Alternate Empires

From the Introduction to ""What Might Have Been: Volume I" that the first example of what we know call "alternative history" (the genre formerly and also known as "parahistory," "metahistory," and "uchronia") was invented in 1836 by Louis-Napoleon Geoggroy-Chanteau's "Napoleon and the Conquest of the World, 1812-1823" that told how Napoleon's decision not to stay in Moscow as winter drew near saved the French army and allowed him to establish the first world empire. Fittingly, this first volume in the "What Might Have Been" series is devoted to alternate empires, although there is a wide latitude for deciding what that term means.Poul Anderson's "In the House of Sorrows" has Jerusalem falling to the Sennacherib's siege in 701 B.C.E. so that the Disapora occurs before the start of Christianity. The story follows a courier from North Markland (America) who visits a Palestine where a multitude of religions compete for believers make an ironic point about the Holy Land today. Kim Stanley Robinson's "Remaking History" starts with Operation Eagle Claw successfully rescuing the American embassy hostages in Tehran in 1980 and ends with a film company on the moon remaking the classic DeNiro film "Escape from Teheran." Harry Turtledove's "Counting Potshards" goes back to ancient Greece where this time Xerxes leads his Persians to victory, which prevents the spread of democracy. Several centuries later a member of the Persian court is sent to Greece to learn the name of the forgotten Greek king that Xerxes defeated. George Alec Effinger tells the requisite American Civil War story with "Everything But Honor," in which Robert E. Lee accepts the command of the Federal army offered him by Abraham Lincoln. This means that the Civil War is quickly over with the Confederacy being defeated and Lincoln never gets around to issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. A black physicist, living in the Imperial Germany of 1938, goes back in time to make Lee follow a different path to make things better. This is my favorite in this collection. Editor Gregory Benford's effort, "We Could Do Worse," goes back to 1952 and has Senator Richard Nixon throw the support of the California delegation at the Republican Convention behind Robert Taft instead of Dwight Eisenhower. Instead of becoming Vice President, Nixon gets Joe McCarthy to be Taft's running mate. When Taft sudden dies, "Tailgunner Joe" is now the president and institutes a police state. A nice idea but Benford basically makes this one more of a bad joke. "To the Promised Land" by Robert Silverberg is a story where the Exodus failed in 1270 B.C.E. and now 4000 years later the few remaining Hebrews in Egypt plan to leave earth to find their promised land in space. "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 31: The Covenant" has a computer attempting to put back together the shards from the broken tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain with God's commandments. The interesting point here are the problems the

Anthologies are hard to rate, for obvious reasons. I *do* love alternative history, and wish there were more of this genre. Ideas on changes in history, though not practical in the slightest, are the height of idealism- we look to see what we can learn about ideas and ourselves by seeing how things might have changed. So I was excited to come across this 4 volume set in the antique mall of a seaside town in the NorthWest. The stories seem to be basically of three sorts- What if something were changed in history to make things worse? What if something were changed to make life better? What if an alternative reality was changed to make it conform to our own? Some stories depend on their surprise ending with a particular historical twist. In the House of Sorrows is just such a story, taking place in the Middle East. Unfortunately, without knowing the historical era, it is a very confusing read; but well worth it for the twist. However, I found the one major drawback to the anthology as a whole to be the complete lack of discussion of the Islamic and Arabic empires. Remaking History looks at how the Iranian Hostage Crisis ending differently might have effected world events. Counting Potsherds was a very engaging story philosophically looking at if Athens had lost to the Persian Empire long ago. Leapfrog also has the secret historical twist, and takes place on a Soviet space station around Mars, with a complete multi-national population. Everything But Honor also had some great ideas on philosophy- how much we value people- with changes in the Civil War to become *our* reality. We Could Do Worse was a rather boring look at America under Martial Law in the 1960's. To the Promised Land explored a radically different world, in Egypt, if the Jews had never escaped Egypt some 3,000 years ago. Similarly, Waiting for the Olympians looks at a world ruled by the Roman Empire because of one key event not occurring in the past. I liked the references to the Cherokee and Algonkan nations, as well as Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs being simply one of the many gods of the pantheon. This was definitely the best story of the lot. One could see the Jews reinterpreting the Torah to embrace polytheism in this scenario, as they are faced with a completely polytheistic world. And it was amazing to postulate how a single event could change the way humans think about the basic nature of morality. All Assassins and Game Night at the Fox and Goose were both very mediocre in my opinion, with the former looking at obscure historical figures in the 1970's- so obscure you had no feeling for the historical changes; and the latter looking at a world where women were in charge, but the plotline falls flat at the end. The Return of William Proxmire was a rather navelic look at the history of science fiction writing.

Here are the ones I would recommend. Counting Potsherds was an interesting look at another outcome of the greco-Persian wars by Turtledove. Leapfrog is a rare bird an alternate future. I liked it so much that I am somewhat surprised I never got around to reading anything else by James P. Hogan. Others that I remember, but am not sure about include: Silverberg's was well written, & Malzberg's felt like a novel fragment. Pohl's at first offended my Christian sensibilities at first than surprisingly affirmed them. Anderson's was interesting. Lastly sometimes a story you dislike is so weird and unusual you remember it as much as stories you like. Game Night at the fox and goose by Karen Joy Fowler is such a story for me. Well interestingly I think the fact that these are the ones I remember says something so I hope I've helped.