| Title | : | Roads Not Taken: Tales of Alternate History |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0345421949 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780345421944 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 336 |
| Publication | : | First published May 27, 1998 |
Contents
xi • What Is
Roads Not Taken: Tales of Alternate History Reviews
-
I like to consider myself an amateur/armchair historian and I think a healthy appreciation for and understanding of history is essential if one is to fully appreciate high quality alternate history. Sure, a reader can enjoy a good yarn about a what-if scenario along the lines of “What if…General Washington succumbed to the harsh winter at Valley Forge and somebody else stepped into his role?” That tale could be good if well told, but in a story that deals with the subtleties of McCarthyism (Gregory Benford’s “We Could Do Worse”) or involves the personality of Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Rider escapades (Mike Resnick’s “Over There”) a reader might not be so enamored of the piece if they didn’t know too much about the subject.
Gardner Dozois, whom I have long regarded as one of the best science fiction magazine editors in history (Asimov’s 1984-2004) and a marvelous author in his own right, along with Stanley Schmidt have put together a very nice collection of alternate history stories. There are some big name authors in here including the aforementioned Benford and Resnick but also giants of the field such as Harry Turtledove, Robert Silverberg, L. Sprague de Camp, and Gene Wolf. I found each one of these 10 stories to be entertaining at the very least and many were quite thought provoking. The only potential drawback is that none of the stories are original to this volume; all have appeared in magazine form before, either in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine or Analog Science Fiction and Fact. But if you’re looking for some nice, quality alternate history tales, this volume is worth checking out. -
Some of the stories were humorous not sure on purpose.
-
Not that long ago, I sampled another anthology of alternate history,
Other Earths. Now I’m dipping into this specialized sub-genre again with Roads Not Taken. The premise is similar, but in this case the stories were all previously published in either Analog or Amazing. Though I’m disappointed that not one of the ten contributors is a woman, the stories themselves are much more thoughtful and interesting than those I encountered in Other Earths.
“Must and Shall” is a Harry Turtledove story. It diverges during the American Civil War, an all-too-popular event in alternate history. In this case, a stray Confederate bullet kills Lincoln in his first term as he peers over the battlements, so his vice president inherits and the Civil War becomes a much bloodier affair. What makes this story stand out against all the other Civil War alternative history is how Turtledove then jumps towards the present day and shows the consequences of this divergence. The South is a much less forgiving place; the United States are not so much united as held together by the iron fist of the North. It’s intriguing, because Turtledove taps into the cultural tension that is still present, to some extent, in the United States today.
Robert Silverberg’s“An Outpost of the Empire” posits that the Roman empire never fell. Instead, it swallows the Byzantine empire in a single, mighty gulp! The protagonist of this story is a rich, single woman in Venice, watching the Romans move in to occupy her city. She becomes a target of affection for the new consul and aims to seduce him, only to discover that foreigners are more complex than they appear. It’s a slow and thoughtful meditation on the conflict between occupier and occupied.
In “We Could Do Worse”, Gregory Benford paints a chilling picture of a United States in which Joe McCarthy becomes president. This is an America where the Constitution is no longer worth the paper it’s printed on, and civil liberties is a dirty phrase. I couldn’t connect personally with this story, since I’m too young to remember McCarthyism, but I can understand the type of dread it’s supposed to instil. It’s not the most gripping story of the collection, though.
“Over There”, by Mike Resnick, sees Teddy Roosevelt blackmail Woodrow Wilson into resurrecting the Rough Riders division and taking them into World War I. It’s a fabulous concept, but as with“We Could Do Worse”, I wasn’t very intrigued. It was obvious from the beginning that Roosevelt could not achieve the glory he sought. There isn’t much depth here.
A.A. Attansio’s “Ink from the New Moon” reminds me of Bridge of Ancient Birds, in that it has the Chinese visiting North America before the Europeans do. In this time they make contact with the indigenous inhabitants and set up a trading network, scooping the Europeans (also known as the “Big Noses"). It’s a cool concept, and Attansio does a good job developing a main character who is flawed but likable.
“Southpaw” is somewhat similar to “Over There” in that it follows a single character’s divergent path through history. Bruce McAllister wonders what would have happened if Fidel Castro came to play baseball in the United States instead of becoming a revolutionary in Cuba. This story is an excellent example of how alternative history can allow introspection. It shines a light on the paradox of immigrating to a nation like the United States, allowing people who are not migrants to sympathize with the conflicting emotions that migrants face on a daily basis.
Greg Costykian’s “The West is Red” takes us to an alternative universe where communism succeeds and capitalism fails. Central planning is all the rage, even in the United States. This story captivated the technophile in me: Costykian posits that because communism is so obsessed with centralization, it would retard the development of personal computers in favour of large, centralized supercomputers accessed through dumb terminals. I’m not sure it’s that simple, but it’s an intriguing thought that allows him to construct a wholly different technological background to that of our society.
“The Forest of Time” is a story about universe-hopping. A man invents a method to travel to different universes. But the act of travelling itself creates different universes, altering the distance between universes. He ends up in a radically different North America, one where the colonies never unified, and the prisoner of a suspicious Pennsylvanian scout. Michael Flynn sets an interesting dilemma for the main characters, who struggle with whether to believe the traveller. I did find that having some of the names begin with the same letter really confused me with this story, for some reason. That’s really the only criticism though. Otherwise, Flynn does a good job highlighting how fascinating this concept of divergent and convergent universes is.
But now we come to “Aristotle and the Gun”, my favourite story of the entire collection. The other stories were all fine, but none of them really stood out for me. I can’t explain why this one seems so much better than the others, but L. Sprague de Camp somehow manages to make me invest in the main character’s struggle. I think it’s just the fascinating relationship we see develop between the main character and Aristotle. That, and a level of sympathy for his desire to advance science more quickly (and the irony that it didn’t quite work out that way). Though de Camp doesn’t depart from the conventions of time travel and alternate history that much, he embraces them and uses them so well that the result is a predictable yet gripping and fun adventure.
Gene Wolfe finishes up with “How I Lost the Second World War and Helped Turn Back the German Invasion". This is best described as “fun”, in a similar vein to the Fidel Castro story above. The main character and his friend are fans of tabletop strategy games. The two World Wars are just games that they designed in this universe. Instead, the “German invasion” of the title is the threat of German cars surpassing British-made ones. The protagonist helps Churchill avert this eventuality in a devious, underhanded competition.
Roads Not Taken has some good alternative history between its cover. I think I’m done with such anthologies for a good long while now. Binging on alternative history is exhausting and can result in a bit of a headache. I’d rather sample a longer work next. Reading so many short stories in a row just makes it harder to appreciate novelty when it does come around.
-
Short-story anthologies can often be a mixed bag consisting of both the good and the bad. This is one of the reasons why Gardner Dozios and Stanley Schmidt’s book stands out; taken from the pages of both Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine and Analog Science Fiction and Fact, it offers a stronger than average collection of alternate history tales. The book consists of the following stories:
"Must and Shall" by Harry Turtledove – In 1942 New Orleans, a federal agent works to head off an rebellion in a South still occupied by government forces.
"An Outpost of Empire" by Robert Silverberg – A Byzantine noblewoman reconciles herself to the reunification of the two Roman empires.
"We Could Do Worse" by Gregory Benford – Two FBI agents undertake an assignment in an American where McCarthyism rages unchecked.
"Over There" by Mike Resnick – Theodore Roosevelt puts together a new group of Rough Riders to fight in a much different conflict.
"Ink from the New Moon" by A. A. Attanasio – A man’s letter to his wife reveals a very different America.
"Southpaw" by Bruce McAllister – A Cuban pitching for the Yankees wrestles with events back home.
"The West is Red" by Greg Costikyan – A Soviet scientist is present as the United States grapples with the consequences of its defeat in the Cold War.
"The Forest of Time" by Michael F. Flynn – In a very different Pennsylvania, a scout comes across a man traveling from another world.
"Aristotle and the Gun" by L. Sprague de Camp – A scientist learns a valuable lesson when he attempts to set scientific discovery on a proper path from the beginning.
"How I Lost the Second World War and Helped Turn Back the German Invasion" by Gene Wolfe – In 1930s England, an American diplomat inspires a very different conflict between Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill.
Though not all of the stories are to everyone’s taste (there are a couple that, having read them, I doubt I will revisit again), the overall quality is quite good, much better than in most anthologies. With an introduction explaining what alternate history is, this is an excellent book to give someone seeking an introduction to the genre, as well as a good addition to the bookshelf of any fan of the counterfactual tale. -
The trouble with anthologies is that they tend to contain no more than one or two stories that are really worth having; and so it is here.
Flynn's
The Forest of Time - Hugo Nominated Novella is a great story, one of my favourites; though I later bought it as a separate item for Kindle, so I don't need to go back to this book for it. Five stars.
Turtledove's "Must and Shall" is not one of my favourites, but it's quite striking and memorable, worth reading more than once. One of his better efforts (I'm not a big Turtledove fan). Say three and half stars.
The other stories here are generally competent and readable, but I could easily live without them.
Something I notice as a non-American is that they're mostly about American history. The Sprague de Camp story is about ancient European history, but the narrator is a time-travelling American. The only story with no American connection at all is Silverberg's: it's one of the better stories in his
Roma Eterna series (I later read the whole series but wasn't keen on it).
I have no objection to American history: my favourites include various stories about it. But, when I read a whole collection of alternative-history stories and most of them are about American history, I start thinking, "What, AGAIN?" The USA has a short history, currently less than 250 years, and writers tend to concentrate on the four major wars of American history. Indeed, one of the strengths of Flynn's story is that its turning point is in an obscure and neglected part of early American history.
Turtledove manages to cram the Civil War and the Second World War into the same story, without even using time travel. -
A very good anthology of alternate history that I am glad that I stumbled across. Well worth your time.
-
The alternate history tales in this anthology range from 3 to 4 stars. Some great visualizations of alternate timelines that for the most part, I'm glad we haven't experienced.
-
Alternate history is an interesting subgenre, sort of a mix between fantasy/science fiction and history. Each contribution in this field poses an imaginary supposition and asks the readers to consider the author’s take on a response, such as “just imagine what would happen if the South had won the Civil War.” An excellent work of recent American literature that I think qualifies as an example in this category, and which certainly raised excellent discussion questions for me about past and current political and social values was Philip Roth’s ‘The Plot Against America” which came out in 2004, working through the “what if” premise of Lindbergh coming to political power in the United States in the 1930’s, building a sense of shared vision with fascist forces in Europe.
This is a collection of ten short stories for readers curious about possibilities in this genre. They are a mixed bunch. After reading the book, I realized that what I enjoy most about this genre is the opportunity to read along and discover ramifications of the ripple effect one alternate history change might have on an entire society and its future, and in the short story format, there isn’t sufficient time to develop a lot of these descriptive and evidentiary aspects, so the authors mostly just put forward the “what if” premise for the reader to ponder, then sketch out a conflict or romance narrative of some sort (often, elements of both) one could find in any traditional historical short story. Sometimes the authors use a “big reveal” technique, where in the last paragraph the reader is given one final choice bit of connection to or detail from real history as we understand it with sort of an “aha!” effect. I think in the future if I explore this genre more, I will try to read full length novels rather than short stories.
Still, among these short stories, there were some I enjoyed very much. Best of all was “Aristotle and the Gun” by the great fantasy writer L. Sprague de Camp. Here a misanthropic American scientist nerd who languishes in governmental bureaucracy goes back in time to get Aristotle more jazzed about the scientific method. It is educational, humorous, and thoughtful at the same time. Some of the other more memorable “what if “scenarios covered in these works include what if Castro had got signed to Big League baseball, what if a capitalistic Hitler ran a successful marketing campaign for Volkswagens throughout the world, what if Joe McCarthy had become president. We also get a chance to ponder American colonies that never confederated, massive Chinese exploration and settlement of North America, and a Roman Empire that never fell. Notable authors contributing to this anthology include Harry Turtledove, a big name in this subgenre, and Robert Silverberg, well known in science fiction. -
I'm always thrilled to find new interesting "what if" scenariosm but other than Gardner Dozois i seem to favor another definition of interesting and thrilling. This anthology was at the most lukewarm in it's mixed qualities. Around a third of this 11 "Short stories" doesn't even fit the category short story truly well. It's just scenic retelling not a defining moment of change in a person's life. Unfortunately one of these "ambiente stories" was known beforehands to me (from Silverbergs "Roma Eterna" anthology) so the joy of reading was further diminished.
In the end i liked "The West is red" for a very intriguing scenario AND narrative and "The Forest of Time" for it's internal continuity and slowly but carefully prepared progress. There have been other nice moments or ideas in half of the other stories (Aristotle and the gun, Ink from the New Moon, We could do worse) but i didn't find the complete story so interesting as to stimulate further thinking about it after being through with reading it. Which tends to be a bad sign.
Low point of the book was the concluding story "how i beat hitler and won the second world war" which was too silly and screwed up for my taste but didn't meet my kind of humor. What isn't bad in general, but combining it with the rather elitists comments on OTHER alternative history publications Mr Dozois had spread throughout the introductions to the stories presented here it got a truly bad aftertaste.
So if you're always on the look for new Alternate Histories you might try this book, but it's like many other anthologies, a mixture of both phenomenal stories and abysmally bad stories with a large set of "so lala" in between those extremes. -
time travel is a device used in many of these stories, a device that i think is unnecessary in this genre, but is most effectively used by michael flynn in his story the forest of time,? wherein many universes parallel one another, each one differing from the next as minutely a single action by a single person. this premise is portrayed more darkly in another anthology of alternate history stories, the best alternate history stories of the twentieth century, all the myriad ways by larry niven, in which the proliferation of universes is so great as to make morality or even free will obsolete, as there are other worlds in which all other choices are made. the despair that wells up in the world that discovers that consequence of choice no longer exists is chilling.[return][return]both volumes get a b; i probably would have enjoyed them more if i were more of a history buff. as it was, i only understood the implications of some of them on a very general level. what would have happened if fidel castro had become a major league baseball player instead of a minor leage dictator? i dunno& but what would happen if bono became a priest and then pope, now that s a story i could get into.
-
Surprisingly consistently good quality alternate history stories.
My Favorites:
Harry Turtledove - Must and Shall (1995)
Robert Silverberg - An Outpost of the Empire (1991)
Mike Resnick - Over There • [Teddy Roosevelt] (1991)
A. A. Attanasio - Ink from the New Moon (1992)
Greg Costikyan - The West Is Red (1994)
Michael F. Flynn - The Forest of Time (1987)
L. Sprague de Camp - Aristotle and the Gun (1958)
Gene Wolfe - How I Lost the Second World War and Helped Turn Back the German Invasion (1973) -
Excellent Collection of Alternate History Stories by some of the giants of the genre. Lots of fun, challenging, mindbending, fun.
-
A better than average collection of alternative history stories. Nothing significant, but a few nice stories.
-
Very poor collection of alternate history stories
-
Fascinating book. I read this as a teenager and am still fascinated by alternate realities, time travel, and different dimensions. Still one of my favorites.
-
a nice anthology that shied away from the most common alternate historied. There are no what if the South or Nazi Germany had won. They explore some more interesting history gone sideways.
