Alternate Cities: Vimy Circle

Cities are like books.  They tell the story of the rise and fall of civilizations and nations.  Consider Babylon, or Rome at its imperial peak. Look at London at the peak of the British Empire, or New York right now.  The streets, buildings, and monuments that are planned and built are a testimony not only to the power, but to time and place, as well.

But sometimes what speaks just as loudly is what does not get built.

Case in point is the planned but never built Vimy Circle, in the city I live, Toronto.  In the aftermath of the Great War, a radical realignment was planned for the city’s grand thoroughfare, University Avenue, with a giant traffic circle and a column-like monument to Canada’s victory at Vimy Ridge at its hub.  Part and parcel of the City Beautiful movement, a ring of monumental buildings bordering Vimy Circle was also envisioned.  To top it off, a series of new streets radiating out from the circle were to be named after other Great War battles.

A look at the current street map of Toronto shows that Vimy Circle and its environs remained unbuilt.  The Great Depression got in the way and suddenly the people of Toronto grew wary of an expensive megaproject.  And so all we have left of Vimy Circle are these two contemporary illustrations to give an idea of what might’ve been.

Toronto artist Mathew Borrett has produced an updated version of what Vimy Circle might look like today. For copyright reasons I can’t show the image, but here’s a link.

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 Yiddish Policemen’s Union, by Michael Chabon

I first read The Yiddish Policemen’s Union back in 2007 and it’s one of those books I’ve wanted to review for this blog since I first began writing these posts. It’s one of those big cinematic books that you can easily curl up with, filled with of deep exposition, flawed characters, and of course, action – set against a believable backdrop where the infant State of Israel died almost as soon as it was born in 1948.

Like the best in alternate history, Chabon's book has its basis in fact – a proposal in 1940 by then Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to open up the Alaska Territory to immigration by European Jews. In our timeline, nothing came of it, but in Chabon’s deeply contextualized and believable alternate history, the newly designated Federal District of Sitka becomes a refuge for the Jewish dispora.

But there is a catch, as always. The District is a temporary creature, meant to last only to 2008, when it will revert to the State of Alaska, much like Hong Kong did to China in 1997 in our history. As the book opens, the reversion is months away and uncertainty and fear grip the people of Sitka, with many looking to get out before the axe falls.

It’s into this background of decay and fear that we find Sitka homicide detective Meyer Landsman called in to investigate a murder in a skid-row hotel.  Landsman is in the tradition of the best of the hard-boiled detectives, but he also carries a deeply sensitive and vulnerable side.  As he works his way through a case full of crosses and double crosses, he is aided and foiled by deftly-drawn characters, including Landsman’s sardonic ex-wife, Landman's fellow cop partner, who is only that much more hardboiled than he is, and a sect of fanatics that has never forgotten the events of 1948. 

This book is definitely worth the time invested. If you like Chabon’s previous works such as The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (a homage to the golden age of comic books) and if you like rich alternate universes, you’ll love The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.

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.

Review: The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Once again, another post just under the end of month deadline.  This month, I’m reviewing The Long War, the sequel to The Long Earth, which I reviewed earlier on this blog. 

A bit of background here. While this is a story of parallel earths, this is not a story of alternate history, per se.  The Long War, which is part of a series of five novels, takes up from where the characters and events from The Long Earth leave off, some ten years earlier.  The titular long earth of the first novel and the subject of the second novel is a linked chain of worlds that humans and other creatures "step" across.

Ten years on, and giant airships or “twains”  bearing commerce and passengers, step between the worlds  and humanity for better or worse, has spread out across the countless earths.  Governments on “our” Earth, datum Earth, try to maintain control of these new colonies with varying degrees of success.  As its colonies strain against the homeland, the United States government tries to extend its reach.  Meanwhile, the intelligent hive-minded “trolls” who populate the long earth are vanishing.

And so set against this potentially volcanic backdrop, Joshua Valiente, as well as the enigmatic Lobsang, the main protagonists of The Long Earth, must resolve all of these issues and more.

Of course I recommend this book.  Pratchett and Baxter, both gifted storytellers, have produced a worthy page-turning read. With pop culture references ranging from Family Guy to Buckaroo Banzai it is vastly entertaining and thought-provoking.

I’m concluding this particular posting under something of a cloud.  Terry Pratchett, co-author of The Long War, the Discworld series, and so many other works, died this past March.  We are lesser for the loss of both his craft and his gentle humanity.

In the meantime, have a look at my own books, 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 Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle

When I heard that Amazon was going to do a television pilot for Philip K. Dick’s 1962 Hugo-winner, The Man in the High Castle, I cringed for a moment.  Had not both BBC and SyFy both passed on the project?  Even though Ridley Scott was serving as executive producer, who was responsible for Blade Runner, the excellent 1982 adaptation of Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, I was still concerned. 

I need not be.  The pilot for the series that has just been green-lit by Amazon for a full season, is faithful to both the plot and feel of the novel. It tells the story of a 1962 America occupied by the victorious Axis.  The Japanese Empire has the west coast under its thumb and Nazi Germany occupies the east coast to the Mississippi, with a neutral buffer state in between. 

Without dropping spoilers in your path, the pilot episode introduces the characters and sets up their relative story arcs. It also vividly paints what life under occupation is like, down to the little details.  Although it is an adaptation, it is a faithful one. It includes references to the I Ching, which takes a prominent role in the novel (Dick consulted the I Ching in writing the book) and plays upon Dick’s themes regarding the nature of reality, represented by The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which is a novel within The Man in the High Castle that tells the story of an allied victory in the Second World War, but different again from our own.  

And that’s all I’m going to say. I am pleased that Amazon is going ahead with this series, which promises to be some of the most literate television to come down the pike in a long time.  And I suspect, that somewhere out there in the multiverse, Philip K. Dick is pleased, as well.

Meanwhile, I am continuing to read The Long War, by Terry Prachett and Stephen Baxter.  I am thoroughly enjoying the sequel to The Long Earth and will review it next month.

In the meantime, have a look at my own books, 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.

One From My Bookshelves: The Shiloh Project, by David C. Poyer

Okay, first of all, major apologies to all of you readers of this blog.  Life sort of caught up with me.

The good news is that I’m back again with another book from my collection: The Shiloh Project, by David C. Poyer.  Published by Avon Books in paperback way back in 1981 (when I got my copy), it harkens to one of the alt-history genre’s favourite themes: What if the South Won the Civil War?

Now this has been done many times over the years, including by Harry Turtledove in his epic Southern Victory series (another favourite).  While most genre readers have at least heard about Turtledove’s work, I doubt few have heard of Poyer’s.

And more’s the pity.  I hate to slap a “lost classic” label on it, but The Shiloh Project is almost that good.  It takes place in a well-imagined 1980s Confederacy, with a strong cast of rich, developed characters.  The Confederacy has become a police state with its white elite ruling over a “conditionally emancipated” black population.  Poyer pulls no punches here: he shows us a Confederacy is rotting out from the inside and that is being propped up by brute force. This is a believable alternate history.

In the novel, the Union has just ended its long war with the Japanese Empire by obliterating Yokohama with an atomic shell fired from a battleship.  Desperate to regain the balance of power, the Confederates, along with their British allies, hatch a scheme to hijack a nuke for their own, and code name the operation Shiloh.

Of course, there are other players involved, which makes this more than a standard adventure romp. Both the Confederacy’s extreme right and the black resistance movement want the nuke for their own ends.  The action builds to a logical and satisfying conclusion.

Highly recommended and worth a trip to your local used bookshop.

I am still wading through the post-Christmas book hangover. Among the books I have on the go is the sequel to Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s The Long Earth, The Long War.  I am looking forward to getting into it and telling you all about it.  

In the meantime, have a look at my own books, 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, Plan D, by Simon Urban

It may seem meaningful that I’m reviewing Plan D on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Like many people of a certain age (how I hate that term, but there it is) I remember watching Berliners – East and West – first dance on the hated wall, and then brick by brick begin to tear it down on live television to the breathless play-by-play of network news anchors.

Fall of the Berlin Wall, photographer unknown, reproduced by Lear21

Those few brief hours separate the world we inhabit from the very plausible world the novel’s protagonist, Martin Wegnener, a detective inspector in the East Berlin people’s police inhabits. It’s 2011: East Berlin, and by extension East Germany is barely limping along, a failed state in all but name. Something resembling perestroika, “revitalization,” which was a limited success, occurred two decades ago, which resulted in the Wall staying up.  But now, on the eve of all-important economic consultations between East and West Germany, one of the architects of revitalization is found hanging dead from a pipeline.  Evidence points to the Stasi, which was supposedly shut down in the reforms of the late ‘80s. 

Wegner enters a richly detailed world in which he trusts no one. Plan D is more than a police procedural, much more than a slam-bang paint-by-numbers alt-history “this is where it all changed and aren’t we clever” book, where the reader is thrust in a gritty world of shadows and lies.  

Urban presents us with a well crafted, but at times demanding novel. But the reward, with its fleshed out and engaging plot along and its fully-developed characters, is well worth that price of admission.  Wegner, as benefitting most cops is on the cynical side, without being too hard-boiled, also has a chink in his armor in the form of his ex-girlfriend, who may or may not be what she seems to be. 

Both Urban and Wegner are our perfect guides to this gray world that could’ve been that sits just across the looking glass from us. Plan D and its ultimate conclusion is a tour-de-force.

In the meantime, have a look at my own books, 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: 1920, America’s Great War, by Robert Conroy

It’s been a busy time here on the ol’ blog, and between work and the courses I have to take for work, I almost didn’t make it this month’s post… but I did.

This month, I’m reviewing 1920: America’s Great War, by Robert Conroy.  Conroy’s latest book, starts with a novel point of departure: what if the von Schlieffen plan – the German plan for a Hail Mary end-run through Belgium and into Paris –actually had worked – and in this case forcing the Allies to sue for peace in 1915?  In Conroy’s world, this is what has happened, leaving the British Empire humbled but not entirely sidelined and the French under German occupation.

Flash forward to 1920, and now the Kaiser is up to his dastardly business in Mexico, propping up the government of President Carranza.  But it seems he is also casting longing eyes on California, aiming to add another overseas territory to the growing German Empire and knock the United States – its only remaining competitor - out of the Great Power game.

It is an interesting premise, and the action is suitably blood-and-thunder, and it certainly won’t disappoint alt-history fans who also like military history.  However, I have been struggling with Conroy’s work as of late – and I guess I can put it down to a simple matter of characterization: the Americans – are almost to a person, noble and resolute; the Germans are iron-fisted and moustache-twirling; and the British are suitably sporting but also calculating.  If I’m grossly generalizing, please forgive me – it’s also what I’m seeing in this book –that Conroy’s characters are essentially two-dimensional.

Now the book is well-written; no doubt about that.  And Conroy has found a truly fascinating and little-noted turning point in history – those first few months of the First World War – that with a little more luck on their side, events might have worked out for the Germans in 1914-15.  

In this theme, I note that Conroy is siding with historians such as Margaret MacMillan, who in her The War That Ended Peace (reviewed earlier on this blog), have also maintained, that the Great War was responsible for most of 20th century’s ills and a great many of the 21st century’s problems, too.  (To truly get a sense of this, if you haven’t read The War That Ended Peace and her earlier Paris: 1919, you really should.)

Now, do I recommend 1920: America’s Great War?  Sure. It entertained me.  And characterizations aside, in the end, that’s all that counts. 

Right now, I’m currently reading Simon Urban’s Plan D, which takes place in a present-day East Berlin where the Wall never fell. So far, I can report it’s very good.

In the meantime, have a look at my own books, 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.