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.

What if Donald Trump Didn't Win the 2016 Election?

October 22, 2021:

The election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States was never a forgone conclusion.  Yet it happened.  

When he launched his campaign for the presidency in 2015, no one, let alone the candidate himself, thought he stood a chance.  But to everyone’s shock and surprise –including those in the Republican Party – Trump had tapped into a low albeit rising level of anger fueled anxiety. But even by itself, this may not have been enough to put Trump over the top.  Indeed, by the end of March 2016, polls by many different organizations had begun to show his numbers begin to soften, if not collapse. Certainly when he lost the Wisconsin Primary in April, it looked the case. And in the unlikely event Trump had gotten the majority of primary votes, the GOP stood ready to frustrate him through a contested convention, even if it meant losing the election to the Democrats.

But only if. Trump plowed on, despite his slumping numbers. No one had counted on, however, the events of June 31^st, 2016, which remains to this day the single largest mass casualty terrorist attack on the continental United States. As the events of this date have been seared into our collective memory, I won’t recount the tragedy, suffice it to say that sometime earlier, it had been pointed out that such an attack on US soil, then considered highly unlikely, could help catapult the Trump to victory.  Trump had already built a solid base of loyal supporters partly based on the fear of outsider groups such as Latinos and Muslims. The events of June 31^st not only seemed to validate his point of view in the eyes of many, but they also seemed to lend him a degree of prescience.

President Trump at the 2018 dedication of the Mexican Wall.  

Trump, with his mixture of bluster and threats, was handily able to secure the Republican nomination held just two weeks later with the attack still fresh in everyone’s mind. However, although he secured his party’s nomination, he had still to beat the Democratic candidate.

For the Democrats, even so, with Trump as their rival, this should’ve been their election to lose.  However, because of sharp divisions in both Democratic nominees’ camps stemming from a particularly long and hard-fought primary season, this led to a lack of unity under the winning candidate.  There was also the lingering blame for not stopping the terrorist attack that hung over the Democratic incumbent, which led to a massive erosion of support from the party’s traditional base. In spite of this, the election was a close-run thing, with the final victor – Trump – only being declared at 6:37 a.m. on the following morning.

Media pundits and historians often speculate what would’ve happened if Donald Trump had lost the November 2016 election.  Would we have been spared the events of the last six years?  Would the world have been more peaceful and prosperous? We’ll never know.

This is not that story. This is the story of how Donald J. Trump became the 45^th President of the United States of America.  We continue to live in his shadow and in the world, he helped create.

And Finally...

I hoped you enjoyed this bit of political theatre, in itself a bit of what-if, which is my take on current events.  All of this is pure speculation. Keen eyes will note, of course, there is no such thing as June 31st, and my story should not be treated as any attempt at any type of prognostication or warning.  The title of this post is an homage of sorts to the title of "If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg,"  penned by none other than Winston Churchill, which appeared in If it Happened Otherwise: Lapses into Imaginary History, which was discussed earlier in this blog.

I hope to have a book review for you next month. Or something like that.

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: Burning Paradise by Robert Charles Wilson

Imagine you live in a 2014 that has been at peace for the last century.  There was something like the Great War, but it seemed to have ended as almost as soon as it started with the Great Armistice of 1914. After that, peace and prosperity. No Great Depression. No Hitler. No Holocaust.  No Second World War.  No lingering Cold War. No War on Terror. Just humanity, linked arm in arm, marching upwards together to the sunlit highlands. It indeed does sound like a paradise of sorts.

It’s certainly not our world, but it’s the world one Cassie Iverson inhabits. In many ways it’s probably preferable to our own, but as pleasant a world as it may be, Cassie, her parents, and others who are members of the secretive Correspondence Society suspect the awful truth: that human progress has being interfered with – even directed – since the dawn of radio communications, by an alien intelligence with its own indefinable goals. An alien intelligence that would do anything – including murder – to keep its secret.

Burning Paradise is Robert Charles Wilson’s latest alternate history novel. Taken with his earlier novels, Mysterium (1994) and Darwina (1998), it returns to a theme of a false reality – layered or overwritten upon our own by an external entity. It’s a similar theme expressed by Phillip K. Dick in many of his works, such as VALIS (1981).

I definitely recommend Burning Paradise.  Besides being well written, Wilson paints fully realized alternate 2014 with a few choice turns of phrase – no mean feat.  It’s another reason I like Wilson and consider him one of the spiritual successors to Phillip K. Dick. Verdict: very readable and thoughtful fiction.

What's Next?

As I slide another blog posting in under the wire, I note that the eight-episode miniseries based on Stephen King's 2011 novel 11-22-63 (reviewed earlier on this blog) has begun to air on Hulu.  I hope to be able to have a review of at least the early episodes for you soon.

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.