Posts Tagged ‘harry turtledove’

Book Review: The Mirage by Matt Ruff

Alternate history, by its very nature, is one of the most easily-ploughable fields in genre fiction because literally all one must do is change a single historical event and then logically extrapolate the repercussions. Harry Turtledove has made a career out of doing this.

Sometimes, though, alternate history doesn’t require telling the reader what the crisis point was that got changed. Sometimes, the reader just needs to know things are different. And that’s where The Mirage by Matt Ruff begins.

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Escape Pod 72: Joe Steele

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:53 — 31.5MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R. Contains profanity and strong political themes. Not happy politics, like we have today. 1930s politics.

(Inspired by the song “God & the FBI” by Janis Ian, published by Windham Hill. Song included with Janis Ian’s permission.)

Referenced sites:
Wikipedia: Alternate history
AlternateHistory.com
“If Lee Had Not Won the Civil War,” by Winston Churchill
Today in Alternate History (by Robbie Taylor)
Bring the Jubilee, by Ward Moore
Turtledove Wiki

(Update 9/24: Many of you will probably get a duplicate download. This time it’s deliberate. I had requested permission to play Janis Ian’s song, “God and the FBI,” but she was touring Europe and didn’t get my e-mail in time. She just responded and graciously gave me permission, so I’m revising the file and including it at the end. If you don’t want to hear the whole story again, just skip forward 41 minutes. Thank you, Janis!)

Joe Steele

by Harry Turtledove

Two men left. Franklin D. Roosevelt. D for Delano, mind. Governor of New York. Cousin to Teddy Roosevelt. Already ran for Vice President once. Didn’t win. Cigarette holder. Jaunty angle. Wheelchair. Paralysis. Anguish. Courage. As near an aristocrat as America grows. Franklin D. Roosevelt. D for Delano.

And Joe Steele.

Joe Steele. Congressman from California. Not San Francisco. Not Nob Hill. Good Lord, no. Fresno. Farm country. That great valley, squeezed by mountains east and west. Not a big fellow, Joe Steele. Stands real straight, so you don’t notice too much. Mustache, a good-sized one. Thick head of hair just starting to go gray. Eyelids like shutters. When they go down and then come up again, you can’t see what was behind them.

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