and is due to premiere on Amazon Prime December 16th, 2016. If anything, we can expect the second season to cast a wider net in exploring its alternate universe and introduce some new characters.  Hopefully, sometime during the next few months, I’ll be able to review it for you.

What’s Next?

I’m halfway through reading Harry Turtledove’s first book in paperback of his The Hot War series, Bombs Away – I hope to have a review for you soon. I can report, that so far, I’m enjoying it. I’ll also have forthcoming reviews on Peter Tieryas’s United States of Japan and Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s The Long Utopia.

Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Sony, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  Thanks.

Book Review: The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln, by Stephen L. Carter

The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln is a very interesting alternate-history book, perfect for the current political season.  It’s a legal drama that supposes that Abraham Lincoln survived John Wilkes Booth’s bullet and went on to serve as President well after the end of the Civil War. Our history was much different of course: Lincoln was succeeded by the corrupt and incompetent Andrew Johnson, who himself only narrowly avoided being successfully impeached.

Carter imagines Johnson instead being the victim of an assassin’s bullet – in our history, he was also targeted for assassination by the plotters, but at the at last minute that part of the plan fell through. In Carter’s novel, Johnson dies but Lincoln survives, only to be set up for vast conspiracy built around a show-trial of an impeachment.

Enter our main character: a young black woman, Abigail Canner, who was been given a job at as a law clerk at the law firm charged with defending Lincoln, coincidentally just at the time the trial is due to proceed. There’s a lot of intrigue and murder and Abigail is quickly involved in the action. Abigail is a strong female protagonist who must not only deal with the prejudice she faces, but also some personal revelations as she slowly but surely helps unravel the conspiracy against the President of the United States.

As Abigail moves through the novel, Carter paints a very detailed picture of life in post-Civil War Washington DC, describing the emerging black middle and professional class. He also goes into great detail about the Washington elite and political power brokers of the day, mixing both historical fictional characters with ease. Through this, you gain a very sense of the political machinations that swirled around Lincoln in real life.

It’s something that historians such as Doris Kearns Goodwin writing in her 2005 Team of Rivals, have noted. Upon becoming President in 1860, with the country slipping headlong into civil war, Lincoln invited his chief rivals for the Republican presidential nomination into his cabinet. Of course they were able individuals and with a war coming, Lincoln needed them. But quite possibly, he was following the old maxim of keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Now be warned: The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln is a very long, dense read, packed with historical details. But once it gets moving, it moves. It should appeal to court room drama fans and alt-history fans alike. Definitely recommended.

What’s Next?

I’ve just started to read Harry Turtledove’s newest release in paperback: Bombs Away, the first book in his new The Hot War series. Watch for a review of it in the near future.  Coming up over the next few months, I’ll also have reviews on Peter Tieryas’s United States of Japan, Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s The Long Utopia and, as promised, The Man in the High Castle first season.

Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Sony, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  Thanks.

You’re Not Really Reading This… You Just Think You Are

If you’ve been reading the science news over recent months, you’ve seen several very smart people come forward with a theory straight out of The Matrix: that we’re all part of a big computer simulation. It has to be the ultimate in parallel universe theories, which is where this blog comes in.


A favourite work of literary alt-history SF of mine that embraces this theme was 1998’s Darwinia, by Robert Charles Wilson.  In 1912, the “miracle” occurs, which sees Europe replaced overnight by an alien continent right out of Edgar Rice Burroughs. It’s only later in the book (spoiler alert!) that the characters realize that they are in fact, living in a computer simulation. 

Now some people appear to be taking the concept seriously. Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, for one, while not saying we’re living in a simulated reality, has postulated what he calls his “simulation argument.” Bostrum’s argument, which for the moment assumes that there are other civilizations out there, attempts to show one of three possible outcomes for said civilization:

1.    All civilizations become extinct before becoming technologically mature; 
2.    All technologically mature civilizations lose interest in creating simulations; 
3.    Humanity is literally living in a computer simulation.

If our universe is indeed a simulation, how would we know? Dr. Marvin Minsky, one of the pioneers of AI, interviewed before he died earlier this year, said there might be no way for us to be sure. “…unless the programmer has made some slips — if you notice that some laws of physics aren't quite right, if you find rounding-off errors, you might sense some of the grain of the computer showing through.”

Minsky added if this were so, that the universe might suddenly become very easy for us to understand and even change. Hmmm.

The potential for catching those little seeming slip-ups in the fabric of reality also seem to be attracting the attention of other people who’ve given this subject some thought. Donald D. Hoffman, a Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California, Irvine,  is  among those trying to work his head around the idea that quantum physics assumes that if particles exist in an observer- independent state, then the answers we’re getting are all wrong. Or, suggests Hoffman, maybe the answers are right, but it’s our assumptions that need to be re-examined. By running his own simulations, Hoffman has concluded that the world around us nothing but an illusion. In short, reality according to Hoffman, is based on the observer.

Elon Musk, the one of the driving forces behind Paypal, and founder of SpaceX, Tesla Motors, Solar City, and just about everything else that will happen in the future, told attendees at a recent conference that he too, believes that we are living in a simulated reality, something he likened to a video game but with really cool graphics. Musk argued that our technology is evolving at such an exponential rate that the line between virtual and base reality may soon cease to exist – if it hasn’t already. “There’s a one in billions chance that this is base reality,” Musk told his audience.

This opens the door to a much wider conversation and one that had already gone well past the limits of this rather abused blog.  The Buddhist faith, for example, holds that our world is but maya, an illusion that obscures the true nature of the world and that we need to cast off that illusion to see the world as it truly is. 

So maybe Musk and the others are onto something.  But it’s also fun to speculate, of course, and play reductio ad absurdum to an almost infinite level. What’s to say, for example that the universe of the being whose simulation we are, is in itself a simulation?  Perhaps we are residing in one of a series of parallel but simulated universes.

I know I’ll never look at Sim City quite the same way.

What’s Next?
First, the standard disclaimer of the Amateur Cosmologist: any errors in the above piece are strictly my own.

I have several things in the pipeline for the next few months. For starters, there’s my review of the penultimate book in The Long Earth series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, The Long Utopia.  Following this, I will also have a review of Peter Tieryas’s United States of Japan, which I am just finishing reading.  In a happy synchronicity, I have also been able to recently binge-watch the first season of Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, so expect a review of that soon, as well.

Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Sony, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  Thanks.

Book Review: Straits of Hell, by Taylor Anderson

The tenth novel in Taylor Anderson’s long-running Destroyermen Series, The Straits of Hell, finds our heroes of the time-lost USS Walker, commanded by Captain Matthew Reddy, and their humans and cat-like Lumurian allies plunged straight into the thick of the action.

There has been no rest since for Reddy and his companions since we saw them in the last book, Deadly Shores. (Danger: here be spoilers) Having just liberated the Lumurian ancestral home of Madagascar, the Allies find that taking it is one thing, holding on to it may be quite another as the reptilian Grik launch a major counterattack to retake the island. Similarly, on the eastern side of the Pacific, the question is whether the allies can hang onto their beachhead in South America, as the Holy Dominion throws everything at them, including the kitchen sink, to push them out.

Anderson of course, delivers in spades on action, plot, and dialogue. Minor quibbles about paragraph structure aside – you can see my previous post – the series continues to provide me with great enjoyment as a reader and also as someone who is trying to guess what might happen next.  Recently introduced allies are expanded on, while new, potentially powerful enemies are introduced, as well.  I salute Anderson’s plotting skills: all I can think is that on a wall in his writer’s garret, he must have a complete flow chart showing the path and of each character and plot point. 

One of the stars of the series: the USS Walker

As I have followed the series, one thing did occur to me: if Reddy and his friends are busily making steamships, rifles, pistols, torpedoes, submachine guns, radios, and aircraft, then why weren’t they making Gatling guns? Compared to a submachine gun, I think it would be a Gatling would be a relatively simple weapon to build (someone please correct me here, if I’m wrong).  I think I wasn’t the only to make this point, as Anderson does address the question – quite satisfactorily – here.

Obviously, I recommend this book – and if you have not started – the series, as well. The Destroyermen series continues to be a worthy addition to the alt-history genre. And when it’s done, I’ll miss it.

What’s Next?
Looking forward, next month I will review for you the latest instalment in Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s Long Earth series, The Long Utopia.  In the next few months, I’ll also be reviewing Peter Tieryas’s “successor to The Man in the High Castle” (I didn’t write that – it was on the back cover of the book), United States of Japan.
  
Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Sony, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  Thanks.

Reviewing William Overgard’s The Divide

First of all, this wasn’t a post that was supposed to be written.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I love The Divide. It is, in fact, one of my favourite alternate history books. Period.  I had something else lined up, a commentary on current politics – and shrewd readers could probably guess about whom and what – but I put that off.

Part of it is due to my immediate situation. I’m still looking for work, and now I’ve moved in with an old
friend who has been both very generous and supportive despite his own situation. Well, misery does love company.

And so, my hurry-up-and-wait review of William Overgard’s The Divide, which comes after missing March’s post.  (My own copy of The Divide, along with most of my other belongings, is currently stashed away in a storage locker.) The novel takes place in an alternate 1976,  where the United States surrendered to Germany and Japan in April 1948. The country is occupied by Japan on the west coast, while across the Rockies in the east, the country is under the thumb of the Nazis. Now you might look at the cover and then at the initial premise and think: “It’s The Man in the High Castle, all over again.” It isn’t: there are major differences between the two books, thematically and plot-wise.

The Divide is more of an action novel, compared to High Castle, which is a slower, more reflective work.   Its plot centers on a group of resistance fighters who are fighting the occupiers and are determined to spoil a historic summit meeting in Denver between the two old allies, who are now Cold War rivals.  You think they wouldn’t have much of a chance of pulling off a revolution, unless they had an Almighty Equalizer. 

That's a mighty big torch you're holding...

But they do.  Buried deep in the Rockies, inside the National Redoubt, are the last hold-outs of the US military and the Manhattan Project, tasked with “relighting the torch of liberty” by President Burton K. Wheeler just before the surrender in 1948.  Over the last thirty years, they've worked to construct the world’s only atom bomb, which is now finally ready. 

I won’t go much further, except to say this is a great, well thought-out read. I find it noteworthy for how Overgard’s book shows how most people just “went along,” which is something to consider in this political year. This book has been long out of print, but if you can find The Divide either on Amazon or in your local used bookstore, I’d recommend picking it up. Definitely for fans of this sub-genre.

Coming up:

I’ll try to have another book review for you. Or something. 
Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Sony, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  Thanks.